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Snitch’in (Continued from page 5) mention that there was honor among thieves long before hip-hop. Dishonest elected officials, corporate executives, and even the "Boys in Blue" have adhered to a don't snitch mantra over the years..... How can any responsible journalist do a story on how black people relate to the police without mentioning the pandemic of police brutality and misconduct cases across the country? With the international media attention surrounding the snitch involved in the police killing of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston, how can they produce a story on snitching without mentioning problems related to dishonest snitches?..." "Stop snitchin'" begs for an explanation of how it came to be. Anyone who watched the Frontline special "Snitch" knows It began with legislation enacted just before the 1986 election when Democrats tried to out-tough Republicans, and again just before the 1988 election. The 1986 law established mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses, except that the mandatories could be waived if the defendant provided "substantial assistance" to the prosecution. The prisons began to fill. But it was the drug conspiracy law, added in 1988, that did the work. Drug Conspiracy law allows conviction with no evidence except the word of an informant. It's been 20 years. After a number of high profile drug conspiracy cases were reported in the ten part series, "Win-at-all-Costs", by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in late 1998, prosecutors began to focus on low level dealers and women, who both lacked the resources to resist. Drug prosecutions rely so often on "substantial assistance" that it rarely makes the news. The vast majority end in plea bargains even if the accused has resources to retain an attorney. Defendants are played off against each other, often with no interest in the truth. In cases of "diverted" pharmaceuticals, for example, patients are threatened, pressured to turn on their doctors, but it can work the other way. Richard Paey, a Hudson pain patient sentenced to 25 years for "trafficking", told reporter John Tierney that prosecutors, "...said if you're willing to testify against your doctor it would go a long way to having these charges go away." According to Tierney, "Paey refused, and then found himself facing hostile testimony from the doctor, who said he had not authorized the contested prescriptions." Bernie McCabe, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney, says his prosecutors rarely go to trial with just the word of a snitch because it is hard to win, but it's different if there are multiple snitches, as in the recent Michael Vick dog fighting case. When questioned about the |
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(Continued from page 4) Legal Panel …. Susan Stanton. Her offense was handing a printed piece of paper that read “Don’t discriminate” to a man who requested it. After we had discussions with the State Attorney’s office, the charges were dropped. We are continually involved in government abuses in the use of “free speech zones” at public events. Most recently, we consulted with a group concerned about discriminatory enforcement of free speech zones near the entrance of the Pinellas Criminal Justice Center. Thanks to the following attorney members of the Legal Panel for their time and efforts: Marcia Cohen, Doreen Doe, Karen Doering, Rick Escarraz, Nancy Gorman, Mark Kamleiter, Bill Penrose, Zeina Salam, and Becky Steele. Thanks also to Carol Steele, Dwight Lawton, Ray Arsenault, Jeanie Blue and Thom Foley who regularly attend legal panel meetings. Special thanks to Jerry Moore who specializes in harassing telephone calls to attorneys to compel their attendance at meetings. |
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impact of the "Stop Snitchin" movement, he said he wasn't aware of any. Cecelia Bareda of Sheriff Jim Coats' office agreed, and emphasized the importance of a strong relationship between citizens and police. Reporting crime and testifying both depend on that good relationship, and some legal experts believe it is jeopardized by confidential informants. According to Alexandra Natapoff, a Loyola Law School professor, speaking to the panel at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on July 19th, " t's an historical problem in this country, it's not reducible to the problem of informing or snitching or "stop snitchin", but I would submit that the 20-year policy on the part of state, local and federal government of using confidential informants and sending criminals back into the community with some form of impunity and lenience, and turning a blind eye to their bad behavior, has increased the distrust between police and community," and it "..makes law enforcement less rigorous: police who rely heavily on informants are more likely to act on an uncorroborated tip from a suspected drug dealer. In other words, a neighborhood with many criminal informants in it is a more dangerous and insecure place to live." While many informants are simply naive drug buyers sent out after arrest to sell drugs to other naive buyers, a few excel at it. Denis DeVlaming, a local defense attorney, tells of a client whose forte while in prison was to try for a sentence reduction by getting bunked near prisoners on whom prosecutors needed information. The client was actually on Florida's witness list for a time. DeVlaming's experience tells him that rewarded testimony is inherently unreliable. The "Stop Snitchin" movement is a reaction to the drug war's system of paid informants and naïve snitches, and it now threatens to spread to reporting/testifying on other offenses. As a remedy, John Conyers' House Judicial Committee will write federal legislation to rein in the use of such rewarded testimony. It remains to be seen whether Florida will follow the federal lead.
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