Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Police

Police found liable for young informant’s death

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In a relatively uncommon 2014 decision, the Supreme Court of Kentucky found Kentucky State police liable for the death of LeBron Gaither, an 18-year old informant, when police compromised his identity and then immediately used him again in a drug bust. Gaither v. Justice & Public Safety Cabinet, 447 S.W.3d 628 (Ky. 2014). The Court held that the law enforcement decision whether to use a “burned” informant is not discretionary but “ministerial,” writing that “the known rule . . . that forbade the re-use of a confidential informant after his cover was blown was absolute, certain, and imperative, involving merely execution of a specific act arising from fixed and designated facts.” Or as the Board of Claims originally put it, “There is no discretion whether to use a burned informant again. It is simply not done….”

The case is notable for the ways it designates certain police decisions as non-discretionary when it comes to using informants, since under U.S. law so much of informant use and reward lies within the discretion of police and prosecutors.

The case was brought by Gaither’s grandmother, Virginia Gaither. For press coverage in the Kentucky Courier Journal, see “‘You can’t do this stuff’: Police finally pay up in blown-cover murder,” and “Court: Ky. police liable for informant’s murder.“

Deep dive into informant practices in Cincinnati

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According to a recently released year-long investigation by the Cincinnati Enquirer, local police and prosecutors quietly used informants in dozens of homicide cases, many of which later fell apart. See Enquirer investigation: Cincinnati homicide cases unravel after deals with informants. Here’s just one example from the article:

Before his violent death in 2012 – prosecutors say he was shot for “being a snitch” – [Quincy] Jones became a prolific police informant, joining a network of informants and cooperating witnesses who for years helped Cincinnati law enforcement close homicide cases. The informants sometimes testified in multiple cases and, like Jones, worked with detectives and prosecutors who vouched for their reliability. But an Enquirer investigation found several of those cases later unraveled, raising the possibility that unreliable informants helped send innocent people to prison and allowed others to get away with murder.

Jones began cooperating in 2008 when he was charged with multiple murders. He fled to Seattle; when he was brought back to Cincinnati he met with Police Detective John Horn and offered to cooperate. As the article describes it, “On the day Jones signed the deal, prosecutors dropped one of the murder charges against him and reduced the other to involuntary manslaughter. [] Judge Beth Myers then sentenced him to four years in prison, far less than the 20 years to life he would have faced with a murder conviction.” Two years later Jones cut another deal which permitted him to walk free in 2010.

The article also reveals the kinds of sleight-of-hand used to conceal informant deals from defendants, courts, and the public:

Because [Jones’s] deal was confidential, defense attorneys, judges and juries in future cases wouldn’t know its terms. They also wouldn’t know that if Jones went back on the deal, all the original charges, including a possible life sentence, could be reinstated. Of the 12 homicide cases Jones cooperated on, The Enquirer found, he testified in court about at least five. Each time, Jones said he’d been promised nothing in exchange for his testimony. 

According to his written plea deal, that was true. Because the agreement didn’t identify specific cases, Jones could say his testimony in those cases wasn’t connected to his plea deal. 

[Detective] Horn, who is now retired, said that’s a common arrangement. “You haven’t done anything for me until, you know, you do something for me,” Horn said. “There’s never been any promises made.” 

Troy Howlett’s mother sues Virginia police for wrongful death

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In 2018, police in Hopewell, Virginia, pressured Troy Howlett into becoming a drug informant, sitting by his hospital bed as he recovered from an overdose. Months later he died from a fentanyl overdose. His mother, Donna Watson, filed a wrongful death claim against the police, arguing that with full knowledge of Troy’s addiction they coerced him into buying drugs that exposed him to continued drug use and a high risk of overdose. Her case was initially dismissed by the court; it is currently on appeal. For indepth coverage see this story from WTVR, “Her son was a police informant. She blames them for his death,” and this piece from The New Republic: “Her Son Needed Help. First, He Had to Help the Police.”

The New Republic also interviewed another former Hopewell informant. The father of her child was facing criminal charges and police came to her with a deal: if she worked for them, it could help reduce his sentence. Pregnant and with a history of substance abuse of her own, she worked for police for a month and relapsed.

For more stories about the widespread harms to vulnerable informants, see post about Matthew Klaus who died of an overdose while working for police, and also How police turn teens into informants.

Did a Boston detective have an affair with an informant to get info on her fiance?

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The Boston Globe reports on a detective who initiated an affair with a woman as part of his covert drug investigation of her boyfriend: An alleged drug trafficker, a detective trying to take him down, and the woman caught in the middle. Carly Medeiros has filed an affidavit alleging that Detective Jared Lucas lured her into an intimate relationship so that he could gather evidence against her fiance Steven Ortiz, without her consent or knowledge. From the story:

Medeiros claims she was sleeping with Lucas while he was investigating Ortiz, and that she had unwittingly become his confidential informant. During their relationship, she alleges, he was using information gleaned from her to help launch an investigation that now could send Ortiz to prison for years. . . . [S]he is adamant that she never agreed to serve as an informant against Ortiz or signed any paperwork saying as much.

Judges signing boilerplate no-knock warrants based on unreliable informants

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This investigation from independent journalist Radley Balko reveals the informant-driven machinery that produces so many unfounded no-knock warrants and their resulting violence: The curious career trajectory of a Little Rock judge. In this case, Balko explains how Little Rock police used the same unreliable informant over and over, lied in sworn affidavits, while judges issued warrants based on boilerplate language in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Recall that the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta was also due to a no-knock warrant, based on a bad informant tip, that police lied in order to obtain.