I think reading this story some people might think, well, who cares, this guy is guilty. And in this particular case, the actual guy on trial does happen to be very guilty in deed. He did confess, and I think they had a pretty strong case against him without the jail house snitch.
BUT, I would like to point out that this is still a very important case because a) this is illegal, and b) because jail house snitches are extremely unreliable. That's putting it mildly. In reality, ALL jail house snitches are liars and they will literally tell the police anything that the police want's to here. Have you ever wondered why a good lawyer will NEVER give a copy of the clients file to a client, if that client is in jail. If you do that, there is a very high likelihood that someone in jail will sneak a peak in that file, find out what kind of evidence the cops have, and will immediately claim that they have independent knowledge of that evidence, because the client confessed to it.
Cops promoting jailhouse snitching can lead to higher conviction rates, but not better justice. In fact really good investigators, you know, the once who actually want to find out the truth, not just convict people, will slip some false leading questions during their interview to see if they can catch their "star witness" on a lie, or so I have been told by an investigator who used to be detective for many decades before retiring and becoming a PI.
BUT, I would like to point out that this is still a very important case because a) this is illegal, and b) because jail house snitches are extremely unreliable. That's putting it mildly. In reality, ALL jail house snitches are liars and they will literally tell the police anything that the police want's to here. Have you ever wondered why a good lawyer will NEVER give a copy of the clients file to a client, if that client is in jail. If you do that, there is a very high likelihood that someone in jail will sneak a peak in that file, find out what kind of evidence the cops have, and will immediately claim that they have independent knowledge of that evidence, because the client confessed to it.
Cops promoting jailhouse snitching can lead to higher conviction rates, but not better justice. In fact really good investigators, you know, the once who actually want to find out the truth, not just convict people, will slip some false leading questions during their interview to see if they can catch their "star witness" on a lie, or so I have been told by an investigator who used to be detective for many decades before retiring and becoming a PI.