Raymond Buckey to Be Isolated in Jail : Effort Aimed at Preventing Fabricated Confessions by Cellmates

The judge overseeing the McMartin Pre-School molestation trial agreed Tuesday to order strict jail isolation for defendant Raymond Buckey after learning from a defense attorney that Buckey’s new neighbor in confinement is Leslie White, an informant who has claimed that inmates are able to fabricate jail-house confessions.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge William R. Pounders said he would sign a “keep away” order separating Buckey from White and the rest of the prison population at Men’s Central Jail after prosecutors in the McMartin case said they had no objections to the move.

Buckey’s lawyer, Daniel Davis, said he had learned that White, 30, was transferred last weekend from the county’s Hall of Justice lockup, where he was being held on charges of grand theft, to the Central Jail hospital section.

The hospital section, which holds 20 to 25 inmates, is often used to house high-profile defendants who need to be kept apart from the general prison population.

A county sheriff’s spokesman acknowledged that White had been moved but gave no explanation.

Davis told the judge he was requesting the isolation order because he feared that White or other jail informants might use their proximity to Buckey to concoct a phony confession that might be used against him during his trial on molestation charges.

“I frankly am less concerned about Mr. White than I am about any new group of informants,” Davis said.

But Davis also told the judge that White reportedly “was discussing my client’s case,” and that at one point Tuesday jail officials had placed White in a jail lineup next to Buckey.

“What this means is that (White) is on the same floor as my client and he has access to news coverage of the McMartin case,” Davis said outside the courtroom.

“In a situation like that, you can take an innocent fact, and if you’re in close quarters with someone on trial, you can invent a confession that can do a lot of harm. I can’t take that chance.”

Last month, White’s claims that prisoners could use information that they learn in jail to fabricate confessions forced the district attorney’s office to begin a review of every case over the last decade in which informants testified about jail confessions.

One of the McMartin prosecutors, Deputy Dist. Atty. Rodger Gunson, told the judge that he had no objections to the “keep away” order but wanted specific language describing how Buckey would be transported from his jail cell to the courtroom without mixing with other prisoners.

Buckey, 30, is charged along with his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 61, with one count of conspiracy and 64 counts of child molestation for allegedly abusing 11 children between 1978 and 1983.