PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I’ve wanted to write about jailhouse informants for a long time because they often appear in troubled cases in which the other evidence is weak. Their testimony is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, including in capital cases. My hope is that this story will foster a larger discussion about the corrosive effect that prosecutors’ reliance on jailhouse informants can have on our criminal justice system."
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE (ONE): Great news. Investigative Reporter Pamela Colloff is casting light once again on America's criminal justice system. Her last round 'Investigating a forensic science' -was based on the reality that bloodstain-pattern analysis, and the experts who specialize in it, have helped prosecutors secure convictions across the country and asked how much science is really behind the interpretation of blood spatters. The series was built around the Joe Bryan case in Texas). Now she is devoting her attention to police informants - who she refers to as 'jailhouse snitches' in a major offensive which will include investigative stories and frequent reports on the progress of her investigation for ProPublica in partnership with The New York Times. This investigative series has an immediacy to it as it is based on a notorious con artist named Paul Skalnick and a man named James Dailey who Skalnik helped send to death row back in 1987. (Indeed, her first report is headed: "He’s a Liar, a Con Artist and a Snitch. His Testimony Could Soon Send a Man to His Death." In Colloff's own words on announcing the series: "It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me. This year, I’ve been busy with a new project investigating prosecutors’ use of jailhouse informants. Today we published a new story of mine, which is the culmination of this work Over the coming months, I will be providing you with background on my investigation into a notorious con artist named Paul Skalnik, who is likely one of the most prolific jailhouse informants in U.S. history, as well as updates on James Dailey, who is currently under an active death warrant in Florida. Skalnik’s testimony helped send Dailey to death row back in 1987. Skalnik testified or gave information in at least 40 different criminal cases in Florida and Texas in the 1970s and 80s. Some of the men he helped send to prison are still behind bars. I have reason to believe that he was involved in more cases, too, which I hope to soon dig into. I’ll use this newsletter to share my findings and to keep you updated on developments in Dailey’s case. A stay of execution is in place through Dec. 30. After that, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida can set a new execution date for as soon as January. I’ll also keep you posted about any new information that may shake loose once my story is published. Skalnik crossed paths with many, many people I have not yet spoken to in Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Massachusetts over the years, and my hope is that I will hear from some of them. If you have any tips or information, please contact me at falsewitness@propublica.org. " Lastly, I’ll take you behind the scenes of my reporting and tell you about some of the interesting details and stories that I did not have room for in the article. I hope to use this space to answer questions you have about my investigation, so please send them along. (I won’t be able to respond to everyone individually — reporting is time-consuming — but I promise to address your most pressing questions in this newsletter.) I’ve wanted to write about jailhouse informants for a long time because they often appear in troubled cases in which the other evidence is weak. Their testimony is one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, including in capital cases. My hope is that this story will foster a larger discussion about the corrosive effect that prosecutors’ reliance on jailhouse informants can have on our criminal justice system."Thanks again for your interest in this project and for supporting ProPublica."
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: (TWO): What do police informants have to do with forensic science? (I'm glad you asked). Colloff give us a clue when she writes "I’ve wanted to write about jailhouse informants for a long time because they often appear in troubled cases in which the other evidence is weak." That's my experience as will as a criminal lawyer and an observer of criminal justice. Given the reality that jurors - thanks to the CSI effect - are becoming more and more insistent on the need for there to be forensic evidence, it is becoming more and more common for police to rely on shady tactics such as use of police snitches, staging lineups, coercing, inducing, or creating false confessions out of thin air, procuring false eyewitness testimony or concealing exculpatory evidence. All the more reason to look forward to this important investigative project. I will be following it closely.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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STORY: "He’s a Liar, a Con Artist and a Snitch. His Testimony Could Soon Send a Man to His Death," by Pamela Colloff, published on December 4, 2019. (Stemming from partnership between ProPublica, where Pamela Colloff is a senior reporter, and The New York Times Magazine, where she is a staff writer..."Pamela Colloff is a senior reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. Prior to joining ProPublica and the Times in 2017, she was an executive editor and staff writer at Texas Monthly. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker and has been anthologized in “Best American Magazine Writing,” “Best American Crime Reporting,” “Best American Non-Required Reading,” and “Next Wave: America’s New Generation of Great Literary Journalists.” In 2019, she received the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award in human interest storytelling for “Blood Will Tell,” a two-part investigation jointly published by ProPublica and The New York Times. At Texas Monthly, Colloff earned a National Magazine Award in Feature Writing for her 2012 story, “The Innocent Man.” She is a six-time National Magazine Award finalist. Her 2010 story, “Innocence Lost” — about a wrongly convicted death row inmate named Anthony Graves — was credited with helping Graves win his freedom after 18 years behind bars. One month after its publication, all charges against Graves were dropped and he was released from jail, where he had been awaiting retrial."
SUB-HEADING: "Paul Skalnik has a decades long criminal record and may be one of the most prolific jailhouse informants in U.S. history. The state of Florida is planning to execute a man based largely on his word."
PHOTO CAPTION: "Paul Skalnik, left, testified that James Dailey confessed to fatally stabbing a 14-year-old girl shortly before Dailey’s 1987 murder trial. It was a circumstantial case in which there was scant evidence. Dailey, right, now faces execution in Florida."
GIST: (This is a brief excerpt of a lengthy, nuanced story which deserves to be read in its entirety at the link below. HL): "Buried deep in thousands
of pages of court records spread across two states lies evidence to
suggest that Skalnik was one of the most prolific, and most effective,
jailhouse informants in American history. “I have placed 34 individuals
in prison, including four on death row,” he boasted in a 1984 letter to
Sen. Lawton Chiles of Florida, in a request for favorable treatment — a
number that, while inflated at the time, would ultimately prove
accurate. During a single six-year span, from 1981 to 1987, Skalnik
testified or supplied information in at least 37 cases in Pinellas
County alone. Many were cases in which people faced the most serious
possible charges and the most severe penalties. Eighteen defendants
whose cases Skalnik provided information on were under indictment for
murder. A vast majority of their cases ended in convictions or plea
deals. Four were sentenced to death. The state attorney’s
office in Clearwater, in an emailed statement, said Skalnik
independently got fellow inmates to confide in him, then contacted
prosecutors or the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. “He at no time was
an ‘agent’ of the sheriff’s office or the state attorney’s office,” it
said. “The state attorney’s office never provided any leniency to Paul
Skalnik in exchange for his testimony.” All information provided by
Skalnik, the statement said, was independently verified, and the office
has never received any information to indicate that his testimony was
“incorrect.” Still, Skalnik’s journey
through the criminal-justice system affords a rare opportunity to see
exactly how prosecutors and jailhouse informants work together. These
insights are possible because of a rare confluence of forces, including
Skalnik’s extensive history of informing and Florida’s strong
public-record laws, which enabled ProPublica and The New York Times
Magazine to obtain thousands of pages of police reports, arrest records,
jail logs, probation and parole records, pretrial interviews and
correspondence that document his activity in sometimes granular detail.
This reporting follows decades of litigation waged by public defenders
and pro bono attorneys representing death-row inmates in whose cases
Skalnik played a role. The full record provides a vivid picture of how
jailhouse informants are used, showing which benefits Skalnik was
afforded, which crimes he eluded punishment for and, most clearly, how
the state attorney’s office put this witness, who was dubbed “a con man
extraordinaire,” in the words of one warrant for his arrest, on the
stand in cases where defendants’ lives hung in the balance. In response to detailed
questions about the Dailey trial, Beverly Andrews (now Beverly
Andringa), who prosecuted the case, said in an email that she has “very
little memory” of the more-than-30-year-old case, but she said that she
“never willfully and intentionally provided false evidence or testimony
to a court or jury on any case.” Robert Heyman, a prosecutor who tried
the case with her, pointed out that Skalnik had been vetted by law
enforcement and called to testify by other prosecutors. “If we did not
believe that his testimony was truthful, we wouldn’t have had him
testify,” Heyman said. Yet again and again,
prosecutors have shown that they are willing to rely on the testimony of
witnesses like Skalnik, even in cases in which the death penalty is in
play. “Jailhouse informants are common in prosecutions of very serious
crimes, including ones that carry life and even death sentences,” said
Michelle Feldman, the Innocence Project’s state campaigns director,
whose work focuses on legislative efforts to regulate the use of
jailhouse informants. “Since the courts don’t track them, it’s hard to
say which jurisdictions use them the most or how often they testify. But
they remain an entrenched feature of criminal prosecutions, even though
they are the most unreliable kind of witnesses.” What makes them so
unreliable, she emphasized, is the widespread understanding in jail that
prosecutors can offer substantial benefits in exchange for cooperation —
rewards that may include not just reduced sentences or improved jail
conditions but cash payments. “There is a very strong incentive to lie
and very little disincentive not to,” Feldman said. The consequences of snitch
testimony can be catastrophic. Of the 367 DNA exonerations in the
United States to date, jailhouse informants played a role in nearly one
in five of the underlying wrongful convictions. A seminal 2004 study
conducted by Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions
found that testimony from jailhouse snitches and other criminal
informants was the leading cause of wrongful convictions in capital
cases. Today nearly a quarter of death-row exonerations — 22% — stem
from cases in which prosecutors relied on a jailhouse informant. Informants often end up on
the stand when other evidence is weak; a case that is based on rigorous
forensic work or witness testimony that can be independently
corroborated does not need a snitch to paper over the gaps. The most
unreliable witnesses, then, may testify in the least sound cases — and
in cases in which the stakes are the highest.
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.propublica.org/article/hes-a-liar-a-con-artist-and-a-snitch-his-testimony-could-soon-send-a-man-to-his-death
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See also the related chronology graphic presentation 'Thirty years of jailhouse snitch scandals' at the link below: "More than 140 people have been exonerated in murder cases involving jailhouse informant testimony since the U.S. Supreme Court signed off on its constitutionality in 1966. Yet informant testimony is still allowed nationwide, and the limited reforms that exist have yet to prove effective. By Katie Zavadski and Moiz Syed. (Check out the inclusion of the Cameron Todd Willingham case - the subject of considerable focus on this blog. "Cameron Todd Willingham is executed in Texas for the 1991 deaths of his three young children, who perished in a house fire. Jailhouse informant Johnny Webb, who testified that Willingham confessed to him, later recants his testimony."
https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/jailhouse-informants-timeline
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
