Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Informant Law

Massachusetts Supreme Court disapproves of prosecutorial rewards to witnesses

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Two witnesses in Wayne Miranda’s murder trial received $2000 each from the Chamber of Commerce because their testimony assisted in producing a guilty verdict. As the Boston Globe writes, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, while approving such witness reward programs generally, has ruled that prosecutors cannot participate in them or help witnesses get rewards when those rewards are contingent on convictions. Commonwealth v. Wayne Miranda, SJC-10568. From the Court’s opinion:

We recognize that, to prove the crime charged, prosecutors often need to procure the cooperation and truthful information or testimony of reluctant witnesses. The interests of justice, however, are not well served when a witness’s reward is contingent on the conviction of a defendant, rather than the provision of truthful information or testimony.

While the Massachusetts Supreme Court should be lauded for its ethical concern, its decision is somewhat ironic. Prosecutors routinely provide far greater benefits to criminal informant witnesses, in the form of liberty and leniency, than a few thousand dollars. In many jurisdictions, these rewards can be contigent on conviction. And even when the rewards are not expressly contingent on conviction, every attorney and informant knows that a witness in a successful conviction is more likely to get rewarded.
This is why Professor George Harris [author of Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts, 28 Pepp. L. Rev. 1 (2000)], and I have recommended leveling the playing field by creating defense informants, i.e. rewards for informants who come forward with information that might help the defense rather than the prosecution. As it currently stands, an offender with information helpful to the defense cannot expect any benefits–only the government can give those. This lopsided arrangement is, as the Massachusetts Supreme Court pointed out, not in the interests of accuracy or justice.

Texas requires corroboration for informant witnesses

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Perhaps as a result of these sorts of debacles, Infamous fake drug scandal in Dallas, Of Experts and Snitches, Texas has passed some good corroboration legislation restricting the use of drug informants and jailhouse snitches. Last year, it passed this law requiring corroboration for jailhouse snitches:

A defendant may not be convicted of an offense on the testimony of a person to whom the defendant made a statement against the defendant’s interest during a time when the person was imprisoned or confined in the same correctional facility as the defendant unless the testimony is corroborated by other evidence tending to connect the defendant with the offense committed. Tex. Code. Crim. Pro. art. 38-075

Article 38-141 similarly requires corroboration before a drug informant can testify. These are steps in the right direction, although they are only partial solutions to the lying snitch problem. The key to informant unreliability is not whether the informant is involved in drugs or in jail, but whether he expects a benefit and therefore has a motivation to lie. Nebraska takes the right approach in this regard by defining “informant” to include “any criminal suspect, whether or not he is detained or incarcerated, who received a deal, promise, inducement or benefit.” Neb. Rev. Stat. 29-1929. In defining informant broadly, the Nebraska legislature reasoned that “there is a compelling state interest in providing safeguards against the admission of testimony the reliability of which may be or has been compromised through improper inducements.”

Motion to Preclude Creation of Snitch Testimony

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The Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit recently filed this motion asking the court to take protective measures to prevent jailhouse snitches from being created in the case of Kansas v. Adam Longoria. Asserting that “Mr. Longoria has no intention of talking to anyone but his attorneys about the facts of this case,” the motion requests that the court “take measures to ensure that no jailhouse snitches or other suspect informants are created in this case to manufacture evidence for the state.” This proactive defense tactic appears to be getting more common (see previous post: Interesting effort to preempt jailhouse snitching).

Interesting effort to preempt jailhouse snitching

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Since everyone in the criminal system knows that high-profile murder suspects are prime targets for jailhouse snitches, why not try to nip it in the bud? That’s what one Arizona public defender tried to do, asking the judge to keep other inmates away from his client Pamela Phillips if those other inmates were also represented by the public defender’s office. Were such inmates to come forward as snitch witnesses, it would create a conflict and the public defender’s office could no longer represent Phillips. Story here: Pre-emptive anti-snitch move fails. The judge denied the motion, but its a good example of proactive lawyering that builds on our growing knowledge of how jailhouse informants operate.

At least five imprisoned based on lying drug informant

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Watch this video news clip from WINK-TV News (an ABC affiliate) in Florida: “Convicted felon: lying confidential informant sent me to prison.” The informant, Shakira Redding, admitted that she set up innocent people by fabricating drug deals: she’d buy drugs in advance and hide them on her body to provide to the drug task force as “evidence” after the alleged deals. The government had promised her money, a home, and custody of her children if she provided incriminating evidence against others. Romill Blandin was one of Redding’s innocent targets who spent 20 months in prison after Redding made a video of a man in a car that she claimed was Blandin, and then picked Blandin out of a line-up. Tellingly, Blandin never saw the video before he pled guilty–his public defender told him that he couldn’t see it unless he went to trial and that his criminal record made it likely that the jury would convict him. He chose to plead guilty instead of risking a longer sentence.

This story is an almost exact replay of the Hearne, Texas debacle in which a confidential informant working for the local drug task force set up dozens of innocent African Americans. The Hearne case was the subject of the movie “American Violet,” and an ACLU lawsuit. Here’s the description from the book’s introduction:

In the economically troubled town of Hearne, Texas, 27-year-old criminal informant Derrick Megress wreaked havoc. In November, 2000, a federally-funded drug task force swept through the town arresting twenty-eight people, mostly residents of the Columbus Village public housing project. Megress, a suicidal former drug dealer on probation facing new burglary charges, had cut a deal with the local prosecutor. If he produced at least 20 arrests, Megress’s new charges would be dropped. He’d also earn $100 for every person he helped bust. One of his innocent victims was waitress Regina Kelly, mother of four, who steadfastly refused to plead guilty and take a deal for probation even as she sat in jail for weeks. Another target, Detra Tindle, was actually in the hospital giving birth at the time that Megress alleged that she had sold him drugs. A lie detector test finally revealed that Megress had lied–mixing flour and baking soda with small amounts of cocaine to fabricate evidence of drug deals. Charges against the remaining Hearne suspects were dropped, although several had already pleaded guilty.

Such stories are not aberrations; drug task forces are large-scale users of criminal informants in which the risks of fabrication are high. Massachusetts, for example, reports that in 2005-2006 its federally-funded drug taskforces relied on over 2000 confidential informants who made 45 percent of the taskforces’ controlled buys.