I was personally aware of two political corruption cases while a senior legislative staff member for House leadership at the state legislature, and both times the corruption was uncovered because of informants who were also staff to the persons under investigation.  They were not coerced, but came forward voluntarily and agreed to work undercover.

In one instance, one of those staff members had flipped on her boss because he was demanding a monthly kickback from a proposed raise she was getting. She initially agreed, and then unbeknownst to him went straight to the authorities. Both those now-former public officials would never have been nailed and driven from office without the assistance of confidential informants.

I'm of the opinion that the majority of those few white-collar crime and political corruption that ARE investigated would nevertheless subsequently STILL go unprosecuted and unpunished, were it not for the ability of authorities to gain the confidence and assistance of staff and / or employees.

I understand full well why you don't like informants, or "snitches" as you call them, in your role as a defense attorney, especially since you work with criminal drug cases. I know some of my former colleagues like to think otherwise, but life on the streets and in the boonies has a tendency to be far more raw and hardcore than its counterpart at any state capitol, city hall or county municipal building.

Unfortunately, I will admit that your concerns often prove well-founded when you're dealing with the deceitful likes of unethical prosecutors.  And that's the rub here -- it's not the confidential informants who create the problem here, but rather those prosecutors whose primary focus is upon winning their case, instead of uncovering the truth.

I would offer that the probability of occurrence for such problems will increase or decrease proportionally to the risk of sanction, i.e., whenever the potential professional reward to prosecutors who engage in such duplicity is greater than the potential personal threat to their own lives and careers.

But certainly, we can mitigate greatly your concerns by putting some real teeth into those rules and statutes governing the use and conduct of confidential informants, with severe civil and criminal penalties assessed for any conscious failure on the part of prosecutors to fulfill their obligations to the people they represent, by not fully disclosing to the defense and the Court said informant's role in the case and any standing agreement between the parties.

As it stands, few if any states sanction those officials and prosecutors who willfully violate said disclosure requirement, beyond perhaps a belated referral to their respective state bar associations for a smackdown from their peers.

The burden is already on the state to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt. Well, because the exact nature of any relationship between state and government witness is also potentially exculpatory evidence, and it should therefore also be the burden of the state to ensure that such disclosure of said relationship is fully realized in a timely manner. It should not be left to you as a defense attorney to uncover those details and specifics, which would in effect allow the prosecution to play a shell game with you and your client(s).

With a few notable exceptions, juries have generally shown tremendous capacity to separate the wheat from the chaff, and can assess fairly the veracity of the prosecution's witnesses and the stories they tell once the full extent of the relationship between state and witness is made known.

That said, jurors will most always render problematic verdicts whenever sand is thrown in their faces, and clearly relevant evidence is denied their perusal and consideration during their deliberations.

Anyway, maybe you won't agree with me, but thank you for allowing me to share my two cents.

And also, thank you for doing what you do, Jeralyn. Our system of justice would never work nearly as well as it does, were it not for the dedicated efforts of attorneys and civil libertarians like you to ensure that the constitutional rights of both defendants and suspects are protected to the full extent of the law.