Jailhouse Snitches

This story is hilarious. California passed a law saying "You can't convict a defendant based solely on the uncorroborated testimony of a jailhouse informants." Do you see the joke?

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Do you get the joke? This was such a problem common, that they passed a law forbidding it!

Can you imagine that? Judges and juries are saying "The only evidence against the defendant is a jailhouse informant. That's good enough for me! I'm convicting!" Not only that, it's a common problem?!

Here's how jailhouse snitches work. Suppose you were already convicted (or plea bargained), and sentenced to 5 years in jail. The prosecutor offers you 2 years off your sentence, if you testify against someone else. Under those circumstances, most people will react "What do you want me to say?"

There is a huge temptation for a jailhouse snitch to lie. It is offensive that prosecutors get away with such abuse. It is even more offensive that judges and juries rubberstamp convictions based solely on jailhouse snitches.

If a defendant tries to bribe a witness, that's felony witness tampering. If a prosecutor bribes a witness via a sentence reduction, that's a normal day at the office.

That's the joke. In California, abuse of jailhouse snitches was such a big problem, that they passed a law explicitly forbidding convictions based solely on jailhouse snitches. (I wonder. If two different jailhouse snitches say the same thing, is it now corroborated? That loophole may still exist.)