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Why should snitches' testimony get extra scrutiny?

One of the CCA "Integrity Unit" members, Texas House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden, posed a question to Justice Project President John Terzano regarding snitches during his presentation yesterday that inspired me to (perhaps rudely?) interject from the audience a response to his concerns. (I was attending as part of my consulting gig with the Innocence Project of Texas.)Terzano was arguing that informants whose testimony will be compensated by money, reduced charges or more lenient sentences for other crimes they've committed should be subjected to a pre-trial reliability hearing in which a judge, outside the purview of the jury, makes an independent determination whether the informant is a reliable source.Regular readers know this is an idea that I've long regarded highly since first hearing about the concept from Loyola (CA) law prof Alexandra Natapoff, a former federal public defender turned law professor and a deep thinker on snitching-related topics...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on September 26, 2008 (boomark / email).