The Snitch System - The Innocence Project

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By way of background...The history of the snitch is long and inglorious,dating to the common law. In old England, snitcheswere ubiquitous.Their motives, then as now, wereunholy. In the 18th Century, Parliament prescribedmonetary rewards — blood money — for snitches,who were turned back onto the streets wherethey were, in the words of one contemporarycommentator,“the contempt and terror of society.”The system produced a cycle of betrayal in whicheach snitch knew he might find himself soon in thedock confronted by another snitch. An examplewas the case of Charles Cane, who had providedevidence that sent two men to their deaths in 1755.A few months later, a snitch did unto him as hehad done unto others. After Cane was hanged atTyburn in 1756, the clergyman who ministered tohim explained that Cane had expected “nothingless than hanging to be his fate at last, but not of theevil day’s coming so soon.”If all cases ended so poetically, perhaps informantdependentprosecutions would be more humorousthan objectionable. In real life, however, O. Henryendings are rare. Consider Joshua Kidden, who cameto a decidedly unpoetic end — convicted andhanged in 1754 for the highway robbery of oneMary Jones. After the execution, it was discoveredthat Mary was a member of a conspiracy tocollect blood money.A cohort planted a coin on thehapless mark, another apprehended him, and Maryidentified the coin as hers.The conspirators netted£140 per case, at the expense of an untold numberof innocent lives.The snitch system probably arrived in the NewWorld with the Pilgrims.The first documentedwrongful conviction case in the United Statesinvolved a snitch.The case arose in Manchester,Vermont, in 1819. Brothers Jesse and StephenBoorn were suspected of killing their brother-in-law,Russell Colvin. Jesse was put into a cell witha forger, Silas Merrill, who would testify that Jesseconfessed. Merrill was rewarded with freedom.The Boorn brothers were convicted and sentencedto death but saved from the gallows when Colvinturned up alive in New Jersey.Artist’s depiction of Russell Colvin’s murder,as imagined by a jailhouse snitch in 1819America’s most infamous snitch, Leslie VernonWhite, happened along 170 years later in California.A career criminal,White faked confessions in dozensof cases, worming details about the cases out ofpolice and prosecutors by telephone from jail. In aninterview on Sixty Minutes,White joked thatthe snitch system had spawned slogans:“Don’t go tothe pen, send a friend” and “If you can’t do thetime, just drop a dime.”The experience shows pretty much what you wouldexpect — that when the criminal justice systemoffers witnesses incentives to lie, they will.This report was researched and written by Rob Warden,Executive Director, Center on Wrongful ConvictionsDesign: Joanna Wilkiewicz.Copyright © 2004, Northwestern UniversityCREDITSIllustrations:This page by an anonymous illustratorof The Dead Alive, a novel by Wilkie Collins based on theBoorn-Colvin case and published in the United States by Shepardand Gill, 1874; Page 15 by Rob Warden.Photographs: Cover by Kevin German. Facing page by (variously)Loren Santow, Andrew Lichtestein,Taryn Simon, and JenniferLinzer; Pages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 by Loren Santow; Page 12by Jennifer Linzer. Page 13 courtesy of the Illinois Departmentof Corrections.2
Snitch Testimony is the Leading Causeof Wrongful Convictions in Capital CasesNational Roster of Death RowSnitch VictimsRandall Dale AdamsSentenced to death in 1977 for the murderof a police officer during a traffic stop inDallas. Snitch:The actual killer who receivedimmunity from prosecution in exchange fortestifying. Exonerated by: Killer’s recantation.Years lost: 13Joseph AmrineSentenced to death in 1986 for the murder ofa fellow prisoner in Missouri. Snitches:Twoprisoners who claimed they saw Amrine killthe victim and a third who claimed Amrineadmitted it. Exonerated by: Recantations byall three prisoners and exculpatory affidavitsfrom two others.Years lost: 10Gary BeemanSentenced to death in 1976 for a murder inOhio. Snitch:A prison escapee, who claimedhe saw Beeman with the victim aroundthe time of the crime and later with blood onhis clothes. Exonerated by: Five witnesseswho testified the snitch told them Beemanhad nothing to do with the crime.Years lost: 4Dan L. BrightSentenced to death in 1996 for a murderin New Orleans. Snitch:A felon who testifiedin anticipation of leniency. Exonerated by:Disclosure of a suppressed FBI reportindicating someone else committed the crime.Years lost: 8Anthony Siliah BrownSentenced to death in 1983 in Florida.Snitch:The actual killer, who testified againstBrown in exchange for leniency. Exoneratedby: Killer’s recantation at Brown’s retrial.Years lost: 3These men are among 51 nationally who have been exonerated of crimes for whichthey were sentenced to death based in whole or part on the testimony of witnesseswith incentives to lie — in the vernacular, snitches. For the most part, the incentivisedwitnesses were jailhouse informants promised leniency in their own cases or killerswith incentives to cast suspicion away from themselves. In all, there have been 111death row exonerations since capital punishment was resumed in the 1970s.The snitch cases account for 45.9% of those.That makes snitches the leading cause ofwrongful convictions in U.S. capital cases — followed by erroneous eyewitnessidentification testimony in 25.2% of the cases, false confessions in 14.4%, and falseor misleading scientific evidence in 9.9%.Shabaka BrownSentenced to death in 1974 for a robbery andmurder in Florida. Snitch:A criminal whotestified that he waited outside in a car while,unbeknownst to him, Brown committed thecrime. Exonerated by:The snitch’s admissionthat he fabricated the testimony in exchangefor a previously undisclosed promise ofleniency.Years lost: 143
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