July 20, 2018

To the Honorable Members of

The Illinois Senate

100th General Assembly:

Today I veto Senate Bill 1830 from the 100th General Assembly, which would expand the restrictions on the use of informant testimony to more types of criminal prosecutions.

Under current law, certain restrictions on the use of informant testimony were put in place for capital prosecutions that would require the State to provide information on an informant’s background and require the court to hold a hearing on the informant’s reliability unless waived. This bill would expand those rules to certain homicide, sexual assault, and arson cases, make changes to the scope of the term “informant” to include detained and incarcerated informants, put time restrictions on the State to identify and give notice of informants, and subject lawful recordings to potential reliability hearings.

The use of testimony is already regulated by rules of admissible evidence and courts have the procedural tools to protect against unreliable testimony. We should not further hinder the ability of our State’s Attorneys to prosecute these serious crimes or curb the role of juries in appropriately weighing the testimony presented to them.

Therefore, pursuant to Section 9(b) of Article IV of the Illinois Constitution of 1970, I hereby return Senate Bill 1830, entitled “AN ACT concerning criminal law,” with the foregoing objections, vetoed in its entirety.

Sincerely,

Bruce Rauner

GOVERNOR