Can Jailhouse and/or Confidential Informants be Trusted?

Police use jailhouse snitches and confidential informants (CIs) to get information in order to obtain warrants for cars or homes or to put suspects behind bars all the time. Not everyone is a fan of the practice, and some serious concerns demonstrate why:

• Police raids based principally on informant tips can be exaggerated and result in hyper-aggressive police action;
• No good mechanisms are in place to determine whether an informant (or a police officer) is being truthful;
• Innocent people can get caught up in real problems when named by an informant.

Jailhouse Informants 

Testimony from jailhouse snitches, is unregulated, and subsequently often unreliable. Even so, it has been used in countless situations to put suspects behind bars. These informants are not talking to police out of the goodness of their hearts; no, there are significant benefits for helping law enforcement, including:

• Having their own charges reduced;
• Getting special privileges while incarcerated;
• Financial compensation.

 Lack of Regulation

Multiple court cases have concluded that law enforcement reliance on testimony from informants is not a Constitutional violation, which means using informants is a great way to get the information an officer is seeking. However, there are effectively no real rules when it comes to how and when law enforcement uses informants—and informants generally have tempting incentives to provide false testimony. It’s possible they could get lesser sentences for their own crimes, for example. And because many law enforcement organizations have no strong control systems to deal with confidential informants, it’s not unreasonable to fear that an officer could manufacture a fictional CI in order to create the evidence needed to obtain a warrant or make an arrest. In fact, after several innocent people lost their lives in various police raids based on the information provided by nonexistent confidential informants, calls for better controls on the use of CI’s led to a Congressional hearing on the matter. Sadly, no substantial changes in practice came out of those hearings.

Unreliable Information 

It is estimated that nearly one in five convictions that were later overturned with DNA evidence relied heavily on jailhouse snitches. All too often, such testimony is relied on by prosecutors even though the defense team and the jury never learn precisely what incentives were offered in exchange for the damning testimony. Since national standards relating to this testimony do not exist, and because there are no rules relating to the tracking and management of the testimony, innocent people have lost their freedom time and again due to inaccurate, and downright dishonest testimony. Informants may claim that a confession or details of a crime were given by a defendant, or that they got second-hand information from other people. This is true with high-profile or gang-involved cases, in particular, when there is serious pressure on law enforcement to solve the crime.  But testimony from jailhouse informants frequently leads to wrongful convictions.

The Defense You Deserve 

The experienced Kissimmee and Orlando criminal defense attorneys at Salazar & Kelly Law Group always fight for the best possible outcomes for you. Confidential informants? Jailhouse snitches? We work to get to the bottom of it all. To discuss, schedule a confidential consultation today.

Source:

aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/the-use-of-confidential-informants-can-lead-to-unnecessary-and-excessive-police-violence