![]() ![]() He needed to make one more buy from the last of the three sellers and one from a new suspect to meet his obligations. Sadek made three controlled buys of 1/8 ounce of marijuana each. He was told he could face a sentence of over 40 years or work as a confidential informant he choose the latter option, wearing a wire while making drug buys. Police informed Sadek he could be charged with a Class A felony for selling marijuana on a college campus. On two sales that totaled $80, the buyer was another student working as a CI for a task force of various local law enforcement agencies. ![]() Twety-year-old Andrew Sadek began selling marijuana while attending college, meeting his customers in the parking lots at his school. These are for illustrative purposes – not a comment on the merits. Bernal-Obeso cites that, “According to one informant, … presently informants "will even book their own mother.") Cautionary tales Similarly, it behooves the government – police and prosecutors – to handle CIs with greater ethical care than ordinary witnesses because, as we know, most would dime out their mothers for a quarter and come up giving change. Bernal-Obeso (9 th Cir.)īut courts also view CIs with caution and urge jurors to do the same.įederal and state courts have pattern jury instructions that instruct jurors to view CI testimony with greater care than that of ordinary witnesses, giving particular consideration to whether their testimony was influenced by what the government gave them. "Without informants, law enforcement authorities would be unable to penetrate and destroy organized crime syndicates, drug trafficking cartels, bank frauds, telephone solicitation scams, public corruption, terrorist gangs, money launderers, espionage rings, and the likes.” U.S. Nonetheless, the Court has expressly sanctioned their use: “he informer is a vital part of society’s defensive arsenal.”Ĭourts recognize CIs are necessary in fighting crime: Supreme Court describes the use of CIs ( Lee v. Instead, this article is a cautionary tale of how, in spite of all the tools to ensure that the use of CIs passes legal and ethical muster, police practices are inciting calls for reform, restrictions and regulations. See the resource section at the end of the article for tools for all of the above. What is it like to work with police informants? ![]()
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