Roll Roll Roll Your Codefendant

Today’s New York Times has an article about a website called whosarat.com. It’s a site dedicated to cataloging and exposing “snitches” – criminals who turn on other criminals in hopes of getting some kind of break from the prosecution. Snitching is very common, particularly in drug investigations, where part of the prosecutorial strategy is to jack up street-level dealers in hopes they’ll “roll” on those higher up in the food chain. There’s a movement afoot, led by sites like this, to try and break the cycle of snitchery.

I’m not sure how I feel about snitching. On the one hand, it is the bane of criminal defense attorneys in the federal system. The who relevant conduct scheme of the Sentencing Guidelines, in which your sentence is based on all conduct related to your offense of conviction (not just the conviction itself), is particularly fond of what we call “ghost dope” – drug weight dumped on you client for which no actual drugs exist. Snitches thrive in that environment. They can come up with mysterious prior sales to jack up your client’s sentence, which conveniently can’t be disproven, and then get a reduced sentence from the Government in return for their troubles. It also perversely benefits the higher ups in drug organizations who, by definition, have more info to give when they snitch and thus can end up with lower sentences than their street-level brethren.

On the other hand, snitching is one of the few avenues available to defendants to improve their lot. Rolling on your codefendants can get you a substantial assistance motion from the Government (as referenced on The Sopranos a few weeks back). It can also qualify you for the “Safety Valve” provision to avoid certain mandatory minimum prison terms. So in many cases, snitching can be in our clients’ best interests, which it is our job to further.

Regardless, I’m not sure I see anything hugely evil about this website. The information cataloged on it is entirely public. Putting it on the Net just makes it easier to access. I’m all for easy access to information about the criminal justice system.

Doug Berman and commentators have some thoughts here.