Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Blog

Jury finds police violated victim’s rights by using false “snitch” label

by

Last week, a federal jury decided that two Los Angeles police officers violated a young woman’s constitutional rights by falsely labeling her a snitch–a label that led to her death–and then failing to protect her. L.A. Times stories here and here. In an effort to get gang member Jose Ledesma to confess to a murder, police told him that Puebla had identified him as the shooter, even forging her signature on a fake photo array, although Puebla never identified Ledesma. At the same time, the jury found that Puebla and her parents also contributed to her death, and awarded no money to the family.

This is an interesting case for a number of reasons. First, the government is rarely held accountable for its use of or failure to protect informants, so the jury’s conclusion that the police violated Puebla’s constitutional rights by using her in the ruse and then failing to protect her could support future cases. Here is a link to the complaint in the case: Puebla v. Los Angeles, Case No. 08-3128. For another example of the trend(?) towards greater protection for informants–particularly young vulnerable ones–see this post on Florida’s new informant legislation. At the same time, the Los Angeles jury apparently believed that Puebla and her family significantly contributed to her danger–finding the family 80% responsible and the police only 20% at fault. While it is unclear from the Times article why the jury came to this conclusion, the public and the criminal system often blame informants for their own injuries or even death, on the theory that they take the risk by becoming informants in the first place. In this case, the government argued that Puebla was killed, not because of the police ruse, but because she testified months later at a hearing in which she said that Ledesma was gang-affiliated.

“Snitch-jacketing”

by

In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI has just released for the first time hundreds of memos regarding its “special file room,” in which it has stored for decades information considered too sensitive for its central filing system. As described by the Boston Globe, the special filing system is designed “to restrict access [to information] severely and, in more sinister instances, some experts assert, prevent the Congress and the public from getting their hands on it.” The information includes such things as plans to relocate Congress if Washington is attacked, files on high-profile mob figures and their political friends, as well as the FBI’s own questionable activities such as spying on domestic political organizations. From the Globe:

Other files on domestic spying that were routed to the special file room involved “black nationalist extremists.” There were also files about an “extremely sensitive counterintelligence technique” called snitch-jacketing, which apparently involved the FBI spreading false information that members of a targeted group were government informants in order to sow conflict within their membership.

While “snitch-jacketing” was a new term to me, it’s an old concept. An important historical strand of informant use has been the government’s creation and deployment of informants to infiltrate and disrupt civilian political activities. I’ve blogged about this issue here in the context of FBI infiltration of Muslim communities; Gary Marx is the preeminent expert on this subject.

Prison rape

by

I’m blogging over at Prawfsblawg this month, and just posted the following about the New York Review of Books’ excellent essay on prison rape. Link here. The essay describes the data and recommendations that have come out of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), as well as the politics of current reform efforts. For more general information on prison conditions and legal developments, check out Prison Law Blog.

More on the Spokane convictions

by

Last month I posted this story about three men convicted of robbery based on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch in Spokane, Washington — “Another wrongful conviction in the making?” Here’s the follow-up story in the Pacific Northwest Inlander — Justice Served? After another inmate confessed that he and the informant had framed Gassman, Statler and Larson, the defense sought a new trial but the court denied the motion. Since then, various players in the Spokane criminal system have been grappling with whether the convictions were accurate. From the article:

Spokane County Prosecuting Attorney Steve Tucker says he’s not very familiar with the facts in the case, besides what he read in The Inlander. And he’s not compelled to look any deeper, he says. “I don’t think you realize how many calls I get like this. It’s not practical. The system is taking care of it,” Tucker says. “The further investigation will come from the appellate attorneys. They’ll look at it.”

Tucker’s assumption that “the system” will take care of the problem of lying informants is misplaced. Once an informant testifies, the appellate process does not permit a court to go back and reevaluate his or her credibility–that task is left to the jury. There are also numerous legal roadblocks to challenging a conviction, even one based on shaky evidence, as evidenced by the fact that the defendants in this very case were not granted a new trial despite the new confession. In other words, informants are easy to use to get convictions, but very hard to challenge after the fact. This structural arrangement is one of the main reasons that criminal informants have become such a significant factor in wrongful convictions.