Snitches in the News: Informant use at root of many scandals

The reminder this morning about UT-Austin police spying on student groups led me to think about a topic I've strayed from recently on Grits - confidential informants. Several recent stories (most of them outside of Texas, to be sure) demonstrate that it would be easy to devote an entire blog to the subject of informants and the risks their use poses to police integrity and public safety. Here are some recent examples:

• The ringleader of the nation's biggest identity theft case turned out to be someone working for the US Secret Service as an snitch.

• A grand jury in Florida issued a 6-page rebuke of local police and the DEA for a botched drug buy in which an informant "in over her head" was murdered while 19 officers from different agencies were supposed to be watching her.

• A drug task force in Tennessee arrested two innocent people on the word of a snitch who has since disappeared.

• At the Dallas News we get more background on an informant who was protected by a Dallas Sheriff's detective while he helped plan and execute an armed robbery in Waxahachie.

• The lefty journal In These Times published a feature on exonerees from death row who were convicted based on faulty snitch testimony. The story mentioned that "Illinois currently mandates corroboration in capital cases, and courts in Nebraska and Oklahoma have required corroboration for jailhouse snitches. Texas, meanwhile, has a different requirement, not for jailhouse snitches, but for undercover drug operatives working for the police." The Texas bill mentioned was passed in reaction to the infamous Tulia and Hearne cases, but regular readers know I think the corroboration requirement for informants should be expanded.

The In These Times reporter quoted one of Grits' favorite thinkers on the topic, Loyola (CA) law professor Alexandra Natapoff, who offered up this gem:

"The government's use of criminal informants is largely secretive, unregulated and unaccountable," she says. "This lack of oversight and quality control leads to wrongful convictions, more crime, disrespect for the law and sometimes even official corruption."

She continues: "If the criminal system can't get homicide cases right, then it's very unlikely that we're getting other things right."

RELATED: See also this report (pdf) published last year by The Justice Project on the topic of wrongful convictions based on jailhouse snitches, including recommendations for reform.