Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Jailhouse Informants

Uncertainty and risk in the informant market

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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.

Another jailhouse snitch ring in Texas

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This deep and detailed series of articles from The Intercept uncovers a prosecutor’s heavy reliance on a snitch ring in the federal prison in Beaumont, Texas, and the discredited convictions that it produced. In the capital murder case against Ronald Prible, for example, a federal judge found that the prosecutor, Kelly Siegler, suppressed exculpatory evidence about the jailhouse informant whose testimony led to Prible’s conviction. Siegler is the television star of the true crime show “Cold Justice.” All three Intercept articles here: The Prosecutor and the Snitch Ring.

The Beaumont prison snitch ring has been in the news before. Ten years ago, Ann Colomb and her four sons were wrongfully convicted of federal drug charges based on dozens of lying Beaumont informants (here’s the original story from Radley Balko in Reason Magazine). Federal Judge Tucker Melancon who presided over the Colomb case complained specifically about Federal Rule 35 which permits federal prisoners to get sentence reductions in exchange for information. (This is the same rule that Siegler used in the Prible case to incentivize her informant, Michael Beckcom, to testify.) As Judge Melancon put it, “Everyone in the federal prisons knows what’s going on . . . . [T]hey realize they can tell the government things that happened years ago—true or not—and get time off their sentences.” And he warned that “[w]e potentially have a huge problem with this network in the federal prison system.”

Orange County snitch scandal still isn’t over

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It began back in 2012, when public defender Scott Sanders started uncovering unconstitutional informant use in the Orange County jail and widespread law enforcement practices designed to cover them up. Dozens of cases were compromised, including homicide cases, due to prosecutorial misconduct. The US Department of Justice conducted a six-year investigation. Now Sanders has filed a new motion detailing many more cases that may have been compromised. From the LAist:

“On top of the cases already impacted by the snitch scandal’s long reach, Sanders outlined dozens more cases in a recent court filing that could be revisited because of new evidence of potential misconduct. That misconduct, Sanders alleges, was carried out by O.C. law enforcement officers and a former top prosecutor who is now a superior court judge.”

For years, Sanders and the Orange County Public Defender office have been the prime drivers for uncovering informant misuse and official nondisclosure. As Maurice Possley of the National Registry of Exonerations points out, “we don’t really know how common it is for law enforcement officials and prosecutors to withhold evidence because it’s a ‘”‘hidden crime.'”

Hawaii wrongful conviction used snitches to bolster weak DNA evidence

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Albert “Ian” Schweitzer spent 25 years in prison for a murder he did not commit, based on faulty DNA testing and two different lying informants–one drug defendant and one jailhouse informant. The first informant received probation instead of significant jailtime and avoided federal prosecution. The jailhouse snitch avoided retrial and a potential 10-year sentence. Story from the Hawaii Innocence Project here: Ian Schweitzer Exonerated of Murder After 25 Years in Hawaii. Thanks to Radley Balko’s The Watch for highlighting the story.

The case is an example of a larger forensic problem. Jailhouse snitch testimony often comes into existence in order to bolster weak cases. High profile murders tend to generate snitch testimony since informants know that rewards are forthcoming. The problem is worse for weak cases: if the case were strong, the government wouldn’t need the snitch. The confluence creates a pernicious storm of inaccuracy where bad evidence makes other bad evidence look better than it actually is. For more examples see this previous post about dog sniff and arson bolstering.