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Snitching in the Spotlight:
House Committee Holds Hearing on Informant
Abuses
The
House Judiciary Committee heard police and legal experts say
there needs to be more oversight and tighter standards on the
use of confidential informants in law enforcement at a July 19
hearing. The hearing was called by committee chair Rep. John
Conyers (D-MI) to look into ways to avoid abuses such as those
that led to the shooting death of 92-year-old Atlanta resident
Kathryn Johnston last December.
Johnston was killed after opening fire
on undercover Atlanta narcotics officers who were breaking down
her door to serve a "no-knock" search warrant for cocaine.
Those officers had obtained the warrant from an Atlanta magistrate
by falsely telling him that a confidential informant had made
drug buys at Johnston's location. Later that same day, those
officers attempted to get that informant to lie and back them
up, but the informant instead went to federal authorities. Two
officers involved have since pleaded guilty to manslaughter,
while a third awaits trial on false imprisonment charges.
While it was the Johnston killing that
led directly to last month's hearing, concern over the widespread
use of informants, or snitches, has been mounting for years,
especially in regard to drug law enforcement. Hostility toward
law enforcement either threatening low-level offenders to intimidate
them into informing on others ("Do you want to be gang-raped
for 30 years in prison instead?") or cultivating mercenary
informers who infiltrate communities and set up drug deals for
monetary gain has been simmering in poor and minority communities
for years.
The "Stop Snitching" movement,
much maligned by law enforcement officials as undermining the
rule of law, is, at least in part, a direct consequence of the
drug war's reliance on confidential informants. Especially in
black communities, which have been hard hit the drug war, anger
over drug war tactics, including the use of informants, is palpable.
Now, with Democrats once again in control
of Congress, Congress is ready to listen - and possibly to act.
Rep. Conyers said at the hearing and in meetings with American
Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Drug Law Reform Project and Drug Policy Alliance staffers that is he
preparing legislation to attempt to rein in the out of control
use of informants. The use of informants is "totally out
of control," said Conyers. "It's every law enforcement
agency for itself. This is corrupting the entire criminal justice
process," he warned.
"We've got a serious problem here
that goes beyond coughing up cases where snitches were helpful,"
Conyers continued. "The whole criminal justice system is
being intimidated by the way this thing is being run and in many
cases, especially at the local level, mishandled.
A lot of people have died because of misinformation,
starting with Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta. Getting the wrong
house, they cost the 92-year old woman her life. But then law
enforcement tried to intimidate the confidential informant to
clean the mess up. Then you get law enforcement involved in perpetrating
the cover up of what is clearly criminal activity. So this is
not a small deal that brings us here today and we are going to
do something about it."
There will be more hearings to come, Conyers
promised. "This is the first time that we have gotten into
this matter in more than a dozen years. But this is only the
tip of the iceberg. We've got to hold the most thorough hearings
in recent American history on the whole question of the criminal
justice system, which goes way beyond informants. It's been picked
up and articulated by many of the witnesses, that we are talking
about the culture of the law enforcement system and how it's
got to be changed. One hearing starts us off, and I'm very proud
of what we have accomplished here today."
At the hearing, law enforcement personnel
and legal scholars alike acknowledged that the informant system
is loosely supervised and can lead to corner-cutting and abuses
by police. "The government's use of criminal informants
is largely secretive, unregulated and unaccountable," Alexandra
Natapoff, a Loyola Law School professor who studies the issue,
told the panel.
The massive reliance on informants makes
communities not safer but more dangerous, said Natapoff. "What
does this mean for law abiding residents like Mrs. Johnston?"
she asked. "It means they must live in close proximity to
criminal offenders looking for a way to work off their liability.
Indeed, it made Kathryn Johnston's home a target for a drug dealer.
It also means that police in these neighborhoods tolerate petty
drug offenses in exchange for information, and so addicts and
low level dealers can often remain on the street. It also makes
law enforcement less rigorous: police who rely heavily on informants
are more likely to act on an uncorroborated tip from a suspected
drug dealer. In other words, a neighborhood with many criminal
informants in it is a more dangerous and insecure place to live."
The massive reliance on informants also
corrodes police-community relations, Natapoff said. "This
question about the use of confidential informants goes to the
heart of the problem of police-community relations," she
told the panel. "It's an historical problem in this country,
it's not reducible to the problem of informing or snitching or
stop snitching, but I would submit that the 20-year policy on
the part of state, local and federal government of using confidential
informants and sending criminals back into the community with
some form of impunity and lenience, and turning a blind eye to
their bad behavior, has increased the distrust between police
and community."
The Rev. Markel Hutchins, pastor of the
Philadelphia Baptist Church in Atlanta and a spokesman for the
Johnston family, also addressed the hearing. "There is a
problem with the culture of policing in America," Hutchins
said. "And because of that culture, far too often police
officers feel that they can do what they want to under the cover
of law. This committee has a unique opportunity to help protect
even the officers themselves that engage in this kind of behavior
by insolating them from the capacity or the potential they have
to engage in this kind of corrupt behavior."
There must be more accountability in the
courts, said Hutchins. "I will submit to this committee
that if the fabricated confidential informant that was mentioned
and feloniously used in the Kathryn Johnston case had been required
to appear before a judge, Ms. Johnston would still be alive today...
It was just too easy for these police officers to go in front
of a judge and to lie. They've engaged in this kind of practice
for years and it's been happening all over the country... If
police had done due diligence, they would have known that a 92-year
old woman lived there in the home by herself. There was no corroboration.
There was not any appropriate investigative work done. But I
think that probably the most poignant thing that happened to
Ms. Johnston is had she not been 92-years old, and had she been
my age, 29-30 year old, and a young black man, we might not be
having this hearing right now," Hutchins said.
Even National Narcotic Officers' Association
Coalition President Ronald Brooks agreed that reforms are necessary.
"We need to take an absolute hard line posture when law
enforcement breaks the rules, like in any other profession,"
he told the committee. "The conduct at first blush committed
in Atlanta, and in Tulia, and in Dallas, and in a host of other
places was criminal conduct by law enforcement officers and that
conduct should be punished vigorously... We need to instill an
ethical culture that says that the ends never justify the means...
We only have one opportunity to have credibility in our courts
and in our communities," Brooks said.
"It was a really good hearing,"
said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy
Alliance. "Conyers said he wants to introduce omnibus legislation
overhauling the use of confidential informants. Right now, we
and the ACLU Drug Policy Law Project are working with his office
to come up with specific language," Piper said. "The
question now is what the bill is going to look like. If anyone
has suggestions, contact us or Conyers' office," he said.
"The hearing was amazing!" said
Ana del Llano, informant campaign coordinator for the ACLU Drug
Law Reform Project. "We are hoping that when Congress comes
back from recess in September, we will be able to have a bill
filed."
Advocates are focusing on a number of reforms
surrounding the use of informants:
* Guidelines on the use and regulation
of informants' corroboration;
* Reliability hearings, pre-warrant and
pre-sentencing;
* Performance measures;
* Data collection;
* Requiring federal agents to notify state
and local law enforcement when they have evidence that their
informant committed a violent felony, or evidence that an accused
person is innocent;
* Placing conditions on federal funding
that will require state and local police to follow the provisions
of this legislation.
"It's about time -- both for hearings
and for the passage of legislation to rein in the snitches",
said Nora Callahan, director of the November Coalition, a drug
reform group that concentrates on federal drug war prisoners.
"The informant system is a secret, hidden policing system,"
she said. "When queried, most police departments, federal,
state and local, don't have any written policy or procedures
with regard to their use of informants. How dependent is law
enforcement on a system of snitches? Police departments can't
give us data on snitches. Researchers have discovered that about
90% of search warrants are granted by judges who see nothing
more than an officer's statement from a confidential informant.
They bust down doors on words of people trading information for
police favors."
The system is truly pernicious, Callahan
argued. "Some psychologists teach police departments how
to turn people into cooperators, also called informers or snitches.
It's time, the threat of long years in prison, that reduces people
to rolling over on their mothers, or their best friends,"
she said.
Now, at long last, Congress may intervene.
But last month's hearing was only the beginning.
Watch the entire hearing online and read
official written testimony at: judiciary.house.gov/oversight.aspx?ID=356
Another Congress Forgets Prisoners, Reform
By Fran Koontz and Ray Koontz, Special To The Register, August
25, 2007
With our son in prison, we held out hope that a Democratic
Congress would usher in a return to reason and would reform federal
prison sentencing.
Eight months later, nothing has happened. Drug addicts and
mentally ill people continue to be incarcerated, and tax dollars
continue to be wasted.
We had hoped to see Congress reinstate parole in the federal
prison system and outlaw mandatory minimum sentences, which take
discretion away from judges. We had hoped to see the release
of nonviolent offenders who had served more than 10 years and
are over age 45.
Beyond wasting money, continuing to warehouse them past that
age is just plain criminal.
Forgotten in all of this, of course, are the prisoners, rotting
away at taxpayer expense. They work at less than slave wages,
with no hope of parole and no treatment for their mental illnesses
or addiction.
Here's a glimpse at a rare visit:
They stare out through bars as their families drive into the
parking lot. We wave toward the window that we know to be theirs,
smiling through our tears. We fill out forms and take off our
shoes and belts. Rings and watches go through metal detectors.
We're not allowed to wear toeless shoes, sleeveless blouses
or jackets past a certain date, even though it's chilly in the
visitors room. We can't carry purses, only clear plastic, with
$20. Everyone runs for the vending machines. We'll be here six
or eight hours, and that's the only food available.
We wait, nervous, anxious for our son to come through the
door from the cell area. There he is, smiling, hurrying toward
us, arms outstretched for our far-too-seldom hugs and kisses.
That's all we're allowed.
We long to hold him, touch him, make sure he's still whole,
body and spirit. We're not allowed. Only one hello hug and kiss,
and one in saying goodbye.
We talk about everything and nothing. He catches up on family
doings. He longs to attend the Koontz family picnic, play ball
with cousins, visit with aunts, see all the new "little
ones" born in the past 11 years.
Unless Congress acts to remember our forgotten sons and daughters,
we won't live to see our son at our table again.
Prison building is a growth industry in the United States
today. Once a prison is built, it's a capital investment and
must be filled. The jobs, once created, must be sustained for
those working them. Small towns compete for "prison industries,"
while we outsource real manufacturing jobs overseas.
Sons and daughters of the working class fill these prisons,
kids who drank too much and used illegal drugs, hurting themselves
and those who loved them. Forty-five percent of federal prisoners
suffer from mental illness, according to the most recent Department
of Justice data.
Fifty percent reported using illegal drugs in the month before
their offense, but less than half of those classified as drug
dependent or abusing took part in any drug treatment since their
admission to prison, the department reported.
These mentally ill people and drug abusers have been forgotten
by lawmakers who get elected on "tough on crime" platforms.
Many people say, "Well, they broke the law." Yes,
and they destroyed themselves and their families in the doing.
Should taxpayers spend millions each year "protecting"
themselves from people who themselves need protection - but only
from themselves and their illnesses?
Our kids are sick. Let's stop locking them away. Contact your
representatives in Congress to demand changes in federal prison
laws. Are representatives meeting the needs of their constituents
and these forgotten prisoners, or are they meeting the needs
of special interests?
At election time, we should not forget those who let this
terrible travesty of justice continue.
Now, the presidential hopefuls are coming to town, promising
job protection, health care and education. Some want to protect
the "sanctity" of the unborn while ignoring the lives
of those already here.
The poor, jobless, homeless, mentally ill, addicted and imprisoned
are all ignored. Oh well, they won't vote anyway.
The candidates have to raise big bucks to buy TV time to keep
K Street vendors as friends. Yet, after November 2008, the prisoners,
our loved ones, will be forgotten again for another four years.
Please let our son come home.
Ray and Fran Koontz live in Des Moines. Their son, John,
51, is serving his 11th year in federal prison on drug and weapons
charges. He was sentenced to 25 years. There is no parole in
the federal system, and prisoners must serve 85 percent of their
sentences. Unless the laws are changed, John Koontz will be 62
when he's released.
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August 3, 2007
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