Undercover informants
ABC news reported tonight on Rachel Hoffman, a Florida girl who was murdered after being forced to work as an informant for Tallahassee police following her arrests for POT.
After being caught twice with a "baggie" of marijuana, 23-year old Rachel Hoffman was reportedly told by police in Tallahassee, Florida that she would go to prison for four years unless she became an undercover informant. The young woman, a recent graduate of Florida State University, was murdered during a botched sting operation two months ago.
The Tallahassee police chief said:
Rachel was suspected of selling drugs and she was rightly treated as a criminal. "That's my job as a police chief to find these criminals in our community and take them off the street, to make the proper arrests," Jones told 20/20.
This is why, 9 times out of 10, I advise my clients not to work with the Horry County DEU (drug enforcement unit) or Horry County police. Any time they make a drug bust, DEU will go to the jail and interview the person before they have a chance to speak with a lawyer. They will tell them they are going to prison if they don't cooperate, but they can help themselves by helping the cops. If they are willing, they are debriefed and tell the narcs who they know and who they can help bust, and if they know the right people the narcs get them out of jail and send them out wearing a wire to make more busts.
Sometimes this is a good deal, but more often than not your case is going to turn out the same whether you help them or not. Sometimes you come out worse, because now you are under their thumb and if you don't stop using or selling they will bust you again. And again. This is why no-one should agree to work with the narcs or even speak to them until they have consulted with an attorney about their situation.
And then, sometimes you end up dead. I once represented a person who was accused of chasing down an informant after a drug deal gone bad, and then emptying his gun into her head. When my clients ask if it is a good idea to work with the narcs, I tell them this story before they make their decision. The narcs insist that they are just down the street and will protect them, but they know that it is not possible to truly protect their informants.
I am always amazed by Horry County police officers who insist that they will not allow my 18 year old clients with no prior record, charged with simple possession of a joint, into PTI or give them a conditional discharge unless my client "gives them someone else." My answer is always no - and every one of those cases results in a dismissal, conditional discharge, or pre-trial diversion anyway, because that is the right outcome.
Besides the danger of violence, there is the danger of continued drug use period. I have clients that I watch struggle with staying clean, and I know that if they were to work for the narcs they cannot stay clean - if they are hanging around drug dealers and drug users, they will use drugs because they cannot help it. The narcs know this, but will use them up and throw them away so that they can make more busts.
Light needs to be shed on the tools that law enforcement uses in the war on (people) drugs. When they think informant, most people have a picture from the movies of a hardened drug dealer, toting a pistol and wearing the scars of his violent life, that works with law enforcement for pay or to get a deal on his charges. When they know the reality, that often it is the college student or the young person no different than their own children that is being placed in harm's way, maybe people will see this aspect of the war on drugs differently.
Comments
Another great example of oppression and tyranny being alive and well in the USA.
It's time to remove all the politicians that promote prohibition. How many more lives have to be needlessly devastated or lost? Prohibited drugs are way easier for kids to get than regulated drugs! Prohibition never works it just causes crime and violence. The year alcohol prohibition ended violent crime fell by 65 percent.
On March 22, 1972 the Richard Nixon-appointed, 13-member National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended the decriminalization of marijuana, concluding, "[Marijuana's] relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."
The USA spends 69 billion tax dollars every year on the drug war, builds 900 new prison beds and hires 150 more correction officers every two weeks, arrests someone on a drug charge every 17 seconds, jails more people than any nation and has killed over 100,000 citizens in the drug war.
In 1914 when there were no prohibited drugs 1.3% of our population was addicted to drugs, today 1.3% of our population is still addicted to drugs and there’s way more crime and violence because of the huge profits prohibition generates.
Guns, thievery, prostitution, violence and many other so called “drug related” problems usually have absolutely nothing to do with using drugs, they have to do with drug prohibition. Al Capone didn’t kill people because he was drunk, he killed people because they got between him and his illegal drug money. The same goes for the drug gangsters of today.
Every time you look at the news you see more and more drug busts involving bigger and bigger quantities of drugs, not less and less. There are much more effective, far less expensive and far less harmful ways to deal with drug use and addiction than the war on drugs.
There’s only been one drug success story in US history, tobacco, by far the most deadly and one of the most addictive drugs. Almost half the users quit because of regulation, accurate information and medical treatment. No one went to jail and no one got killed.
Not one person in history has ever died from marijuana. Many have died from its PROHIBITION.
The right; to freedom of religion, free speech, a free press, to keep and bear arms, to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, to life, liberty and property, to be protected from having your property taken by the government without due process of law and without just compensation, to confront the witnesses against you, to be protected from excessive bail, excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, to vote and many others have been denied to millions of Americans in the name of the drug war.
If you are called for jury duty and you don’t agree with the law the person is charged with, you have the right to vote not guilty, no matter what evidence is produced. Jurors implementing this right in all non-violent drug cases will shut down the ridiculous laws of prohibition. One juror in each case is all it takes. The bottom line is a juror has the right to judge not only the accused person but also the LAW the person is accused of breaking. Don’t be intimidated stick to your position Vote Not Guilty in all non-violent drug cases.
You are not going to get arrested if you contact your elected government representatives and tell them you’re in favor of changing the drug laws, or if you get signatures on a drug policy reform petition, so what are you afraid of? If not now, when… If not you, who? Are you one of the millions of Americans that has become addicted to the drug war? Drug prohibition has been going on for decades with zero positive results and tons of negative results. Are you willing to be part of the solution?
Even the World Health Organization has documented the Failure of U.S. Drug Policies, read the article here, join the mailing list, watch the videos:
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Posted by: jsknow | July 26, 2008 10:57 PM