Pubdate: Wed, 28 Feb 2007
Source: Arkansas Times (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2007 Arkansas Times Inc.
Contact:  http://www.arktimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/583
Author: Mara Leveritt

DEATH UNDER COVER

At a particularly dismal moment in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed," 
a disgusted undercover cop mutters, "It's a nation of rats." Not 
quite. But the film and the recent flap in the Northeast over 
t-shirts that demand "Stop Snitchin' " are calling attention to a 
part of the legal system that critics say has gotten out of control.

While it's impossible to get accurate counts due to the inherent 
secrecy of the practice, moderate estimates place the number of 
informants working for police agencies in the U.S. in the hundreds of 
thousands.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court OK'd the use of confidential informants 
50 years ago, the practice has become a primary tool of the so-called 
war on drugs. As one court noted:

"Without informants, law enforcement authorities would be unable to 
penetrate and destroy organized crime syndicates, drug trafficking 
cartels, bank frauds, telephone solicitation scams, public 
corruption, terrorist gangs, money launderers, espionage rings, and the likes."

Critics counter that the practice has become a dangerous public 
policy, compromising the integrity of police work, endangering both 
informants and innocents, eroding confidence in the rule of law 
enforcement, and often producing bad information.

The Little Rock Police Department and the Pulaski County sheriff's 
office would not disclose the number of informants in their files.

The North Little Rock Police Department said it currently has 51 
informants working with its narcotics unit. The Maumelle Police 
Department reported having 18 confidential informants, 10 males and 
eight females, though four of those have been "disqualified."

No statewide figures are kept. Keith Rutledge, the state drug 
director, said that if regional drug task forces are using 
informants, it is done -- and paid for -- "at the local level."

The way informants are handled varies widely, and that, too, is 
shrouded in secrecy. All four of the police agencies mentioned above 
stress that they make no promises to arrestees that the penalties 
they face will be reduced in exchange for cooperation.

All four reported, however, that if that person agrees to cooperate, 
information about his or her helpfulness may be conveyed to the 
prosecuting attorney. This takes the form of letters or 
recommendations that are also confidential. An informant has to trust 
the police.

"We tell you what you're charged with and give you a phone number to 
call," said Sgt. Robert Mourot, who heads the Street Narcotics Unit 
for the Little Rock police. "Once you bond out of jail, you can call us.

"If you ask, 'What are you going to do for me?' we say, 'What are you 
going to do for yourself? You got yourself into this spot. It's up to 
you to get yourself out of it.' "

Mourot said that if a person opts to become an informant, there are 
no guarantees. "All we can do," he said, "is document what they did." 
Police in North Little Rock, Maumelle and at the sheriff's office 
said they followed similar policies. What happens at the prosecutor's 
office is similarly opaque.

Critics of the expanded use of confidential informants see the 
interface between police and prosecutors as a kind of legal black 
hole, in which discretion with regard to using law-breakers meets 
discretion with regard to charging them.

John Johnson, chief deputy prosecuting attorney for Pulaski County, 
said, "Being a confidential informant is just an agreement between 
you and the police."

He added, however, that on receiving a report from police about a 
confidential informant, "We make a charging decision. We don't always 
charge. The options we have are to charge a felony, to send it back 
for more investigation, to reduce it to a misdemeanor, or to mark it 
DNF, 'Do not file.' "

Johnson noted that prosecutors consider many factors, including 
letters from teachers and employers, as well as information from the 
police. He explained, "There's just all sorts of communication that 
we have in trying to be just and be sure that the punishment fits the 
crime, but also the person who commits the crime."

A growing number of legal scholars see the practice of releasing some 
criminals to catch others as having unforeseen corrosive effects. For 
many, the most disturbing aspect of the process is its secrecy.

The presence of criminals acting, in effect, as secret agents for the 
police fosters distrust in certain communities and may lead to an 
increase in violence.

Lt. David Hudson, who oversees the Little Rock Police Department's 
two narcotics squads, said, "People who give us information do so 
willingly. They know the risks of cooperating with the police."

But other city residents might not know the risks they incur by 
having informants in their midst. Since informants' identities are 
secret, it is impossible to know how many, if any, of the murder 
victims in Little Rock last year were killed because they were found 
- -- or believed to be -- acting as police informants.

Secrecy limits the public's ability to weigh the cost of using 
informants against their liabilities. Each of the four departments 
mentioned here was asked how many arrests last year could be 
attributed to its use of informants. Only Maumelle answered, reporting "five."

Without being specific, the LRPD's Hudson insisted that the use of 
informants has "decreased the level of violence" by helping police 
clean out houses harboring drugs and weapons. "We've made 
neighborhoods a lot safer," he said.

Johnson, on the other hand, acknowledged, "I can tell you that I've 
prosecuted cases where someone was killed because they were suspected 
of being a snitch."

The lack of checks and balances is exacerbated by the lack of public 
records illuminating police and prosecutors' decisions regarding 
informants. As standards blur, with some people going to prison for 
crimes and others going to work for police, some scholars fear that 
the line between what's seen as lawful and unlawful is blurring as well.

Trust lies at the heart of the contract between police, the courts 
and the public. The problem with informants is that they are, 
essentially, betrayers of trust. And any agency that works with them 
gets tainted by association.

Suspicions about informants reflect on the agencies that use them. 
Secretive policies, while understandable, heighten, rather than 
dispel, those concerns.

As awareness of the costs of informant use has risen, so too have 
demands for some kind of accountability. Release of data on the 
number of informants being used in an area, along with the types of 
crimes for which they face charges, would not compromise an informant 
program, but could allow at least minimal public oversight.

The procedure for handling informants that's given to North Little 
Rock detectives starts out with a warning:

"The use of informants in law enforcement is an evil necessity...," 
it begins. "It is most important to remember that an informant works 
as an extension of law enforcement, and detectives are cautioned to 
ensure that anytime an informant is working for them that the 
constitutional rights of all individuals are protected."

The preface reminds detectives of the need to avoid entrapment and to 
corroborate, as much as possible, statements made by an informant. It 
concludes: "Two important items to remember when utilizing informants are:

"1. They should never be trusted.

"2. Their motive should always be considered."

That last is good advice for detectives. It may also be a good word 
of caution for every community whose police rely on informants.

As another cop in "The Departed" said to an informant who was working 
for him: "I got a problem. I run rat fucks like you, OK? I don't like 'em."
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MAP posted-by: Elaine