Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

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Florida Supreme Court regulates criminal informant testimony

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In 2012, the Florida Innocence Commission made a series of reform recommendations in recognition of the “dangers of false informant and jailhouse snitch testimony.” The Florida Supreme Court has now amended the rules of evidence to reflect those recommendations. See In re: Amendments to Florida Rules of Criminal Procedure 3.220. The Miami Herald reported the story here: Florida’s high court puts brakes on snitches’ testimony.

The Florida Supreme Court . . . finally has changed the rules of evidence. Beginning this month, prosecutors now are required to disclose both a summary of the jailhouse informant’s criminal history and just what kind of deal a snitch will be getting in return for testimony. And now, jurors will hear about prior cases that relied on testimony from that particular informant. The justices ordered new restrictions on the much abused informant testimony, because snitches, the court noted, “constitute the basis for many wrongful convictions.” It was an unanimous decision. It was about time.

The new rules require greater disclosure of an informant’s criminal background, prior history of providing information to the government, and all their deals. Of particular importance, the Florida court included all informants who allege that they have evidence about defendant statements, not merely “jailhouse snitches,” i.e., those who happen to be in jail at the time. The new rule also requires disclosure of benefits that the informant “expects to receive” for his testimony, and it defines benefits broadly as “anything…[including any] personal advantage, vindication, or other benefit that the prosecution, or any person acting on behalf of the prosecution, has knowingly made or may make in the future.” This is an important counter to the fact that informants know that they are likely to be rewarded for providing information even if no one explicitly promises them anything up front. Thanks to EvidenceProfBlog for calling attention to this important development.

Orange County jailhouse snitch operation

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The District Attorney’s Office in Orange County is accused of running an unconstitutional jailhouse snitch program, much like the infamous one in Los Angeles that ended twenty years ago. See these stories from the L.A. Times , the Voice of OC, and and Orange County Register. From the Register:

[Defense attorneys] say sheriff’s deputies, including one who worked as a “handler” for jailed informants, arranged for informants to be placed next to selected inmates and lure them into making incriminating statements. Deputies and prosecutors then conspired to hide the fact the men were informants from defense attorneys and pretended their encounters were coincidental, despite the longstanding legal requirement that prosecutors turn over information that could help the defense.

Law review article on informant bounties

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As the informant model spreads from traditional criminal law to administrative enforcement agencies like the IRS and the SEC, some have questioned its efficacy: do bounties work? are they a good idea in the white collar context? See for example this article from Forbes on the use of cash bounties, and this post: IRS expands use of informants.
This article–Bounties for Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers under Dodd-Frank and the Internal Revenue Code–explores the use of the criminal snitch model in the white collar context. Here’s the abstract:

In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million reward or “bounty” from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme by assisting thousands of U.S. taxpayers to hide their assets in Switzerland. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public’s common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which allows rewards for whistleblowers who are convicted conspirators, excluding only those convicted of “planning and initiating” the underlying action. In contrast, the whistleblower program of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank”), which was modeled after the IRS program, precludes rewards for any whistleblower convicted of a criminal violation that is “related to” a securities enforcement proceeding. Therefore, because of his conviction, Birkenfeld would not have been granted a bounty under Dodd-Frank had he blown the whistle on a violation of the federal securities laws, rather than tax evasion. This Article will explore an area that has been void of much scholarly attention — the rationale behind providing bounties to whistleblowers who have unclean hands and the differences between federal whistleblower programs in this regard. After analyzing the history and structure of the IRS and SEC programs and the public policy concerns associated with rewarding culpable whistleblowers, this Article will conclude with various observations justifying and supporting the SEC model. This Article will critique the IRS’s practice of including the criminally convicted among those who are eligible for bounty awards by suggesting that the existence of alternative whistleblower incentive structures, such as leniency and immunity, are more appropriate for a potential whistleblower facing a criminal conviction. In addition, the IRS model diverges from the legal structure upon which it is based, the False Claims Act, which does not allow convicted whistleblowers to receive a bounty. In response to potential counterarguments that tax fraud reporting may not be analogous to securities fraud reporting, this Article will also explore the SEC’s recent trend of acting increasingly as a “punisher” akin to a criminal, rather than a civil, enforcement entity like the IRS. In conclusion, this Article will suggest that the SEC’s approach represents a reasonable middle ground that reconciles the conflict between allowing wrongdoers to benefit from their own misconduct and incentivizing culpable insiders to come forward, as such persons often possess the most crucial information in bringing violations of the law to light.

New evidence in Willingham case highlights role of informant

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Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongfully executed for the arson deaths of his three children based on shoddy forensic expertise and the testimony of a single jailhouse snitch. See this New Yorker article. Now the Innocence Project has uncovered further evidence that the prosecutor in the case–now a judge–lied about the informant’s deal. Here’s the story: New Evidence Suggests Cameron Todd Willingham Prosecutor Deceived Board of Pardons and Paroles About Informant Testimony in Opposition to Stay of Execution.