Archive for December 2, 2009
The fallacy of the good-hearted informant
Dec 2nd
An all too common scene in trials when a jailhouse snitch testifies is the elaborate song and dance performed by said snitch and the prosecutor to convince everyone (a bit too loudly) that there is no quid pro quo.
“Did you talk to anyone from the prosecutor’s office before coming forward with [insert damning piece of evidence]?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did anyone from the prosecutor’s office promise you anything in exchange for your testimony?”
“Not a damn thing.”
“Have you been told you’d get a reduction in your sentence for co-operating truthfully?”
“I wish I had, but no one has been so kind.”
“Is everything you’ve said been the truth?”
“Do I look like a liar?”
“So why did you come to us with this information?”
“Out of the goodness of my heart.”
That is what I shall henceforth call “the fallacy of the good-hearted informant”. You can picture it now, can’t you? The prosecutor winking, the informant nodding, the defendant eye-rolling, the judge snickering. The jury? Well, that’s the important question.
Does a jury buy this? Does anyone seriously believe that an inmate would testify without any expectation of a reward? Is there any inmate foolish enough to testify without an expectation?
Consider this: information is power in the criminal justice system. Not the truth. Information. When an inmate obtains information, there is but one thought on his mind: how do I use this to my advantage? How do I translate this into a lower sentence?
Sure, the prosecutor and the inmate may never actually utter the words “sentence modification”, but it is an unwritten understanding. That’s part of the game. The State knows it, the inmate knows it. If he cooperates, he will get some consideration. No one wants to be in jail, whether it is for 6 months or 60 years, and any little advantage that can be obtained, will be used. And the State has an incentive to offer modifications, too. If they really do stiff an informant and don’t reduce his sentence, the next guy will hear about it and will be more hesitant to come forward.
Confession is king and a confession to someone who is not law enforcement is even better. So you can bet every penny left in your 401K that three weeks after a conviction in this hypothetical trial, a motion for modification of sentence will be filed and the sentence of the informant will be reduced.
A chilling confession to a heinous crime is worth its weight in years. So, the next time you’re a juror in a criminal case and an informant testifies that he has no expectation of a reduction in his sentence, join the defendant in rolling your eyes and then tell the rest of the panel that he’s full of it during deliberations.
As for the defense attorneys (and in an effort to make this post more than just stating the obvious), what tricks do you find work best in countering this charade? Maybe someone should start keeping track of every time an informant has received a reduction in his/her sentence after testifying in a particular courthouse or with the blessings of a particular prosecutor’s office.
[For more posts on other fallacies and legal fictions, click here.]
From the ass’s mouth
Dec 2nd
Or: Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to speak ill of the dead, David Martin? David Martin, of course, is the man who “represented” Cameron Todd Willingham, the possibly innocent man executed by Texas on the basis some rather dubious arson evidence.
Willingham is dead, there is a controversy over his innocence and David Martin was apparently missing the limelight. So he decided to give an interview to the press in which he said the following:
The veteran defense attorney represented Willingham at trial. He looked at all the evidence. And he has no doubt that his client deserved to die.
“I never think about him, but I do think about those year-old babies crawling around in an inferno with their flesh melting off their bodies,” Martin said. “I think that he was guilty, that he deserved death and that he got death.”
This is a man that, at least in name, represented Willingham. A lawyer, a member of the bar and a capital criminal defense attorney. I use the quotes around the word represented because:
Martin’s case was brief, with just two witnesses. The first was the family baby sitter, who testified there was an oil lamp in the hallway, suggesting it might have spilled and spread flammable liquid. The second was a jail inmate, who was going to dispute the testimony of a jailhouse snitch who claimed Willingham had confessed. But the judge forbid most of his testimony as hearsay.
But of course, one cannot keep a champion fool like Martin quiet. This is not the first time he’s opened his mouth about Willingham and his belief in Willingham’s guilt. A mere few months ago, when the arson story broke, he gave an interview on Anderson Cooper:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5cFKpjRnXE[/youtube]
I must’ve missed it, but my good friends over at Defending People and Simple Justice didn’t (see Mark’s post for links to other posts on Martin’s stupidity).
As Scott summed it up:
While no one can make a criminal defense lawyer believe in the innocence of his client, or chose to argue it after his representation has ended, he can be taken to task for doing the unthinkable, the outrageous and the facially wrong. David Martin’s comments are a disgrace of the lowest order. And, for good measure, just as criminal defense lawyers aren’t expected to believe in the innocence of every client, they similarly aren’t endowed with the superhuman ability to know when a person who professes innocence is in fact guilty.
I may lack an explanation for what drove David Martin to condemn his own client publicly, particularly in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence, but I have no doubt that his statements on Anderson Cooper 360 are some of the most despicable I’ve ever heard from the mouth of a lawyer. Never, but never, smear your own client.
I’m glad to say that no one I know would act like Martin did (although one has come close).
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