Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Jailhouse Informants

Impact of “Rachel’s Law” on informant use

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The Tallahassee Democrat has published this article about the effects of Rachel’s Law on informant use in Florida, four years after the death of Rachel Hoffman: Four years later, Hoffman’s death still impacts CI use. The article concludes that the Tallahassee police department made some significant changes.

For six months immediately following Hoffman’s death, the department suspended the use of all CIs. For a long time, no one wanted to work narcotics cases, which often rely on informants, the chief said.

“We had to be confident in our investigators that they were ready,” Chief Jones said.

An audit of department confidential-informant files conducted about six months after Hoffman was killed found lax record keeping and noted areas of improvement. Personnel were moved, the vice unit was made a part the Criminal Investigations Division of a new Special Investigation Section and supervision was stepped up.

Today, TPD’s rules governing the handling of confidential informants mirror that of Rachel’s Law, which was spearheaded by Hoffman’s parents and provides some safeguards for vulnerable informants.

“I think we’ve got a very good policy now,” Jones said. “We have elevated ourselves and are back in the lead and set the tone for the state.”

Tallahassee is reminiscent of Los Angeles in the 1990s. After a massive grand jury investigation concluded that the jail was rampant with unreliable informants and that police and prosecutors were relying on them, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office instituted significant changes. Today, it has some of the most rigorous regulations for the tracking and use of jailhouse informants in the country: Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office Legal Policies Manual.

Supreme Court begins debating informant unreliability

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The Supreme Court released an order today denying certiorari in Cash v. Maxwell, formerly Maxwell v. Roe, an important Ninth Circuit decision discussed in this previous post. Usually the Court does not explain cert denials, but this case generated a heated debate between Justice Sotomayor, who supported the denial, and Justices Scalia and Alito who thought the Ninth Circuit’s decision should have been overturned. See SCOTUSblog post here, and L.A. Times story here.

Today’s decision is important for a number of reasons. First, it shows that the Justices have joined numerous state and federal legislators in recognizing the problem of informant unreliability. Informant-based wrongful convictions are increasingly frequent in the courts and in the news, and many states have taken up the issue. See Legislation Section of the main website. Although the Court did not answer the question today, it’s a sign of the times that the Justices are arguing about it.

Maxwell also shows how the legal debate over informant use is becoming less about procedure and more about substantive questions of reliability and innocence. Until recently, most informant litigation has been a fight over disclosure: the information that the government must disclose regarding its use of compensated criminal witnesses. The Maxwell case and the Sotomayor/Scalia debate squarely confront the substantive question of unreliability: how unreliable can compensated criminal witnesses be before the law restricts their use? Or to put it another way, how high is our tolerance for the likelihood of wrongful conviction? Even Justice Scalia concluded that the informant in Maxwell’s case was a “habitual liar,” and that there were reasons “to think it likely that he testified falsely” at Maxwell’s trial. The Ninth Circuit took the next step, holding that the Due Process Clause does not permit such clearly unreliable evidence to be used. As a result of today’s cert denial, this holding stands.

Finally, Justice Sotomayor pointed out that the Ninth Circuit relied on “an avalanche of evidence” that the informant in that case was unreliable. The existence of such evidentiary avalanches is a relatively new phenomenon. Thanks to the innocence movement and numerous new studies (see Resources & Scholarship section on the main website), courts and litigators have more evidence than ever before regarding the unreliability of criminal informants. These new data will surely change how courts consider such questions in the future.

9th Circuit reverses death penalty because of lying informant

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Yesterday in Sivak v. Hardison, the Ninth Circuit reversed yet another death sentence based on a lying jailhouse informant and the “State’s knowing presentation of perjured inmate testimony.” See also this post regarding Maxwell v. Roe. In Sivak, the prosecution used two jailhouse informants–Duane Grierson who described himself as a “chronic liar,” and Jimmy Leytham, who falsely testified that he did not expect any rewards for his testimony. The Ninth Circuit concluded that these two unreliable witnesses provided the only direct evidence of Sivak’s personal participation in the homicide and that therefore his capital sentencing violated due process.

California passes jailhouse informant corroboration law

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Governor Brown just signed important new legislation requiring corroboration before a jailhouse informant can testify. SF Chronicle story here: Law requires corroboration of cellmate’s testimony. California joins Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Idaho, and several other states that require safeguards to counteract the well-documented unreliability of jailhouse snitch testimony. Here is part of the bill:

A jury or judge may not convict a defendant, find a special circumstance true, or use a fact in aggravation based on the uncorroborated testimony of an in-custody informant.

An “in custody informant” is defined as: “a person, other than a codefendant, percipient witness, accomplice, or coconspirator, whose testimony is based on statements allegedly made by the defendant while both the defendant and the informant were held in within a city or county jail, state penal institution, or correctional institution.” Full disclosure: I testified in support of this legislation.

9th Circuit upholds use of jailhouse snitch in sting operation

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Jailhouse informant Robert Plunkett reported to police that he had learned that attorney John Garcia was willing to deliver drugs into the Merced County jail. The police set up a sting, and Garcia accepted a bag containing methamphetamines from Plunkett for delivery to his (Garcia’s) incarcerated client. As a result of this transaction, Garcia’s law office was searched and he was arrested, although not prosecuted. He then sued the police for violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, in effect arguing that based on Plunkett’s information they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him or get a warrant. Story here. In Garcia v. County of Merced, the 9th Circuit denied Garcia’s claim, reaffirming the principle that information from informants, if properly corroborated and checked, can constitute probable cause for arrest or for a warrant. In this case, “there were at least seven to eight items of corroboration that confirm what Plunkett reported.”

The opinion is additionally interesting because it was authored by Judge Stephen Trott, who has been an outspoken critic of the use of criminal informants and lectures prosecutors around the country on the perils of informant use. See Judge Stephen Trott, Outline of lecture to prosecutors on the use of informants. The opinion notes that jailhouse snitches are unreliable, that “the word of a jailhouse informant is suspect and ordinarily requires corroboration before it can be accepted as probable cause,” and that “jaihouse informants can always be presumed to be looking for consideration in return for the information.” In this case, however, the Court found that the police disclosed enough information to the judge who issued the warrant to put the judge on notice of Plunkett’s “suspect and shaky character.” That disclosure, in combination with the substantial corroboration, was enough for the warrant.