California Criminal Lawyer Blog

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday signed 97 bills and vetoed another 58, creating new laws on everything from the sale of kangaroo skin to protecting endangered condors while halting lawmakers efforts on dozens of other fronts, including giving college aid to illegal immigrants and requiring warning labels on cloned food.

Arguably his most controversial decision, Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring semiautomatic handguns made and sold in the state to have technology to microstamp each bullet fired from the gun. Supporters say the micro-stamping requirement, the first in the nation, will help police track down criminals.

While Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill allowing victims of domestiv violence victims to ask judges to grant protective orders for their pets, he was not so merciful to potentially innocent suspects who might be coerced into providing a false confession to police while under defense.

Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have forced police investigators to record interrogations of suspects in homicides and violent felonies. Proponents said the measure would have eliminated disputes about what actually happened during interrogations.

In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said that while reducing the number of false confessions was a laudable goal, recording every interrogation would put unnecessary restrictions on officers. "I cannot support a measure that would deny law enforcement the flexibility necessary to interrogate suspects in homicide and violent felony cases when the need to do so is not clear," he wrote.

In short, Schwarzenegger submitted to the will of law enforcement who made excuses that making them press a button on a tape recorder to ensure the accuracy of the interrogation would be too onorous. Ensuring that suspects - some of whom may be innocent - would not be coerced ito giving false confessions that could ruin their lives, was not a worthy consideration.

We can expect more false and coreced confessions in the future.