Jailhouse Informants Benefit by Testifying

Jailhouse informants are often rewarded for their testimony in criminal cases, even if they are not explicitly promised special treatment, documents released Tuesday indicate.

Memoranda written by Los Angeles County prosecutors on their use of jailhouse informants appear to support the argument advanced by some defense attorneys that informants testify with the implicit understanding that they will receive lenient treatment from authorities.

The memos were written in response to concerns that some jailhouse informants may have fabricated confessions of fellow inmates.

Los Angeles defense attorney Gigi Gordon, who is coordinating a defense bar effort to gather information on informants, said the danger of false confessions is heightened by a system in which jailhouse informants routinely expect and get favors from prosecutors, even though none are expressly promised.

“I call it the wink and the nod,” Gordon said. “The informant feels free to testify he has been promised nothing, while he understands that he will get it (his reward) later.”

Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay disputed Gordon’s assessment, saying: “It’s worse than hogwash to call it ‘a wink and a nod.’ The implicit understanding is that the witness who testifies fully and truthfully can count on law enforcement to reveal fully and truthfully the extent of his cooperation to anyone who asks, at any time.”

At a sentencing hearing last year, a defense attorney for veteran jailhouse informant James Brammer, whose activities are outlined in the memos, described the implicit understanding between informants and prosecutors about the rewards for testifying.

“I’m not going to insult the court by saying that Mr. Brammer provided . . . this information simply as an honest citizen who is trying to destroy crime in the neighborhood. Obviously he had some self-interest involved,” attorney Ralph Peretz told Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann during an appearance last April.

“But he (Brammer) was told by all the district attorneys, several of whom I have talked to, that they would not make any deals or agreements with Mr. Brammer before his testimony, precisely because they wanted him to be able to testify without being required to testify that he had a deal, so that he would appear more credible to the juries involved.”

The judge then reduced Brammer’s burglary sentence from six years to two.

140 Defendants

The memoranda released Tuesday involve 140 defendants in Los Angeles County criminal cases in which informants have testified in the last 10 years. They were drafted as part of a review by the district attorney’s office of its use of informants.

The inquiry began last fall after longtime informant Leslie Vernon White demonstrated to authorities that, through the use of various ruses, he could fabricate the confession of an inmate he had never met.

The prosecutor’s office so far has not uncovered any cases in which it believes a defendant was wrongly convicted, office spokesman Al Albergate said. Copies of the memoranda released Tuesday have been mailed to the attorneys involved in each case. “If they think there is a problem with the conviction,” Albergate said, “it’s up to them to go to court and seek a new trial or a reversal.”

Grand Jury Probe Asked

Meanwhile, several groups representing defense attorneys have asked the Los Angeles County Grand Jury to conduct its own review of the use of jailhouse informants. The district attorney’s office recently joined in the request.

Many of the memoranda written by the prosecutors do not specifically address the extent to which promises were made or favors granted.

But in nearly 20 cases described in the memos, informants who helped the prosecutors win convictions received some help, ranging from letters to state parole authorities to the dismissal of charges. Several show that prosecutors have explicitly told juries that promises were made to informants.

But more frequently the understanding appears to have been unstated. In one such case, informant Marvin Harper, already sentenced to state prison for burglary, testified that accused child-molester and wife-beater Marvin Cahan had confessed his role in the crimes in a courthouse holding cell.

“After Cahan’s preliminary hearing,” wrote Deputy Dist. Atty. Sandra Buttita, “I informed Judge Cecil Mills of Harper’s participation in my case but did not ask for any change in Harper’s sentence.”

Probation Ordered

However, Buttita continued, “At the request of Harper’s public defender, Mills recalled the sentence and put Harper on probation.”

In another case that may show an implicit understanding, Deputy Deputy Dist. Atty. Scott Carbaugh reported that longtime informant Sidney Storch, a forger, had provided key testimony about a jailhouse confession in a gang murder case. “Mr. Storch was not promised anything for his testimony,” Carbaugh said in his memo. “However, this writer wrote a letter to the Department of Corrections requesting an early parole release for Mr. Storch.”

Sometimes providing help is costly in unexpected ways.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Andrew Diamond said he prepared an “in-and-out order” that allowed informant White, a convicted kidnaper, robber and car thief, to be released from custody for five days at a time to help police.

“Mr. White never failed to reappear,” Diamond wrote. “I did learn after his last release that was orchestrated by me that on two of these occasions he had perpetrated new crimes. He had beaten his then-wife, he had pulled a knife on his landlord and had committed a purse snatch. He was also back to using drugs.”

Times staff writer Paul Feldman contributed to this article.