Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Drug-related

NYT: Numerous Mexican drug informants benefit U.S. law enforcement

by

The New York Times features a story this week on the expanding recruitment and use of Mexican drug informants: U.S. Agencies Infiltrating Drug Cartels Across Mexico. The story describes American law enforcement as having “significantly built up networks of Mexican informants” and focuses on the substantial benefits that such criminal informants can provide. For example:

Informants have helped Mexican authorities capture or kill about two dozen high-ranking and midlevel drug traffickers, and sometimes have given American counternarcotics agents access to the top leaders of the cartels they are trying to dismantle.

The U.S. also learned of a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador through one of those DEA-developed informants. See Huffington Post: Iran Plot to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador Foiled by DOJ Sting.
The Times story notes that informants can also give rise to “complicated ethical issues,” including the fact that informants are typically working off their own crimes. Last year, NPR and Primetime ran stories illustrating the serious criminality that such informants may engage in, even while working for the government: NPR series on House of Death informant and Primetime: U.S. Customs authorizes informant to import cocaine.

MS-13 informant convicted of lying to prosecutors

by

Follow up to this post: A Rat’s Life: MS-13 Informants Run Wild. In a rare turnaround, the government has prosecuted its own informant for lying to prosecutors about murders he previously committed. Roberto Acosta now faces up to five years; he argues that he was the government’s main source for its case against MS-13 and without him they wouldn’t have been able to get the numerous convictions they did. SF Weekly blog postings here: Feds Want Maximum Prison Time for Roberto Acosta, MS-13 Informant Who Lied and Roberto Acosta, MS-13 Informant Convicted of Lying, Wants Out of Jail

9th Circuit clarifies DEA disclosure obligations under FOIA

by

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) empowers individual requestors to compel the government to disclose its records. Various exceptions permit the government to withhold certain records regarding informants, but the Ninth Circuit recently explained some limits to those exceptions. In Pickard v. Dep’t of Justice, 2011 WL 3134505 (9th Cir., July 27, 2011), William Pickard filed a FOIA request with the DEA to get records regarding Gordon Todd Skinner, a DEA informant. The DEA denied his request by submitting a so-called “Glomar response” in which it neither officially confirmed nor denied the existence of Skinner as an informant. The 9th Circuit held that the DEA in effect had already “officially confirmed” Skinner as a confidential informant by eliciting testimony about and from him in open court at Pickard’s trial, and that therefore the DEA could not avoid the FOIA request in that manner. In other words, once the government relies on an informant–either through an agent’s testimony at trial regarding that informant or by using the informant as a witness–it cannot subsequently block a FOIA request by refusing to acknowledge the existence of the informant. This does not mean that the DEA necessarily has to produce records regarding its informants; it does mean, however, that it has to acknowledge the existence of such records and identify the specific FOIA exceptions that might permit nondisclosure.

This is an important decision for a number of reasons. As Judge Wallace explains in his concurrence, “the specific circumstances pursuant to which an informant’s status is deemed “officially confirmed” is a matter of first impression and great importance.” This is because the threshold question of whether a person is an informant at all may be a secret. Moreover, the decision clarifies that once the government decides to use an informant or his information at trial, it relinquishes much of its claim to confidentiality under FOIA. As Judge Wallace put it:

On the one hand, prosecutors frequently must rely on informants, who possess vital information, to prosecute dangerous criminals. On the other hand, the DEA and confidential informants have a different interest in secrecy and privacy than federal prosecutors. Yet, under the majority holding, an Assistant United States Attorney can eliminate that privacy interest by asking a single question–i.e., “Did you serve as a confidential informant”–in open court.

Report: Confidential Informants in New Jersey

by

It’s rare to get this much data about informant practices. The New Jersey ACLU has released this important study of confidential informant practices across the state, based on scores of documents, cases, interviews, and government policies. According to the study,

The use of informants in drug law enforcement in New Jersey was found to be largely informal, undocumented, and unsupervised, and therefore vulnerable to error and corruption.

Among many findings, the study determined that informant use led to the following problems: manufactured criminal conduct, financial abuse, police coersion, harm to the informants, unreliability, misuse of juveniles, using “big fish” to catch “little fish,” and the widespread violation of laws and guidelines. The study proposes reforms, and apparently a number of New Jersey counties have already responded with improved policies.

A Rat’s Life: MS-13 Snitches Run Wild

by

Another great story this week in SF Weekly, A Rat’s Life: MS-13 Snitches Run Wild While Turning State’s Evidence by Lauren Smiley. The subheading reads: “To bring down the infamous MS-13 gang, the government recruited and perhaps enabled the gangsters themselves.” The story details the career of MS-13 gang member and ICE informant “Bad Boy,” who appears to have intentionally racheted up the violence and gang activities of the 20th Street Clique–including recruiting and tatooing young new members–in order to help the government make cases. Due to Bad Boy and several other informants, this gang RICO case is riddled with snitch problems. From the story:

In a triumphant press conference held by federal officials and then-U.S. Attorney Joe Russoniello about the takedown, Bad Boy didn’t get a mention. Nor did Jaime “Mickey” Martinez, a former gang leader who would later testify to participating in car thefts and a shooting during his time as a government snitch. Federal law enforcement didn’t mention paying these informants thousands of dollars, relocating their families, or letting them stay in the country and giving them work permits.

No wonder: The informants are becoming an increasing liability. One defendant claims he was arrested for committing the crimes he was supposedly informing about, and is now suing the city and his federal handlers. As seven defendants started a trial this month facing sentences of up to life in prison, defense attorneys are claiming entrapment. “The government created much of the violence,” Martin Sabelli said in his opening statements. “The prosecution went awry and [my client] was induced, cajoled, and pressured to commit crimes he was not otherwise predisposed to commit,” said Lupe Martinez.

This case is unusual in another way. Although the government almost never brings perjury charges against its own informant witnesses, Bad Boy is being charged with making false statements to the government for failing to disclose all of his own past crimes. Ironically, this is a good sign, since at a fundamental level it is up to the government to police the reliability of its own informants.