diff --git a/Lib/test/test_minidom.py b/Lib/test/test_minidom.py
index 3154fbf3e629..8b4c71523c15 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_minidom.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_minidom.py
@@ -889,6 +889,15 @@ def testEncodings():
             and doc.toxml('utf-8') == '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><foo>\xe2\x82\xac</foo>'
             and doc.toxml('iso-8859-15') == '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-15"?><foo>\xa4</foo>',
             "testEncodings - encoding EURO SIGN")
+
+    # Verify that character decoding errors throw exceptions instead of crashing
+    try:
+        doc = parseString('<fran\xe7ais>Comment \xe7a va ? Tr\xe8s bien ?</fran\xe7ais>')
+    except UnicodeDecodeError:
+        pass
+    else:
+        print 'parsing with bad encoding should raise a UnicodeDecodeError'
+
     doc.unlink()
 
 class UserDataHandler:
diff --git a/Misc/ACKS b/Misc/ACKS
index c1cb855f239d..34ebc5d2fd1a 100644
--- a/Misc/ACKS
+++ b/Misc/ACKS
@@ -305,6 +305,7 @@ Flemming Kj
 Jiba
 Orjan Johansen
 Simon Johnston
+Evan Jones
 Richard Jones
 Irmen de Jong
 Lucas de Jonge
diff --git a/Misc/NEWS b/Misc/NEWS
index 3c06f4ecf8dd..f4f918c6f404 100644
--- a/Misc/NEWS
+++ b/Misc/NEWS
@@ -153,6 +153,9 @@ present).
 Extension Modules
 -----------------
 
+- Patch #1309009, Fix segfault in pyexpat when the XML document is in latin_1,
+  but Python incorrectly assumes it is in UTF-8 format
+
 - Fix parse errors in the readline module when compiling without threads.
 
 - Patch #1288833: Removed thread lock from socket.getaddrinfo on
diff --git a/Modules/pyexpat.c b/Modules/pyexpat.c
index e6c14f8a2db4..438f7609cb22 100644
--- a/Modules/pyexpat.c
+++ b/Modules/pyexpat.c
@@ -417,6 +417,9 @@ string_intern(xmlparseobject *self, const char* str)
 {
     PyObject *result = STRING_CONV_FUNC(str);
     PyObject *value;
+    /* result can be NULL if the unicode conversion failed. */
+    if (!result)
+	return result;
     if (!self->intern)
 	return result;
     value = PyDict_GetItem(self->intern, result);
@@ -572,7 +575,9 @@ my_StartElementHandler(void *userData,
                 Py_DECREF(v);
             }
         }
-	args = Py_BuildValue("(NN)", string_intern(self, name), container);
+        args = string_intern(self, name);
+        if (args != NULL)
+            args = Py_BuildValue("(NN)", args, container);
         if (args == NULL) {
             Py_DECREF(container);
             return;