Imagine being charged with a serious crime -- maybe even capital murder. You’re arrested and thrown in jail and placed in a cellblock with a dozen other prisoners. Word gets around what you’re charged with and anyone who has spent even a few weeks locked up knows how the system works.
Whether you’re innocent or not becomes irrelevant. Virtually every county jail in the country is infested with rats – “jailhouse snitches” who are often themselves career criminals and know only too well how to play the system. It’s all about giving up a bigger fish… turning “jailhouse snitch” to get out of your crime and the bigger the crime the other guy is charged with, the better.
Prosecutors not only know how the game is played, but actually encourage it. Prisons are full or inmates convicted at least partially upon jailhouse snitch testimony. Some courts have recognized that this self-serving testimony in which some form of biological toxic waste turns state on another prisoner, claimed “he told me he did it” is inherently unreliable. Clearly the snitch has a reason for turning state – this parasite is not coming forth out of civic duty but because he knows that by becoming a state witness he will be rewarded by the state with a significantly lesser sentence than he would have other wise received – maybe even have the charges against him dropped altogether if he becomes an important witness in a capital case.
Anyone charged with a major crime and thrown in jail to await trial becomes a target. Not surprisingly the use of jailhouse snitches by prosecutors is significantly higher in circuits that have a history of wrongful convictions, where morally and ethically corrupt prosecutors adopt a “win by any means necessary” mentality and encourage county jail inmates to turn snitch on each other. Prosecutors know they can knowingly use false testimony and cannot be charged themselves even if caught as prosecutors are protected by immunity. Please read, “Prosecutorial Misconduct: Does Immunity Invite Injustice?.
The legal system attempts to protect against wrongful conviction of innocent men and women by establishing rules that require prosecutors to disclose any deals or agreements made to these parasitic jailhouse snitches so that when they do testify the jury will know that they have an interest and substantial incentive to testify against another inmate.
By law, the state must fully disclose all promises or deals made to any witness in exchange for their cooperation to the defense counsel. Thus, when a jailhouse snitch does testify the defendant’s lawyer can then subject the snitch to cross-examination and expose his personal motivations for testifying against another inmate.
As stated, most of these jailhouse snitches are actually career criminals themselves, and they have no problem falsely claiming another inmate confessed to them – it’s not like truth means a lot to a burnt out junky and career criminal out to save his own pathetic butt. If this snitch is actually testifying only because he (or she) stands to personally gain by turning snitch, then certainly the jury needs to know that before they can weigh the credibility of that crucial testimony.
But once again we see that the legal system itself is so inherently corrupt that now it is revealed that the judges themselves are secretly collaborating with state prosecutors to deliberately conceal deals made to snitches in criminal cases, intentionally hiding crucial information from the jury.
In an investigation conducted by the Miami Herald a few months ago, it was discovered that the Miami-Dade and Broward County Courts were working secretly with local prosecutors to fabricate false records to protect snitches. (Please read, “Dockets doctored to shield snitches,” Miami Herald, November 18, 2006). This investigation only looked into court records in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties – but what of Florida’s other 65 counties? If those records are deliberately concealed, then how can it be determined just how widespread this practice is?
Incredibly, the judges and state prosecutors caught collaborating together to fabricate these false records to protect snitches now claim that their conduct is justified as it actually serves a public interest to conceal the truth.
But what of those wrongfully convicted and even condemned to death because of the use of false testimony provided by a jailhouse snitch only because he was secretly awarded a deal for his “cooperation?” The truth is that there are literally hundreds of men and women presently on death row today because of testimony provided by a jailhouse snitch, an experienced criminal – who was rewarded for that testimony with favorable treatment in exchange for his “cooperation.” This favorable treatment has enabled may a career criminal to continue his criminal career and even end up back in jail numerous times to snitch and do it all over again and again.
How can it ever be within the public’s interest for the courts and the prosecutor to secretly collaborate together to conceal the very evidence necessary for exposing the truth and prevent an innocent person from being wrongfully convicted and often even condemned to death? If a jailhouse snitch’s testimony is for all purposes being bought and paid for by the state, then shouldn’t the jury know this so they can consider that when weighing the credibility of that snitches own self-serving testimony before possibly convicting an innocent person?
Consider this, too – almost without exception these parasitic jailhouse snitches are themselves career criminals, knowledgeable in how to manipulate the legal system to their own advantage. They know that by giving the state a bigger fish they will be rewarded with a substantially reduction in their own sentence, or even have their own charges dropped altogether, then are released back on the streets to then continue their own criminal career.
By “playing” the system. These snitches know that they have been granted what amounts to complete immunity to commit more crimes often even violent crimes – as even if arrested again and again they are protected by prosecutors and need only to find another innocent victim to turn upon in the jail to again buy their own freedom. In many cases jailhouse snitches have actually repeated this cycle many times over, which begs the question… how can it ever be in the public’s interest to release a career criminal back on to the streets with what amounts to complete immunity to commit more crimes and continue his own criminal career?
The real tragedy here is that the general public still continues to conveniently ignore the truth… Our contemporary judicial system is inherently corrupt and the corruption comes from within the system itself. Truth and justice no longer matter, as prosecutors today are politicians who climb their career ladders by winning convictions by any means necessary, and ethical constraint is a career liability.
Today’s judicial system accepts and even embraces that it is all right if a few innocent men and women are wrongfully convicted and even condemned to death. But maybe they wouldn’t see it that way if it were them (or their own child) who became a victim of today’s corrupt judicial system.
I would encourage you to fully read the website “Southern Injustice: Exposing Bigotry & Injustice in The South.” Only by recognizing the corruption within the judicial system is there any chance of correcting it.
