what kind of charges do informants have to go after

Former DA: How to fight a police informant case

"Informants" are individuals who confidentially supply data nigh suspected criminal activity to the police.¹

You may besides hear informants referred to as "informers"²—or past less flattering terms such as "snitches," "rats," or "narcs" (a term originating in the utilize of informants in drug crimes cases).

Informants play a complex, and ofttimes ethically questionable, function in the California criminal court process.

Types of informants

The blanket term "informant" covers two distinct types of informers: citizen-informants, and police confidential informers.

Citizen-informants

Citizen-informants typically practice not expect compensation for the information they supply.

Citizen-informants are people who just happen to witness or otherwise take cognition virtually a offense, and who approach the police with that info without expecting anything in return.^three

Example : Jerry is involved in a bar brawl in which someone is stabbed. Ben is present at the bar at the time of the fight but does not participate.

Immediately subsequently the brawl, Ben contacts the police and tells them Jerry is the person who did the stabbing. He besides tells them where Jerry went afterwards he left the bar. The police employ this information to go an arrest warrant for Jerry, who is charged with assail with a deadly weapon.

Ben is a citizen-informant—as well known every bit an "bystander-informant." He has noesis of the crime only accidentally, because he was nowadays on the scene. And he is offering this information to the constabulary out of a sense of public duty rather than for compensation.⁴

Police confidential informants

Police confidential informants are people who provide information to a law enforcement agency in render for some kind of compensation.

Police confidential informants come in many different varieties, depending on their motivations and how they operate.

For example, some receive payment in cash from police force departments—while others are criminal defendants who provide data virtually other defendants or suspects in guild to get more lenient treatment in their ain criminal example.⁵

Informants may give information to the police in substitution for money or for more than lenient handling in their ain criminal case.

Case : Marissa is a methamphetamine user. She is caught by police with a minor amount of the drug in her possession and is charged with possession of methamphetamine.

The prosecutor tells Marissa that he will drop the misdemeanor accuse for this crime and let Marissa enter California's "deferred entry of judgment" program instead—IF Marissa will help the police force gather bear witness against some of the dealers who take sold her drugs.

So, working with the police force, Marissa calls Ted, 1 of her dealers. She tells him she wants to introduce a new client to him. It turns out the new "client" is an undercover police officer. The officer goes to Ted's residence to purchase drugs, and this results in Ted's arrest and prosecution.

Marissa has become an informant working for the police for her own benefit.

It is common for confidential informants to be individuals who are extensively involved with complicated criminal activities, such as those of criminal street gangs. Their involvement in the criminal activity makes them especially valuable sources of information for police enforcement.⁶

However, some confidential informants come up upon the information that they sell to police accidentally.

A classic example is the "jailhouse snitch"—a jail inmate who overhears a confession by another inmate and then offers that data to prosecutors in render for early on release from custody or more than lenient handling in his/her own criminal instance.⁷

How police and prosecutors utilize informants

But every bit there are several distinct kinds of informants, there are several ways in which police and prosecutors might utilize the services of an informant.

In some cases, informants may serve as witnesses confronting the defendant.

The almost straightforward manner is for the informant to act as a witness for the prosecution in a preliminary hearing or criminal jury trial, testifying about facts that would tend to show that the defendant is guilty.

But it is even more common for police to rely on the information provided by informants to obtain California arrest warrants or search warrants.⁸

In fact, one written report establish that 92% of search warrants filed in federal courts for drug cases relied on data from confidential informants.⁹

Standards for obtaining a search warrant based on informant statements

The style this typically works is that a police officer obtains information from an informant—whose identity will be kept confidential—and puts that data into the affidavit due south/he presents to a gauge. The judge will so upshot a warrant if s/he determines that the affidavit shows "probable cause."¹⁰

But non every statement by an informant volition add together upwardly to likely cause to result a search warrant. Judges are non supposed to event warrants based solely on the statements of an anonymous informer unless the police affirmation also sets forth some facts showing that the informant's statements are conceivable.^xi

A large number of search warrants are issued on the basis of statements by informants.

Example : Somebody fires several shots at a police machine being driven by an officer.

Lee, a "series informant" who has helped the local police force with information in felony cases in the past, contacts them. Lee claims to have overheard a conversation in which another people stated that a man named Ted was the one who fired the shots. Lee tells the police where Ted lives.

Just Lee does non identify the people whose conversation he overheard, nor does he requite any concrete reason to believe that their statements that Ted committed the law-breaking are accurate.

Based on this report, the police utilize for a search warrant to search Ted'southward home. But they do not receive i because of the lack of information about the people Lee overheard—which makes information technology incommunicable for the judge to determine if they are reliable or not.¹²

Issues with the use of informants in law enforcement

Even police themselves admit that there are lots of problems with the use of informants to build criminal cases.¹³

The most significant issue is their lack of reliability. Confidential informants who are compensated by police for data accept an incentive to tell police force and prosecutors what they desire to hear rather than the truth. And police force enforcement agencies may practice surprisingly piffling due diligence on their informers.¹⁴

According to Riverside criminal defense attorney Michael Scafiddi¹⁵:

"Fifty-fifty non-compensated citizen informers may have reasons to prevarication to police—such as a want to go revenge on the person they are informing on. And police force probably have even less data well-nigh the backgrounds of these people than they do nearly paid informers."

At that place are plenty of other ethical and practical problems with police reliance on informants, including:

• The development of unprofessional personal relationships betwixt officers and informants;
• Police force officers making promises to informants that can't be kept; and
• Potential ethical issues when officers give money to informants who are probably going to spend it on drugs.¹⁶

If you or a loved one has been charged with a crime, and informant testimony is involved, you may exist able to help your case by seeking disclosure of the informant'south identity.

The law surrounding disclosure of informants' identity is complicated—and a criminal defence force attorney is the all-time person to propose you on whether this seeking this could assistance in your example.

Telephone call usa for assist…

Contact us for additional assistance.

For questions about police force and prosecutors' use of informants in California criminal cases, or to discuss your case confidentially with one of our attorneys, practise not hesitate to contact u.s. at Shouse Police Group.

We have local criminal law offices in and effectually Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, San Jose, Oakland, the San Francisco Bay area, and several nearby cities.

Legal References:

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^ane Black'southward Law Lexicon, tenth ed. 2014,informant. ("Someone who informs against another; esp., i who confidentially supplies information to the police nearly a crime, sometimes in exchange for a reward or special treatment. — Also termed informer; feigned accomplice.")

² Same.

ⁱⁱⁱ Same. ("citizen-informant (1951) A witness who, without expecting payment and with the public proficient in mind, comes forward and volunteers data to the law or other government.")

⁴ Based on the facts of People five. Lanfrey (1988) 204 Cal.App.3d 491.

⁵ Come across, for example, Lieutenant Stephen B. Johnson, LA County Sheriff'southward Department, "Future Polices Regarding the Use of Confidential Narcotic Informants," Nov. 2001, available at http://lib.post.ca.gov/lib-documents/cc/31-Johnson-j.pdf, at 6. ("In the enforcement of narcotic cases, defense attorneys have grave concerns nearly the use of paid and accused confidential narcotic informants.")

⁶ Run across, for example, FBI's Compliance with the Attorney Full general's Investigative Guidelines, Chapter Three: The Attorney General's Guidelines Regarding the Use of Confidential Informants, Function of the Inspector Full general, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Sept. 2005.

^viii Encounter, for case, Price v. Superior Courtroom (1970) ane Cal.3d 836 (information provided by an informant went into affidavit used to secure a search warrant).

⁹ Lieutenant Stephen B. Johnson, LA Canton Sheriff's Department, "Future Polices Regarding the Employ of Confidential Narcotic Informants," endnote 5, above, at 2.

^x Penal Lawmaking 1525 – Issuance; likely cause; supporting affidavits; contents of awarding. ("A search warrant [including one based on information provided past an informant] cannot exist issued but upon likely cause, supported by affidavit, naming or describing the person to be searched or searched for, and particularly describing the property, thing, or things and the place to be searched.")

¹¹ Illinois v. Gates (1983), 462 U.S. 213, 238-39. ("For all these reasons, we conclude that it is wiser to abandon the "2-pronged test" established by our decisions in Aguilar and Spinelli.eleven In its place we reaffirm the totality-of-the-circumstances assay that traditionally has informed probable cause determinations. Encounter Jones v. U.s.a., supra; The states v. Ventresca, supra; Brinegar v. United States, supra. The job of the issuing magistrate is only to make a applied, common-sense conclusion whether, given all the circumstances prepare forth in the affidavit before him, including the "veracity" and "footing of knowledge" of persons supplying hearsay data [i.e., informants], in that location is a off-white probability that contraband or testify of a law-breaking will be found in a detail place. And the duty of a reviewing courtroom is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a "substantial basis for … conclud[ing]" that probable cause existed.")

¹² Loosely based on Price v. Superior Court (1970) ane Cal.3d 836.

¹³ See, for example, Lieutenant Stephen B. Johnson, LA County Sheriff's Section, "Time to come Polices Regarding the Use of Confidential Narcotic Informants," endnote 5, above.

¹⁴ Meet, for instance, same, at three.

^xv Riverside criminal defense force attorney Michael Scafiddi is a former police officer and police sergeant. He knows how the police gather evidence, including through informants—and he understands the weaknesses in their strategies. He represents clients in all San Bernardino County courthouses and Riverside County courthouses.

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Source: https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/defense/warrants/informants/

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