State v. Jacques

Summary

The court affirmed the defendant’s murder conviction after rejecting his challenges to the denial of a second probable cause hearing, the admission of a former cellmate’s police statement, and the admission of jailhouse-informant testimony. It held that reversal of the first conviction did not invalidate the prior probable cause determination; the former cellmate remained available for confrontation and evidentiary purposes despite memory loss; and the trial court reasonably found the informant’s testimony prima facie reliable. The court declined to adopt categorical rules concerning medical memory loss and prior inconsistent statements, instead favoring case-by-case determinations.