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Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

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Resources & Scholarship

Books

  • Trevor Aaronson, The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism (Ig Publishing, 2013)
  • Robert Bloom, Ratting: The Use and Abuse of Informants in the American Justice System (Praeger, 2002)
  • Ethan Brown, Snitch: Informants, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice (Public Affairs, 2007)
  • Dabney, D.A. & Tewksbury, R. 2016. Speaking truth to power: Confidential informants and police investigations. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press
  • Jim Dwyer, Peter Neufeld & Barry Scheck, Actual Innocence: Five days to execution and other dispatches from the wrongly convicted (Doubleday, 2000)
  • Kurt Eichenwald, The Informant: A True Story (Broadway Books, 2000)
  • Dennis Fitzgerald, Informants and Undercover Investigations: A Practical Guide to Law, Policy and Procedure (2nd ed., CRC Press, 2014)
  • John Grisham, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006)
  • Stephen Mallory, Informants: Development and Management (Copperhouse Publishing Co., 2000)
  • Gary Marx, Undercover: Police Surveillance in America (University of California Press, 1988)
  • Alexandra Natapoff, Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice (New York University Press, 2009)
  • Wadie Said, Crimes of Terror: The Legal and Political Implications of Federal Terrorism Prosecutions (Oxford University Press, 2015) 

Articles

  • Trevor Aaronson, “The Informants,” Mother Jones (Sept./Oct. 2011) (on terrorism informants)
  • Jeannine Amber, “The Streets are Watching,” Essence Magazine (Jan. 2007)
  • Radley Balko, “Guilty Before Proven Innocent,” Reason Magazine (May 2008)
  • Russell Covey, Abolishing Jailhouse Snitch Testimony, 49 Wake Forest L. Rev. 1375 (2014)
  • Andrea Dennis, “Collateral Damage? Juvenile Snitches in America’s Wars on Drugs, Crime and Gangs,” 46 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1145 (2009)
  • William Blake Erickson, et al., When Snitches Corroborate: Effects of Post-identification Feedback from a Potentially Compromised Source, Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2016, Vol. 23, No. 1, 148- 160
  • George Harris, Testimony for Sale: The Law and Ethics of Snitches and Experts, 28 Pepp. L. Rev. 1 (2000)
  • Peter Joy, “Brady and Jailhouse Informants: Responding to Injustice,” 57 Case Western Res. L. Rev. 619 (2007)
  • Preston M. Mote & Jeffrey S. Neuschatz & Brian H. Bornstein & Stacy A. Wetmore & Kylie N. Key, Secondary Confessions as Post-identification Feedback: How Jailhouse Informant Testimony Can Alter Eyewitnesses’ Identification Decisions, Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology (2018).
  • Alexandra Natapoff, “Snitching: The Institutional and Communal Consequences,” 73 U. Cin. L. Rev. 645 (2004)
  • Alexandra Natapoff, “Beyond Unreliable: How Snitches Contribute to Wrongful Convictions,” 37 Golden Gate L. Rev. 107 (2006)
  • Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, Deah S. Lawson, Jessica K. Swanner, Christian A. Meissner & Joseph S. Neuschatz, “The Effects of Accomplice Witnesses and Jailhouse Informants on Jury Decision Making,” 32 Law & Hum. Behav. 137-149 (2008)
  • Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, et al., Secondary Confessions, Expert Testimony, and Unreliable Testimony, J. Police Crim. Psych. (2012) 27:179–192
  • Michael Rich, “Coerced Informants and Thirteenth Amendment Limitations on the Police-Informant Relationship,” 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 681 (2010)
  • Daniel Richman, “Cooperating Clients,” 56 Ohio St. L.J. 69 (1995)
  • Wadie Said, “The Terrorist Informant,” 85 Wash. L. Rev. 687 (2011)
  • Sarah Stillman, The Throwaways, The New Yorker (2012)
  • Jessica Swanner, Denise Beike, Alexander Cole, “Snitching, Lies, and Computer Crashes: An Experimental Investigation of Secondary Confessions,” 34 Law & Hum. Behav. 53 (2009)
  • Jessica Swanner & Denise Beike, “Incentives Increase the Rate of False but not True Secondary Confessions from Informants with an Allegiance to a Suspect,” 34 Law & Hum. Behav. 418 (2010)
  • Ian Weinstein, “Regulating the Market for Snitches,” 47 Buffalo L. Rev. 563 (1999)
  • Ellen Yaroshefsky, “Cooperation with Federal Prosecutors: Experiences of Truth Telling and Embellishment,” 68 Fordham L. Rev. 917 (1999)

Films/Documentaries

  • (T)error, PBS Independent Lens (2016) (documentary)
  • Black Mass (2015) (movie), starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger
  • Snitch (2012) (movie), starring Dwayne Johnson as a father and drug informant, based in part on 1999 Frontline documentary (see below)
  • Better this World, POV/PBS (2011) (documentary)
  • American Violet (2009) (movie), based on the true story of Hearne, TX
  • The Informant (2009) (movie), starring Matt Damon as a corporate informant
  • The Wire (HBO) (2002-2007) (television series)
  • Snitch: Frontline, PBS (1999) (documentary)

Reports

  • Audit of the DEA’s Confidential Source Policies, U.S. Dep’t of Justice Office of the Inspector General (2015)
  • Confidential Informants in New Jersey, ACLU (2011)
  • Numbers Game: The Vicious Cycle of Incarceration in Mississippi, ACLU/Justice Strategies(2011) (identifying the rampant use of criminal informants as “one of the most troubling aspects of the state’s criminal justice system”)
  • Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the “Homegrown Threat” in the United States, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU School of Law (2011)
  • Report and Recommendations Regarding Informant Testimony, California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (2007)
  • Jailhouse Snitch Testimony: A Policy Review, The Justice Project, Washington D.C. (2007)
  • The FBI’s Compliance with the Attorney General’s Investigative Guidelines, U.S. Dep’t of Justice Office of the Inspector General (2005)
  • The Snitch System: How Snitch Testimony Sent 51 Innocent Americans to Death Row, Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University School of Law (2005)
  • American Bar Association Report on Jailhouse Informant Testimony (2005)
  • Congressional Report: H. Rpt. 108-414: Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderers as Informants, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform (2004)
  • Report of the Kaufman Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin, Chapter III, Canada (1996)
  • Report of the 1989-1990 Los Angeles Grand Jury: Investigation of the Involvement of Jailhouse Informants in the Criminal Justice System in Los Angeles County (1990)

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