Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Incentives & Payments

Uncertainty and risk in the informant market

by

This article from the New Yorker captures the desperation and broken promises that so often go with being an informant, and how informants are so heavily dependent on their handlers for protection and reward. The article is entitled “What do we owe a prison informant?” It chronicles the dangerous work performed by an informant referred to as “Cyrus” trying to work off part of his prison sentence, and how, notwithstanding the high value of his cooperation, he was never rewarded as promised. From the article:

Although [DEA Agent] J.J. didn’t make any specific offers of a shorter sentence, his relationship with Cyrus was predicated on assurances that Cyrus would benefit from helping the D.E.A. But J.J. had little control over what happened to him—Cyrus’s fate was in the hands of Georgia’s State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is not beholden to anyone, and certainly not to the D.E.A. The way Cyrus and his family see it, Cyrus risked his life for years with an understanding that he would get leniency in return. And then, he says, he was abandoned.

“Snitch” visa often promised but rarely given

by

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) produced this report “Shining a Light on the “S” Visa: A Long History of Unfulfilled Promises and Bureaucratic Red Tape.” An S-visa, sometimes referred to as a “snitch visa,” offers temporary residency status to immigrants who “are willing to supply…critical reliable information” to U.S. law enforcement. 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15)(S).

The NACDL report reveals how often the government uses the S-visa to entice immigrants into becoming informants, sometimes at great risk to themselves and their families, even though almost none ever actually receive the visa. The phenomenon is sometimes referred to as the immigration relief “dangle.” See also this story from the Intercept: “Federal Informants are Often Promised Visas. They Rarely Materialize.”

Empirical study on federal drug cooperation

by

Interesting new law review article on how federal defense attorneys (mostly CJA panel attorneys) perceive cooperation rates and opportunities for their (mostly) drug clients: Why Criminal Defendants Cooperate: The Defense Attorney’s Perspective. The authors surveyed defense counsel in three large federal districts (SDNY, EDPA, EDVA) and found, unsurprisingly, that cooperation is largely driven by the promise of sentencing benefits — precisely what federal mandatory minimums and the US Sentencing Guidelines are designed to do.

Perhaps more surprisingly, when the authors asked defense attorneys whether “cooperation agreements are the product of a fair process,” on a scale from 1 (completely disagree) to 9 (completely agree), the “average rating [was] 3.17. Such a low average indicates that federal defense attorneys who participated in this study felt that cooperation agreements are not the product of a fair process.” Even former prosecutors in the sample only gave the process 4 out of 9 for fairness. Recall that this study was performed in one of the most regulated, transparent, and lawyered arenas of cooperation: by hypothesis all the defendants in these cases were represented by experienced counsel who negotiated formal cooperation deals on their behalf in the relatively well-resourced elite space of the federal judiciary. Just imagine how much more unfair the cooperation process gets where police and prosecutors pressure vulnerable, unrepresented suspects to cooperate informally. For some particularly egregious examples, see this prior post: How police turn teens into informants.