People v. Cona

I simply cannot agree with the majority’s restrictive, if not oppressive, construction of the statutory corroboration rule. (CPL 60.22, subd 1.) In holding that once a police officer is implicated in some way in a criminal scheme his testimony forever thereafter must be corroborated, even though he becomes officially an undercover police agent against his former cohorts, the majority has effectively and permanently deprived law enforcement of a *38vital investigative technique — the use of the turncoat conspirator. The Legislature in enacting CPL 60.22 never could have intended to include…