Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Threats to Informants

Refusing to snitch

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The Marshall Project has published this remarkable story about George Hall who refused to serve as a jailhouse informant against David Wood. David Wood is on death row and is scheduled to be executed next month in Texas.

Hall, Wood, and two other men were all incarcerated together back in 1990. According to Hall, Hall and the two other men were offered deals by Texas law enforcement to testify falsely against Wood. Hall refused; the other men agreed and helped convict Wood. From the story:

“As Hall tells it, several El Paso detectives took the three men, without handcuffs, to a hamburger joint and a police station, seating them in a room with photographs of the victims, a large coffee pot, cigarettes and snacks. They handed the men case files with crime scene photos and interview notes with other witnesses, Hall said. “David Wood is our suspect,” he recalls the detectives saying. “It’d be best if you tell us something, because we can’t let this guy walk.” Plus, there was reward money for people who helped them.”

Stories like Hall’s are rare for a number of reasons. The government only rewards inculpatory evidence — evidence that builds the state’s cases and makes defendants look guilty — not evidence that might help exonerate a defendant. Conversely, defendants can’t offer leniency at all, and offering money or a reward looks like witness tampering. Which means that all the incentives run in one direction, towards snitching for the prosecution and away from contradicting the government’s story. When someone like Hall refuses to snitch, moreover, they will not be called as a witness by the government, which means the defense might never learn about them. And coming forward like Hall did can be risky for people facing their own criminal cases: they run the risk of law enforcement disfavor or even retaliation. (This reality sits in considerable tension with the Second Circuit’s holding that prisoners have a First Amendment right against being forced to act as an informant.)

For all these kinds of reasons, when people refuse to snitch, we are unlikely to learn about it, which makes this particular story even more revealing. Story here: He Refused to Become a Jailhouse Snitch. Can He Stop David Wood’s Execution?

Los Angeles sheriffs hid FBI informant from the FBI

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Back in 2011, the FBI was investigating misconduct, abuse, and corruption in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department headed by Sheriff Lee Baca and Under-Sheriff Paul Tanaka. During a medical transport, sheriffs discovered that one of the people in custody in the LA County jail, Anthony Brown, was acting as an FBI informant and reporting information about sheriff misconduct including the use of excessive force and bribery. In response, Tanaka oversaw a plan to hide Brown from the FBI. From the Los Angeles Magazine series on the scandal:

[In August, 2011], LASD management set into motion its most elaborate strategy: They would hide Brown from his FBI contacts, members of the U.S. Attorney’s office, and any other federal personnel who might try to find him until the inmate revealed to the LASD what he’d been telling the feds. Brown would be bounced into and out of various locations within the county jail system as LASD deputies used a byzantine stratagem of rebooking him every 48 hours under a new name, inmate number, and physical descriptors to game the system’s computer database so as to leave no digital bread crumbs. Finally, as part of their effort to get the inmate to disclose everything he knew, [the] team told Brown that he would not hear from the FBI again, that his handlers had abandoned him.

Baca and Tanaka were both eventually convicted of felony obstruction of justice in connection with the scandal. Brown received a $1 million settlement from the county for his civil rights lawsuit for abuse and failure to provide medical care.

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.“

Gerald Shur, Architect of Witness Protection Program, Dies at 86

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Gerald Shur was a DOJ lawyer who started the federal witness security program (WITSEC) in 1970. The program elevated the use of high-profile informants and is widely credited with helping bring down the mafia. Shur co-authored a 2002 book “WITSEC: Inside the Federal Witness Protection Program” with the journalist Pete Earley. From the obituary in the New York Times:

“Mr. Shur had standards governing which witnesses got into the program: They had to have real evidence against someone of importance, and they had to be in real jeopardy if they agreed to provide it. ‘I guarantee you,’ Mr. Shur said in the 2007 interview, ‘that the kind of people we accept are ones where if the guy testified on Monday morning and didn’t get protection he would be dead Monday afternoon.’ The program has drawn its share of complaints, especially early on, when the number of participants grew quickly. Some of those given new identities complained of inadequate support or security in their new lives, or of trouble with paperwork. And sometimes, since many protected witnesses were lifelong criminals, they returned to their former lives.”

Georgia prison official loses his job for objecting to informant program

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Georgia prison captain Sherman Maine was fired when he objected to a secret, off-the-books informant program being run in high security prisons in which informants were given cell phones.  From the story:

“Maine said the secrecy of the program makes it impossible to know if the reward is worth the risk. ‘Now every stabbing becomes suspect,’ said Maine, 45. ‘We won’t know who’s an informant or not. They’re going to get someone killed, if they haven’t already.’ . . .  Maine said [the program] reveals a lack of respect for human life while exposing the state to great liability. ‘They de-value human life to the point that it’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘The state kept referring to (informants) as tools. They’re not tools, they’re people, and we have an obligation to protect them.’”

Maine is suing the Department of Corrections for violations of the Georgia Whistleblower Act.