Betrayal is part of the human condition.

It is a popular topic in our society’s fiction. Winston in Orwell’s 1984 swore to never betray his love. When Big Brother physically and psychologically tortured him, however, he absolutely betrayed her and would have betrayed anyone to make it stop. Shae betrayed Tyrion on the television show Game of Thrones for less sympathetic reasons, Daenerys was frequently betrayed, Theon betrayed House Stark and the man who was like a brother to him, and perhaps worst, Sansa was horrifically betrayed by Little Finger for Little Finger’s pleasure and ambition. Harold betrayed the morally righteous in the hopes of gaining power in Stephen King’s The Stand. And, of course, the story of Judas is often invoked when betrayal is used as a trope – consider Lecter’s Dante Alighieri lecture in Thomas Harris’s Hannibal.

For brevity’s sake, let’s call the witnesses we are discussing here ‘snitches.’ A snitch might be someone that is specially placed by law enforcement in their target’s path to gain the target’s trust for the purpose of ferreting out information.

A snitch may also be someone that is already close to the target (a family member, friend, acquaintance, or co-worker), who law enforcement is able to persuade to assist them in their investigation and is vulnerable to law enforcement pressure for a variety of reasons.

Those vulnerable to law enforcement range from very kind humble individuals to more nefarious characters. Every human being has triggers and vulnerabilities. Amongst Russian secret police, the term kompromat has long been used, referring to compromising information that can be used to blackmail, discredit, or manipulate someone.

Some people cannot be forced to betray another human being absent significant pressure. For example, Winston in 1984 would not have betrayed his one and only love without significant physical and psychological torture. Others, however, will betray another human being for the fun of it because it makes their sad inner child feel powerful.

And there are a wide variety of factors that affect one’s likelihood of betraying people, between those extremes of “make the torture stop” and “let’s have some fun at this person’s expense.” Arguably, the ideal snitch for law enforcement is someone that is simultaneously compromised and whose personality is compatible with this type of behavior.

Trial Tactic Tip:

Knowing the snitch’s motivations ahead of trial is important. Motivations to lie are fair game during cross-examination. Often, though, the motivations are not readily apparent from the State’s disclosures.

If there are recordings of the interactions between the snitch and the target, look for signs of enjoyment. If the snitch is enjoying the exercise, they might be rather sad individuals that were disrespected as children, feel powerless in their lives, and relish the opportunity to spread misery to enjoy a brief ‘high’ of exercising power over another person.

If there are signs the snitch isn’t enjoying themselves, look for compromising information that might be used by law enforcement to force the snitch to cooperate. Is the snitch in this country legally? Do they have children they’d be forced to leave behind if deported? Does the snitch have children they are concerned may be turned over to CPS? Is the snitch facing significant prison time themselves for their own crimes?

A lawyer should carefully scrutinize the snitch and their interactions with the client for their motivations. This needs to be done in advance of trial to inform the lawyer’s themes during jury selection, and of course, to properly craft cross-examination.

Video evidence of the snitch-client interaction is invaluable. Is the snitch smiling and making eye contact during the interaction? If so, the snitch is enjoying their petty power. In contrast, is the snitch avoiding eye-contact and appear exhausted and sad?

Not All Snitches Are Jail-House Snitches:

Law enforcement can find or create snitches anywhere. Whether the target is in the county jail or circulating in the free world, there are fairly easy strategies for enlisting the aid of a snitch.

When clients cannot make bond and are forced to remain in the county jail, there are many ways law enforcement can gather intelligence on the client, including listening to their jail phone calls, watching surveillance footage, and placing other cooperating inmates in the client’s path.

While the county jail is an ideal place for law enforcement to gather information on a target, it is not terribly difficult to place a snitch in someone’s path in ‘the free world.’

Social media provides law enforcement with easily accessed (lawfully and without a warrant) information on a target’s friendship and professional network. Further, it is not at all difficult for law enforcement to simply follow a target, note who they meet, and then gather information about the target’s contacts from license plate numbers – again, all lawfully without a warrant.

Once the target’s network is identified, law enforcement can easily access the networks’ criminal history (including pending charges), their relationships with suspect organizations, any and all pending litigation (like, for example, CPS, divorce, child-custody, and other cases), among other records that can be accessed without a warrant. In a pinch, law enforcement can simply follow members of the target’s network around, initiate traffic stops for mundane traffic code violations and go fishing (with few limitations).

If a target’s social network lacks individuals ripe to transform into snitches, law enforcement can place snitches in their target’s path on dating websites, at club meetings, or other social functions. Of course, law enforcement can both transform the target’s existing social network and utilize strangers as snitches.

Again, using social media or information gathered from surveilling the target, law enforcement can feed the snitch information about the target’s likes and dislikes so that the snitch can make it appear that they have many things in common with the target, creating an artificial bond, and cultivating the target’s trust. This is called fake mirroring. The fake similarities may be as mundane as carrying around a water bottle, food choices, or exercise habits.

Consistent with the concept of kompromat, the snitch will be instructed to tell the target about illegal or immoral things the snitch has done in their lives in order to build trust. The idea is that the target will be lulled into believing that they have compromising information on the snitch so that the target is comfortable sharing their own darkest secrets. Of course, the snitch has no exposure for their own wrong doings per law enforcement, and so does not worry that their wrong-doings may be used against them. It is not kompromat if law enforcement does not care about it, even if utterly illegal and/or morally reprehensible.

Trial Tactic Tip:

Lawyers preparing for trial should investigate how exactly the snitch was originally connected to the client and how law enforcement made initial contact with the snitch. For a client in jail, this information is easy to discover: There is a clear record of which inmates are in proximity to the client, what their criminal charges are and potential prison-time, and some record of the initial contact between client and snitch. These types of snitches are less credible witnesses because of their obvious bias in stopping or shortening their own incarceration.

In the ‘free world,’ however, it may be more difficult to determine how law enforcement created the relationship with the snitch. A thorough conversation with the client is necessary to suss this out, where the lawyer patiently listens to what may be rather tedious personal details recited in a jumbled manner.

Biochemical Interference with Attorney-Client Communications:

Most clients are in extreme distress, fearing for their freedom and future. They are further distressed if they are held in custody pending trial. Jail is not “three hots and a cot,” it is a stressful and dangerous - sometimes deadly - place. Further, clients charged with criminal offenses often had rather traumatic childhoods and are already easily triggered. The combination of the stressful situation with the client’s psychology can make it quite difficult for the client to communicate clearly and linearly.

The adrenaline that comes with the client’s fear interferes with executive functioning. This biochemical interference can prevent the client from providing linear, organized, historical details. Clients can appear disorganized because their brains cannot sustain the fight-or-flight response and think rationally. Lawyers must be patient. The truth is in there somewhere, but it requires a lot of listening.

If the snitch is someone the client has known longer than law enforcement’s investigation, the client’s history with that person may take a while to learn and understand. This information, however, is essential to preparing for cross-examination and crafting trial strategy in presenting the snitch’s biases and motivations to the jury.

Trial Tactic Tip:

Remember, betrayal is a common trope in our culture. Every single juror has been betrayed by someone they trusted (it is not betrayal unless there was trust). They will want to hear about the snitch’s motivations, biases, and kompromat to evaluate the snitch’s credibility. Do your homework so that you can give the jury the information they need to make this credibility determination.

And Remember Divide-And-Conquer:

Finally, as a small aside, snitches are not only valuable to law enforcement for intelligence-gathering. There is a psycho-social effect on the snitch when they betray someone that trusts them.

In 1984, Orwell explains the effect through his main character Winston. When Winston betrays the only woman he ever loved, that love was destroyed. Stated differently, Winston could no longer love because he had betrayed that love. The action affected the feeling.

The shame of betrayal destroys positive pro-social feelings between the snitch and target. Sowing distrust inside the jails is a valuable tool to prevent organization that could undermine law enforcement control.

Divide-and-conquer is a cliché for a reason. While this tangential motivation to employ snitches may not be useful for most case strategies, it is nevertheless something to keep in mind. There may very well be cases where this is important.