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: Of a Public Defender's Life

Why Informants Suck

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I'm not against snitches & informants for "Street" Moral reasons...I'm against them for the simple reason that they all have something to gain from snitching even at the expense of innocents. Case in point (From Cleveland.Com):

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The prison sentence for Jerrell Bray, the paid informant who worked with DEA agent Lee Lucas on an ill-fated Mansfield drug investigation in 2005, was reduced today by 15 months.
Bray was sentenced in 2007 to 15 years in prison for perjury and civil rights violations.
He admitted framing several people for drug deals they didn't commit as part of the investigation and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors in exchange for a possible sentence reduction.
Bray had testified against Lucas in the DEA agent's trial. Lucas took the stand to dispute Bray's testimony and was acquitted this month on all 18 charges, including perjury and obstruction of justice, stemming from the Mansfield investigation.

There is a great Attorney/Investigator manual floating around for dealing with Snitches/Informants that I picked up in my binder at the Capital Case Defense Seminar held in Monterey, California a few years back. I have an older copy that I'd be happy to email to anyone with a Public Defender email address but there might be a new version floating around on The Internets for those willing to look for it.

Full post as published by Of a Public Defender's Life on March 02, 2010 (boomark / email).