HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – A key legislative committee has approved funding for a pilot program that would record police interrogations in Connecticut.

The Democrat-controlled appropriations committee has included $100,000 a year for the project through 2009.

Proponents say videotaping ensures the accuracy of statements taken by police and ensure confessions are not coerced.

Alaska, Minnesota, Maine and the District of Columbia require videotaped interrogations in serious criminal cases, according to the Innocence Project, a New York organization that works to free people who have been wrongly convicted of crimes.

Several large municipalities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Austin and Houston also require it.

Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane, whose office would oversee Connecticut’s pilot program, said it is too early to tell which departments may participate.

“I think it’s a concept we certainly recognized we need to explore and develop,” Kane said.

But not everyone agrees.

Public Safety Commissioner John A. Danaher III, a former federal prosecutor who now heads the state police, said taping interrogations could hinder investigators.

“Defense attorneys may use the tape in an attempt to divert the focus of the jury’s attention in a criminal trial from the accused to criticism of an investigator’s interrogation techniques,” Danaher said during a recent public hearing.

Other cite the high cost of purchasing the necessary equipment to videotape.

But supporters of a pilot program said that the investment far outweighs the legal costs that frequently occur when lawyers challenge the legitimacy of written confessions at trial.

Videotaping interrogations is routinely done in other states, said State Rep Mike Lawlor, D-East Haven. Preserving interrogations on videotape helps protect the rights of the accused and police officers, who may be wrongfully accused of inappropriate conduct or tactics, said Lawlor, who is also a lawyer and criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven.

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Information from: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com

AP-ES-04-22-07 1404EDT

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