In Informants’ Deals, Much Is Left Unsaid : Justice: Candor is uncommon in the use and rewarding of snitches. But the players know what to expect.

Seemingly innocuous letters from prosecutors are the currency with which jailhouse informants are usually paid.

These letters usually ask for nothing. They merely recount the facts of an informant’s role in a case.

And they frequently result in freedom for the informant.

The reason appears to be that the recipients of the letters--mainly judges, parole authorities or other prosecutors--are privy to a kind of secret code, a set of values that calls for them to reward jailhouse informants for reporting the confessions of other inmates, or otherwise cooperating with authorities.

This code is so well understood by professionals in the criminal justice system that only jurors may be left in the dark.

That is because prosecutors want to avoid the appearance of having purchased jailhouse informant testimony and often pretend that it is being offered for free.

They accomplish this--not by lying--but by being disingenuous.

It is true that most prosecutors do not promise informants any reward. Therefore, jailhouse informants can testify honestly that law enforcement officials have made no promises to them.

But any veteran jailhouse informant expects some reward.

Knowing this, some defense attorneys try to show that informants have a motive to lie by asking them about their expectations.

Many informants say they expect nothing and that’s the end of that.

But some say they expect a letter, which will state that they cooperated.

The Reward

Even if the informant answers honestly that he expects a letter, jurors may have no way of knowing what such a letter means.

Asked whether such letters have the effect of opening jail doors, Los Angeles County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory Thompson said in a recent interview, “Yes, I think they do.”

He said “there is a risk in putting that particular individual back out on the street.” But he said “to the system overall, it’s important to reward folks who provide this kind of information . . . because . . . without them, there are serious crimes that would not be solved.”

Veteran informants know that letters can be had for the asking.

Thompson acknowledged that informants don’t like to admit that they expect a letter or any other reward.

“I think it hurts their credibility and I think juries tend to disbelieve them,” he said.

He said defense attorneys can effectively argue that “it doesn’t wash . . . that the person is coming forward out of the goodness of his heart.”

Dealing with informants is “a rotten, scummy business,” said Thompson’s colleague, Curt Livesay, who is third in command at the district attorney’s office. “Our practice has been that we believe they are liars, cheaters, they will put their own mothers in prison in exchange for a deal. And the rub is you’ve got one of these guys and you know you’ve got to trade something . . . for truthful testimony.”

Livesay said that “defense attorneys are the first ones in my office when they get a client who’s got (some information) in the county jail. They’re in here trading that information. I mean, everybody knows that’s how the system works.”

Livesay made his remarks in an interview nearly a year ago, shortly after a veteran informant caused a scandal by demonstrating for his jailers that he could convincingly fake the murder confession of an inmate he had never met.

Phony Record

Using a jail telephone, informant Leslie Vernon White posed as a police officer to gather inside information about the murder from law enforcement agencies. Then he arranged a phony record to show that he had briefly shared a cell with the inmate whose confession he claimed to have heard.

In a subsequent examination of the informant system, The Times learned that informants have used a variety of other techniques, ranging from the artful to the crude to fake confessions.

White’s demonstration has led to a new policy in the district attorney’s office requiring stricter corroboration for informant testimony. This policy has resulted in a dramatic decline in the use of informants as witnesses.

In the more than 13 months since White’s demonstration, senior officials in the district attorney’s office have approved the use of informants in five cases. In previous years, informants typically testified in at least 15 cases and perhaps as many as 25.