Recording Interrogations and Penal Code § 859.5

Recording Interrogations and Penal Code § 859.5

Robert C. Phillips
Deputy District Attorney (Ret.)
January, 2017

            As of January 1, 2017, with an amendment to Penal Code § 859.5,[1] it is now the law in California that any interrogation of a murder suspect, at least when questioned by law enforcement and done while in a “fixed place of detention,” “shall be electronically recorded in its entirety.”[2]  Section 859.5 had already set out a recording requirement for juvenile murder suspects, effective since January 1, 2014.[3]  This statutorily imposed, discretion eliminating requirement is ....

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