From the 9th Circuit decision in Gonzalez v. Wong, partial concurrence/dissent of William A. Fletcher, a public service announcement.

The underlying case was resulted in the death penalty based upon a jailhouse snitch, with massive Brady issues giving rise to a reversal and remand,  But Judge Fletcher believed the Circuit could resolve the Brady issue without remand, and offered this in explanation.

In October 1988, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies learned that a jailhouse informant, Leslie White, was writing an article in which he planned to explain how informants were acquiring knowledge about defendants they had never met in order to fabricate those defendants’ confessions. Report of the 1989- 90 Los Angeles County Grand Jury, June 26, 1990, at 69 [hereinafter “Grand Jury Report”]. White agreed to demonstrate the technique to the Sheriff’s Department. The report of what White did is worth repeating in full. The report does not identify White by name, but refers to him as “the informant.”

Just the lead-in. Here’s the beef.

The sergeant gave the informant the name of an inmate who was being held in the Hall of Justice Jail on murder charges. The informant, representing himself to be an employee of a bail bond company, called the jail’s Inmate Reception Center and was able to obtain the inmate’s booking number, date of birth, color of eyes and hair, height, weight, race (Caucasian), bail ($100,000), case number, date of arrest, arresting agency (Sheriff’s Special Enforcement Bureau), next court date, and where the inmate was housed in the jail.

The informant next called the records section of the District Attorney’s Office. He said he was a Deputy District Attorney and asked for information on the inmate’s case. He was given the name of the Deputy District Attorney prosecuting the case, the Deputy District Attorney’s telephone number, and the name of a witness.

A few calls later, the informant called Sheriff’s Homicide and said he was “Sergeant Stevens” at the Central Jail. He was able to obtain the name of the murder victim, and the victim’s age and race.

The informant then called the Deputy District Attorney who was handling the case, initially identifying himself as “Sergeant Williams” with the Los Angeles Police Department. The Deputy District Attorney responded to the informant’s questions by stating, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know about the case,” and proceeded to provide details about what the victim was wearing, where his body was found, the fact that the coroner’s report said that death resulted from suffocation and/or drugs, that the victim’s blood contained a fatally high amount of methamphetamine, that the defendant confessed to stuffing the victim in a trunk, and the prosecutor’s personal opinion of the likely defense in the case. Near the end of the conversation, the informant gave his name as “Sergeant Johnson.”

At this point, the informant said he had obtained enough details about the case to enable him to fabricate a jail house confession which would be accepted by detectives. He then proceeded to demonstrate how he could arrange for contact between himself and the inmate to support the fabricated confession. The informant called a department of the Superior Court in Van Nuys, identifying himself as Deputy District Attorney “Michaels” with the Organized Crime Unit downtown. In response to the informant’s request, the court bailiff ordered the informant and the inmate to be transported to Van Nuys the following day. Id. at 69-71.
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White indicated that a fabricated confession based on this information would be sufficient to get him a “hell of a deal” with prosecutors.

And indeed, it would be sufficient to get a “hell of a deal,” and prosecutors would suck it up. Cops would suck it up. Judges and juries would suck it up. And it’s on “hell of a” scam.  The problem is that while a guy in jail might have no qualms whatsoever about burning another person to save his own sorry butt, prosecutors would neither think like this nor have any reason under the sun to scrutinize it any more closely than served their purpose of using it to get the bad guy.

Before some “brilliant” reader feels compelled to opine how the particulars of this scheme couldn’t possibly work in his jurisdiction, let me explain that this completely misses the point. Those inmates inclined to be jailhouse snitches become incredibly innovative in their ability to find ways to manipulate the system and its players.

There’s nothing like prison to bring out the tenacious ability to find ways to do things that shouldn’t be possible.  Just as prisoners are willing to secrete things in their anus that would be too repulsive for most of us to even consider, they find ways to make it happen.  So too do prisoners who want out so badly that they’ll sell another person to the executioner for their own freedom.

And now everyone can see how one prisoner pulled it off.  If you think others aren’t similarly capable, you’re deluding yourself.

H/T Mike Neal, Oregon Law Center