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Who's a snitch? In the context of the federal criminal justice system and this discussion, it's not the unwitting citizen who witnesses a crime and identifies the perpetrator for the police. Nor is it the victim of a physical crime who identifies and testifies against her assailant. Rather, a snitch is a participant in criminal activity who rats out other alleged wrongdoers in exchange for immunity from prosecution or a lighter sentence. Remember the phrase, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time?" Snitches can't or won't do their time.
Snitch (cooperators') testimony is purchased testimony. It is testimony the Government purchases with promises of leniency. The problem is that freedom is a commodity far more precious than money and the incentive to lie or embellish is enormous. In my view, the practice of rewarding snitches for testimony has made our criminal justice system morally bankrupt.
In drug cases, mandatory minimum sentences range from 5, 10 to 20 years, depending on the type and quantity of drugs involved and whether the offender has a prior felony drug conviction. In many instances, the maximum sentence allowed is a life in prison. There is no parole in the federal system. Too often, the only way out from these draconian sentences is to snitch.
All the cooperator has to do is tell the truth about misdeeds of others -- others whom the Government has an interest in convicting. The truth, of course, has to fit the Government's theory or version of the truth. A few defendants, like Susan McDougal in the Whitewater case, refuse to play along. Many more agree, even if the Government's truth varies from their own version of events. In the federal system, the culprit is Section 5k1.1 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines.
Upon motion of the government stating that the defendant has provided substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person who has committed an offense, the court may depart from the guidelines.
Ethan Brown has written a terrific book, Snitch: Informants, Cooperators & the Corruption of Justice, exposing the danger and harm caused by the "5k" system. Using real-life cases from Baltimore, New York and Richmond, he demonstrates how "real investigative work has been replaced by false testimony from incentivized witnesses" and resulted in wrongful convictions and the premature release of dangerous snitches back to the community, where they may continue to commit horrible crimes.
Ethan is with us today in the comments. We're hoping for a lively discussion. So ask questions and tell us what you think. I'll be here to moderate and chime in.
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Hi everyone. Welcome to the Firedoglake Sunday book salon. I’m so excited to have Ethan Brown here today. His book Snitch is terrific. This is an issue I feel so passionately about and I’m very flattered to be moderator today.
Ethan has written for New York, The New York Observer, Wired, Vibe, Radar, The Independent, GQ, Rolling Stone, Men’s Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, Details and The Village Voice.
He really knows his stuff about drug policy and street crime. So let’s give him a warm welcome and get started.
Thanks for the welcome, Jeralyn. Very excited that you’re hosting and thrilled to be doing this at FDL. Hi to everyone–I’m coming to you live from the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Fire away with questions when you’re ready…
Welcome Ethan and Jeralyn! It’s great to have you here at FDL Book Salon. Looking forward to a great session.
Hi and Welcome!!!
Are there any statistics as to how many of these snitching cases might be based on something other than the truth?
Welcome Jeralyn and Ethan!
Ethan, can you explain for the non-lawyers here why the government system of rewarding cooperators is bad for both getting to the truth and in terms of community safety?
I have not had an opportunity to read your book Ethan but the topic does tend to reasonate with me.
There were a couple of times in my misspent youth when law enforcement types requested my assistance. I respectfully declined the “honor.”
Welcome to the Lake Ethan and Jeralyn!
And what about plea bargaining? I’ve always thought that was a system that encouraged abuses. The prosecutor intimidates the defendant into copping a plea to avoid a long prison sentence, even if he is not guilty.
Are you getting a good response to your book? Seems like people on both sides of the political spectrum should support truth in the judicial system.
I’ll try and answer Dakinikat and Jeralyn’s questions:
1) No there aren’t any such statistics. In fact, one big problem with the informant/cooperator area is that there it is marked by a near total lack of transparency. We know, for example, that about 30% of defendants in federal criminal cases involve cooperation deals but very little else.
Hey, that means we have two people from the 9th Ward with us today!!
The statistic I’d like is: in what % of cases (you choose the appropriate category) is informant testimony used, what are the verdicts in such cases (% convictions)? Also, I understand that only about 2% of cases go to trial. The rest are “negotiated” pleas. What role do informants play in those cases?
2) to Jeralyn–in my book, I deal specifically with he federal system and the problem with rewarding cooperators there is that the guidelines are so stiff and the sentencing reductions for cooperators so enormous that there is an enormous incentive to fabricate evidence. Another problem in the federal system is that cooperator testimony does not have to be corroborated…
eCANHnomics: you make a good point about only 2% of cases going to trial. Our criminal justice system is supposed to be adversarial and the lack of jury trials undermines that ideal…but as I said in my response to Dakinikat, there are very few statistics re: cooperators and informants so I can’t answer the second half of your question.
On the issue of informants returning to the community & perpetrating crimes, could a good investigative reporter find a really horrendous example and expose it as a way of raising interest in reform?
Informants play a huge role in the cases that don’t go to trial. Many of my drug cases start out with 20 or more defendants. By the time it gets to trial, there’s one or two that haven’t pleaded out, mostly because the others cooperated with the government and agreed to testify. They use the cooperating defendants as leverage to get the others to plead guilty.
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Thanks, Ethan! Our views are so similar on this. And yes, relying on uncorroborated snitch testimony is just about the worst abuse. I had the opportunity to testify about that at a Sentencing Commission hearing 12 years ago and really honed in on that.
eCAHNomics: I tried to do just that in my book–I investigated two big murder cases (one in NYC and one in Richmond, VA) and found that cooperators were the suspects in both cases.
Also, to clarify an early statistic: about 30% of drug defendants have received sentencing reductions via cooperation deals.
Welcome Jeri!
I remember when you came to take care of me in CT and you told me that in your world, the snitch was the worst thing someone could be. When I saw the title of the book, I immediately thought “ah, Jeralyn!”
Wasn’t it an uncorroborated snitch that did all that damage in one small town in East Texas? Where all these blacks were sent to jail/prison? And eventually most of the cases were kicked out (after all the uproar) due to the snitch having been a lying sack of sh*t?
I was wondering if you thought Lou Dobbs’ program about the drug dealer who was released that cooperated and sent those to border guards to jail has created more awareness of this issue, or just fed the border frenzy … it seems like an interesting test case
I haven’t read your book yet, but suspected from the introduction that you might have done exactly what I said. However, you said that cooperators were suspects. does that mean the murders are unsolved, or the prosecutions have not yet reached conclusion? Would be more powerful if they had been convicted.
to Jane: It’s interesting to note, though, that while there is a stigma attached to snitching, snitching is pervasive thanks to the 5K1.1 statute.
In fairness, the Guidelines and 5k simply codified the issue, this problem has been around forever; it is the dirty little secret of the criminal justice system and always has been.
dakine01: I think you’re referring to the Tulia case in Texas but correct me if I’m wrong.
www.hr95.org/tulia.htm
That’s the one.
eCAHNomics: Re: the two big murder cases. The case in Richmond went to trial and the defendant (a former cooperator) was found guilty. The NYC case has still not gone to trial and the defendant is just still a suspect…
BMAZ: You’re right–and in fact, Frontline did a great expose on snitching way back in 1999. So it’s not a new problem…
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/snitch/
Thanks.
The snitching issue is relevant now, however, because of “Stop Snitching” and because there has been a big move toward sentencing reform lately.
Welcome to the Lake, Jeralyn and Ethan
Are there instances where a street level crack dealer, for example, is arrested, offered an opportunity to cooperate but is unable, not unwilling, unable for whatever reason to provide any useful information being prosecuted to the fullest as a result? Sorry for the length of the sentence.
Ethan’s right. Most of them aren’t even afraid of getting “snitch jackets” in prison now since so many have them. Used to be defendants were scared they would be attacked for snitching. Now, it’s rare when defendants don’t get them. (Of course, there are exceptions, particularly when dealing with drug crimes that involve murders, but in every day federal court, that’s a minority of cases.)
I suppose the institutional problem is that prosecutors get promoted on how many people they lock up, and they do whatever it takes to get as many as possible behind bars.
The last time I got called for Federal jury in Manhattan, I said in voir dire that I thought the legal system was heavily biased in favor of the party that had most money, in that case, the federal govt; and that I would vote AGAINST that party no matter what the evidence. Needless to say I did not get selected for any juries.
Not that I’m not the first guy at the door to get my cluck the early prime deal understand you….
Ethan, would you add anything to your book given the crack sentencing guideline reductions and Supreme Court decision that made the guidelines advisory, both of which happened after you wrote it?
I think the crack reductions are so minimal it doesn’t change much and since mandatory minimums trump the guidelines, the advisory nature of the guidelines similarly doesn’t have too great an impact.
Do you see it differently?
SouthernDragon: you describe a pretty common scenario. Unfortunately what happens much of the time is that the defendant with the most information gets the shortest sentence. So what we get as a result is a criminal justice system where the most culpable get the least amount of prison time. Or as one criminal defense attorney put it: “Whoever doesn’t snitch is made the head of the drug organization by prosecutors.”
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Ha! It’s true the best deals usually go to the first in line or the last holdouts. I always hope to be the last or not at all. I have a lot of clients who just take the time. But it’s their decision, not mine.
Jeralyn: You’re right: the sentences for crack cocaine related offenses were reduced only slightly. The sentences for first time offenders in cases involving 5 grams or more went from 63-78 months to 51 to 63 months; sentences for first time offenders in cases involving 50 grams of crack or more were lowered from 121 to 151 months to 97 to 121 months.
to Jeralyn again: so yes the impact will not be too significant. Though it’s worth noting that Sen. Biden recently introduced a bill to eliminate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences entirely…
I remember too! I’m so glad you are better now. It was great fun staying with you. What a trooper you are.
Ethan, he did introduce that bill but it contains a huge amount of funding for prosecutors and agents and increases some penalties. It also expressly states it’s not retroactive (S. 1711.) I think the better bill is H.R. 460 which equalizes the penalties and contains no other provisions. But I’m told the reality is we’ll be lucky to get equalization at all rather than a reduction from 100:1 to 25:1. Congress is all about compromise.
Good point Jeralyn and I agree that the Biden bill isn’t ideal. Generally speaking, I think it’s far past time we stop thinking solely about drug weights and get to some serious reform of the entire criminal justice system which focuses far too heavily on non violent drug offenders.
I don’t have a link handy but I read something this weekend suggesting that McCain is pushing for (or having pushed for him) the idea of increasing the penalties for powder rather than decrease the penalties for crack.
Just what we need, more folks in prison for longer times.
Ethan, can you talk about Jonathan Luna a bit? I know there are a lot of FDL readers who appreciate all the good work prosecutors do. Luna was found dead in Baltimore and no one has been charged in his crime. You have a big section on Luna in the book.
From wikipedia, to give readers a flavor of who he was:
For example, only about 11% of federal prisoners are serving sentences for violent crimes such as homicide and aggravated assault.
Ethan, it’s like we’re twins separated at birth. I couldn’t agree more.
Sure–happy to talk about the Luna case. Luna was a federal prosecutor in Maryland murdered as he finished up a plea deal in a huge drug cases. His murder remains unsolved and I investigated both Luna’s murder and perhaps more importantly the last case that he prosecuted.
It turns out that in Luna’s last case the FBI admitted to serious misconduct in the handling of the main cooperator in the case (a Baltimore heroin dealer). The FBI admitted to paying for the cooperator’s cell phone and even making car payments for him…
Worst of all, the cooperator committed all sorts of violent acts (such as shootings) as he worked for the FBI.
I’m sure Mr Brown is familiar with this case in the ATl
Regarding the “War on Drugs”, all these goddamned wars, how can the government in all honesty state that enforcing drug laws is fiscally responsible and has a positive effect on drug abuse? Arrest one dealer, there are 5-10 waiting to take his/her place. Perhaps $50,000 to try, $30,000 per year to incarcerate. Availability has not decreased, a dealer is still in place, demand has not been decreased. What was the net gain here? Couldn’t that money have been better spent on education and treatment with the real possibly of a positive effect on the community?
They ain’t enforcing shit.
Sounds like those FBI agents and the “informer” studied at the Whitey Bulger school of informing.
I was pretty skeptical when I read a few months after his death that the cops thought it was a suicide even though he had 36 superficial stab wounds was found face down in a creek. Then they floated a bogus-sounding story about an affair with a former agent.
What do you think really happened to Luna?
Raven–I have heard about the ATL case. These sorts of cases spring up quite often…Check this one out:
www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4844484&page=1
To Jeralyn: I don’t know what happened to Luna but I do know that the feds failed to investigate the possibility of the cooperator’s involvement with his murder; and yes all sorts of bogus stories about Luna were floated by law enforcement in the media in the wake of his murder. All of which, by the way, have never been corroborated…
Well, we know that. They stumble onto shit.
SouthernDragon: I agree with your comments on the drug war. It’s a vast waste of money and worse its not making drugs less available, less pure or more expensive (three big metrics used to gauge the efficacy of drug enforcement). Everyone should check out Ben Wallace Wells’ Rolling Stone piece on the failures of the drug war
www.rollingstone.com/news/stor.....r_on_drugs
(This is probably addressed at length in your book, but here goes anyway:)
What can be done to prevent this kind of injustice? What kind of burden would eliminating “favorable” treatment to snitches on the gov’t? Is anything going on to to address the problem?
Shades of Scott Camil in Gainesville lo those many years ago.
Wait a minute here! So you are telling me that Tommy “Special K” Knontogiannis is not an isolated instance and this goes on all the time? I am shocked, shocked to hear this…..
Ethan, in your book you talk about Ala. Senator Jeff Sessions as someone who is working for drug reform. I remember when he was U.S. Atty (I had a drug case in Mobile) — he was so pro-war on drugs. Every time they finished one group of pot smugglers, they’d haul them in front of the grand jury (since they no longer had any 5th amendment rights) and make them squeal about others, then indict those people in new cases and it went on and on.
You met with him, has he really changed? I see that the crack bill he and Salzar and some other Dems are promoting raise the level of powder cocaine which increases the sentence in the powder cases.
McKinless: Good questions. A couple of ideas to start. 1) I think informant/corroborator testimony has to be corroborated by other evidence; 2). Benefits to cooperators/informants should be minimal except in extraordinary circumstances. In the federal system you’re seeing decades cut from a sentence and that really creates a scenario where a defendant is going to say anything to get that kind of deal.
Good question about Sen. Sessions. I think he has changed somewhat. I think that his experience as a US Att’y taught him that extraordinarily long sentences do very little to curb crime and are absurdly expensive…that said, he’s still an enthusiastic proponent of the drug war.
Ain’t nothin’ changed. They do that shit over here all the time. Trigger happy amateurs.
I should add too that Sen. Sessions should get some credit for being an early proponent of sentencing reform in the Senate…
Ethan’s right, it can be decades off the sentence. and it’s not just in drug cases but white collar cases too where defendants go from double digit sentences down to 5 years or less if they cooperate. I know everyone dislikes Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers and Tony Rezko, but they got snitched on big time and their accusers got incredible deals. 25 years for Ebbers and 5 for Sullivan who created the scheme; 24 for Skilling and 8 for Andrew Fastow; Rezko’s chief accuser was looking at guidelines of life in prison and the government agreed to give him 67 months.
But who would favor reform? Certainly not the prosecution side, since reform would limit their ability to lock up perps. And the other side-the “criminals”-ability to have a say in the process is nearly nonexistent. What to do seems obvious, but the incentive to do it seems minimal.
ECAHNomics: Well, I think that reform is going to happen whether we like it or not. At the state level, our prison systems are quite literally bursting at the seams. In big states like Ohio and California we’re over 100% capacity. Put simply: we can’t afford our highly punitive criminal justice system.
sentencing.typepad.com/sentencing_law_and_policy/2008/02/idaho-joins-sta.html
Actually, states with mandatory minimums are starting to ease the penalties due to economic concerns — they no longer can afford the money to keep so many people locked up. At the federal level, it’s mostly criminal defense attorneys and drug policy experts. The Justice Department likes the snitch policy and mandatory minimums. MM’s are a hammer to hold over the defendant’s head to get him to snitch. Then as Ethan writes in his book, their jobs are easier and they don’t need to be bothered with things like real investigation.
We do think alike Jeralyn!
Gee, when prisons were busting at the seams in the 1990s we just built more prisons. Isn’t that a more likely outcome than reform? You might be realizing that I am a cynic.
My response exactly…
I’m a cynic too but we’ve got a pretty harsh economic environment out there for the states that isn’t getting any better…
And I would add, how do you sell that to a public that has been whipped into a law-and-order frenzy every federal, state and local election for the last 30 years or more? How would a progressive reform movement deal with a “soft-on-crime” label day after day in the “liberal” media?
And as the prisoners in our prison system age they become much more expensive to house…
Is it feasible to reduce the prosecutor incentive for as many scalps as possible?
What we try to do is convince people to be smart about crime rather than tough on crime. Some politicians and legislators are picking up on the concept.
What % of state budgets does the prison system consume? If I remember my stats from a decade ago, it wasn’t large enuf to warrant a separate category on the GDP stats (which are pretty detailed on state & local govt spending).
SouthernDragon: This is the perfect question and here’s my answer. I live in New Orleans, the murder capitol of the United States. Last year, a mere 2% of arrests by the NOPD were for VIOLENT offenses. Meanwhile, New Orleans has one of the highest rates of admission to prison for drug offenses in the nation. So the drug war makes us less safe…that’s the message that needs to get out there.
Well, yeah, not to mention that bloviating politicians can’t make easy hay out of intelligent and nuanced policy proposals necessary for effective reform; but they sure can by “getting tougher on everything all the time everywhere”.
And Mr. Brown @76 - Unfortunately, the average citizen simply does not comprehend that, viewed through some very arguable parameters, we pay more to imprison our populous than we do to educate them.
Oh, the irony. They’ll be turned loose with no benefits when they’re riddled with cancer, or senile, or some other major infirmity.
I’ve thought of that many times but keep coming back to no matter what type of performance evaluation system is devised, even if conviction rates are not part of the process, those numbers are always going to be in the background when human supervisors are evaluating performance. How do we really get away from that metric?
Ethan, do you have some thoughts on the difference between the “snitching” we’re discussing here today and the very different “no snitching” effort that the media talks about? I think it’s important for the public to know our criticism relates to people involved in the criminal activity themselves who tell on others to save themselves, and not victims or crime or bystander-witnesses.
I somewhat agree with BMAZ about nuanced policy proposals–they’re not an easy pitch politically. But I think that the huge costs (and low benefits) of our criminal justice system are becoming clearer. The recent news that 1:100 adults in the US is behind bars seemed to have shocked a lot of people…
sorry that should read “victims of crime”
I don’t understand, Jeralyn. Is this an actual jacket or is it a reputation as a snitch.
I think that “snitching” is defined as someone who is involved in criminal activity and then cooperates against someone else in order to receive a benefit for themselves. The average citizen calling the cops to report a crime, however, is not considered a snitch (though that is no always true and we have tragic cases where ordinary witnesses are killed).
Adding: I think that the prevalence of “snitching” undercuts law enforcement’s ability to get regular folks to provide info. to solve cases…
Jeralyn and Ethan, thank you both for your work and your time here today!
Ethan, I’m looking forward to reading your book.
Do you have any thoughts on the FBI/HSA’s use of overt entrapment and provacatuers - especially any thoughts about “Anna” - the FBI “informant” in the Eric McDavid case who appears to have funded, housed, and in large part directed the “conspiracy” the FBI paid her to “uncover”?
[apologies to the Lake’s techies if this gets the site attacked…]
Sorry! It’s reputation — a label, not an actual jacket. Think of the snitch newly sentenced and going to prison. His file follows him to the prison. Prisoners work in the office. They read the files. The sentencing order says if the person got a 5k. The word spreads around the prison. The prisoner gets a “snitch jacket”.
Nowadays, as I said, it’s so common it doesn’t mean as much in routine drug cases. Where there’s violence and murder as well as drugs, it’s still a problem.
The criminals are intimidated by law enforcement and the victims and witnesses are intimidated by the criminal’s friends and associates.
that was for Loo Hoo at 91.
I don’t know enough about the cases you linked to comment. But it’s very worth noting that big terrorism cases brought by the feds have, unfortunately, involved informants who have sort of “talked up” terrorist acts to individuals in the Muslim community. And so we have indictments based on chatter between informant and law enforcement target…the Seas of David in Miami is a good example of this and I get into a similar case in Brooklyn in my book.
The NSA handlers got their fat pills today, I’m told. Not to worry.
here’s a great piece on the subject: www.theatlantic.com/doc/200610/waldman-islam
O/T but out of curiosity, do statistics exist concerning the impact of legalizing pot on the criminal justice/prison system? How many low-level user offenders would be released or just not prosecuted thus freeing up law enforcement for more important tasks?
Here in Florida that’s the biggest joke going. The only people with any faith in that disaster work in the Federal Building.
Thnaks, Ethan - Muslims I know here in the Bay Area told me how shocked they were by that case. I look forward to reading the linky (and your book).
JoeFish: I don’t have stats in that area. Here’s a stat re: the federal system: more than 50% of the prisoners in the federal system are doing time for drug related offenses while only about 11% are serving sentences for violent crimes such as homicide and aggravated assault.