Northwestern University School of Law

Center on Wrongful Convictions

The Snitch System

HOW SNITCH TESTIMONY SENT RANDY STEIDL AND

OTHER INNOCENT AMERICANS TO DEATH ROW
A CENTER ON WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS SURVEY
WINTER 2004 2005

BLUHM LEGAL CLINIC

Center on Wrongful Convictions

www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions
A world-renowned program of the Bluhm Legal Clinic
at Northwestern University School of Law

By way of background...
The history of the snitch is long and inglorious,
dating to the common law. In old England, snitches
were ubiquitous.Their motives, then as now, were
unholy. In the 18th Century, Parliament prescribed
monetary rewards blood money for snitches,
who were turned back onto the streets where
they were, in the words of one contemporary
commentator, the contempt and terror of society.
The system produced a cycle of betrayal in which
each snitch knew he might find himself soon in the
dock confronted by another snitch. An example
was the case of Charles Cane, who had provided
evidence that sent two men to their deaths in 1755.
A few months later, a snitch did unto him as he
had done unto others. After Cane was hanged at
Tyburn in 1756, the clergyman who ministered to
him explained that Cane had expected nothing
less than hanging to be his fate at last, but not of the
evil days coming so soon.
If all cases ended so poetically, perhaps informantdependent prosecutions would be more humorous
than objectionable. In real life, however, O. Henry
endings are rare. Consider Joshua Kidden, who came
to a decidedly unpoetic end convicted and
hanged in 1754 for the highway robbery of one
Mary Jones. After the execution, it was discovered
that Mary was a member of a conspiracy to
collect blood money. A cohort planted a coin on the
hapless mark, another apprehended him, and Mary
identified the coin as hers.The conspirators netted
140 per case, at the expense of an untold number
of innocent lives.
The snitch system probably arrived in the New
World with the Pilgrims.The first documented
wrongful conviction case in the United States
involved a snitch.The case arose in Manchester,
Vermont, in 1819. Brothers Jesse and Stephen
Boorn were suspected of killing their brother-in-law,
Russell Colvin. Jesse was put into a cell with
a forger, Silas Merrill, who would testify that Jesse
confessed. Merrill was rewarded with freedom.
The Boorn brothers were convicted and sentenced
to death but saved from the gallows when Colvin
turned up alive in New Jersey.
2

Artists depiction of Russell Colvins murder,

as imagined by a jailhouse snitch in 1819

Americas most infamous snitch, Leslie Vernon

White, happened along 170 years later in California.
A career criminal,White faked confessions in dozens
of cases, worming details about the cases out of
police and prosecutors by telephone from jail. In an
interview on Sixty Minutes,White joked that
the snitch system had spawned slogans: Dont go to
the pen, send a friend and If you cant do the
time, just drop a dime.
The experience shows pretty much what you would
expect that when the criminal justice system
offers witnesses incentives to lie, they will.

This report was researched and written by Rob Warden,

Executive Director, Center on Wrongful Convictions
Design: Joanna Wilkiewicz.
Copyright 2004, Northwestern University
CREDITS
Illustrations:This page by an anonymous illustrator
of The Dead Alive, a novel by Wilkie Collins based on the
Boorn-Colvin case and published in the United States by Shepard
and Gill, 1874; Page 15 by Rob Warden.
Photographs: Cover by Kevin German. Facing page by (variously)
Loren Santow, Andrew Lichtestein,Taryn Simon, and Jennifer
Linzer; Pages 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 by Loren Santow; Page 12
by Jennifer Linzer. Page 13 courtesy of the Illinois Department
of Corrections.

Snitch Testimony is the Leading Cause

of Wrongful Convictions in Capital Cases
National Roster of Death Row
Snitch Victims
Randall Dale Adams
Sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder
of a police officer during a traffic stop in
Dallas. Snitch:The actual killer who received
immunity from prosecution in exchange for
testifying. Exonerated by: Killers recantation.
Years lost: 13
Joseph Amrine
Sentenced to death in 1986 for the murder of
a fellow prisoner in Missouri. Snitches:Two
prisoners who claimed they saw Amrine kill
the victim and a third who claimed Amrine
admitted it. Exonerated by: Recantations by
all three prisoners and exculpatory affidavits
from two others.Years lost: 10
Gary Beeman
Sentenced to death in 1976 for a murder in
Ohio. Snitch: A prison escapee, who claimed
he saw Beeman with the victim around
the time of the crime and later with blood on
his clothes. Exonerated by: Five witnesses
who testified the snitch told them Beeman
had nothing to do with the crime.Years lost: 4
Dan L. Bright
Sentenced to death in 1996 for a murder
in New Orleans. Snitch: A felon who testified
in anticipation of leniency. Exonerated by:
Disclosure of a suppressed FBI report
indicating someone else committed the crime.
Years lost: 8
Anthony Siliah Brown
Sentenced to death in 1983 in Florida.
Snitch:The actual killer, who testified against
Brown in exchange for leniency. Exonerated
by: Killers recantation at Browns retrial.
Years lost: 3

These men are among 51 nationally who have been exonerated of crimes for which
they were sentenced to death based in whole or part on the testimony of witnesses
with incentives to lie in the vernacular, snitches. For the most part, the incentivised
witnesses were jailhouse informants promised leniency in their own cases or killers
with incentives to cast suspicion away from themselves. In all, there have been 111
death row exonerations since capital punishment was resumed in the 1970s.
The snitch cases account for 45.9% of those.That makes snitches the leading cause of
wrongful convictions in U.S. capital cases followed by erroneous eyewitness
identification testimony in 25.2% of the cases, false confessions in 14.4%, and false
or misleading scientific evidence in 9.9%.

Shabaka Brown
Sentenced to death in 1974 for a robbery and
murder in Florida. Snitch: A criminal who
testified that he waited outside in a car while,
unbeknownst to him, Brown committed the
crime. Exonerated by:The snitchs admission
that he fabricated the testimony in exchange
for a previously undisclosed promise of
leniency.Years lost: 14

Verneal Jimerson
National Roster
Willie A. Brown and Larry Troy
Sentenced to death in 1984 for the murder
of a fellow prisoner in Florida. Snitch:
A prisoner who testified that he saw Brown
and Troy leave the victims cell shortly
before his body was discovered. Exonerated
by: A surreptitiously recorded admission from
the snitch that he had lied about the two
mens involvement.Years lost: None
Albert Ronnie Burrell
and Michael Ray Graham Jr.
Sentenced to death in 1987 for a double
murder in Louisiana. Snitch: A prisoner who
claimed Graham admitted committing the
crime with Burrell. Exonerated by:
Prosecutions admission that the snitch lied.
Years lost: 13 (each)
Joseph Burrows
Sentenced to death in 1989 for the robbery
and murder of an elderly farmer in
Illinois. Snitch:The actual killer. Exonerated
by: Killers confession.Years lost: 6
Earl Patrick Charles
Sentenced to death in 1975 for a double
murder in Georgia. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant. Exonerated by: Proof that Charles
had been at work when the crime occurred.
Years lost: 4
Perry Cobb and Darby Tillis
Sentenced to death in 1979 for a double
murder in Chicago. Snitch: A woman who
portrayed herself as an unwitting accomplice.
Exonerated by: A prosecutors testimony that
the snitch had told him that her boyfriend
committed the crime.Years lost: 10 (each)
James Creamer
Sentenced to death in 1973 for a double
murder in Georgia. Snitch: A purported
accomplice granted immunity from prosecution.
Exonerated by: Discovery of tapes withheld
at the trial showing that the snitch alone had
committed the crime.Years lost: 3

In what would become known as the Ford Heights Four case,Verneal Jimerson was
convicted in 1985 of a double murder in south suburban Chicago. His conviction
rested on the testimony of a purported accomplice, Paula Gray.
Before Gray agreed to testify, the other members of the Ford Heights Four
Dennis Williams,Willie Rainge, and Kenneth Adams had been convicted based on
other snitch testimony.Williams was sentenced to death, Rainge and Adams to
long prison terms.
After Williams and Rainge were granted a new trial, Gray also testified against them,
leading to their re-convictions and reimposition of their sentences in 1986. In
exchange for her testimony, Gray was released from prison, where she was serving
50 years for her supposed role in the case.
A decade later, the Ford Heights Four were exonerated by confessions of the actual
killers corroborated by DNA testing. In 1999, Cook County agreed to pay
$36 million to settle lawsuits filed on behalf of the men.That was, and is, the largest
civil rights settlement in U.S. history.

Robert Charles Cruz

Sentenced to death in 1981 for a double
murder in Arizona. Snitch: A convicted
burglar given immunity in exchange for his
testimony. Exonerated by: Acquittal upon
retrial.Years lost: 14

Gordon (Randy) Steidl

When Randy Steidl walked free from the Illinois

Correctional Center at Danville on May 28, 2004,
he became the 18th man to be exonerated and
released after having been sentenced to death under
the current Illinois capital punishment law. His
exoneration resulted from new evidence establishing
that he and a co-defendant, Herbert Whitlock, were
innocent of the murder of newlyweds Karen and
Dyke Rhoads, whose bodies were discovered on
July 6, 1986, in their burning home in Paris, Illinois.
The convictions rested on the testimony of two
informants Debra Reinbolt and Darrell
Herrington, who claimed to have been present
when Steidl and Whitlock repeatedly stabbed the
victims and set their home afire.The evidence
against Steidl also included the testimony of a
jailhouse snitch, Ferlin Wells, who claimed Steidl
confided that, if he had thought Herrington
would come forward, he would have definitely
taken care of him.

Steidl was exonerated after it was discovered that a

knife that Reinbolt had testified was the murder
weapon in fact was not its blade was too short to
have inflicted the wounds that a lamp in the
victims bedroom that Reinboldt testified had been
broken during the crime actually was broken by
firemen after they extinguished the fire, and that
time-sheets and witnesses from the hospital where
Reinboldt worked established that she could
not have witnessed the crime because she was at
work when it occurred.
For a more complete account of the Steidl case, please
see the reprint of the Springfield Journal-Register series
accompanying this report.

Joseph Burrows
National Roster
Rolando Cruz
and Alejandro Hernandez
Sentenced to death in 1985 for the kidnaping,
rape, and murder of a little girl in Illinois.
Snitches: Six informants, four of whom
claimed Cruz admitted the crime and two of
whom claimed Hernandez did. Exonerated
by: DNA indicating the killer was a
man who confessed that he alone committed
the crime.Years lost: 12 (each)
Muneer Deeb
Sentenced to death in 1985 for the contract
murder of a woman in Texas. Snitch:
A jailhouse informant who testified that an
alleged co-conspirator of Deebs had admitted
the murder-for-hire scheme. Exonerated by:
Acquittal upon retrial.Years lost: 8
Charles Irvin Fain
Sentenced to death in 1983 for kidnaping,
sexually assaulting, and drowning a
9-year-old girl in Idaho. Snitches:Two
jailhouse informants. Exonerated by: DNA.
Years lost: 18
Neil Ferber
Sentenced to death in 1982 for a double
murder in Philadelphia. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant who claimed Ferber had confessed.
Exonerated by: Informants recantation
and discovery of a police conspiracy to frame
Ferber.Years lost: 5
Gary Gauger
Sentenced to death in 1994 for the murder of
his parents in Illinois. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant who testified that Gauger repeatedly
admitted the crime. Exonerated by: Discovery
that a Wisconsin motorcycle gang committed
the crime.Years lost: 2

The body of William Dulan, an 88-year-old retired farmer, was found on

November 8, 1988, at his home in Sheldon, Illinois. Hours later, Gayle Potter, a
cocaine addict, tried to cash a check in Dulans name and was arrested.There
was a gash on Potters head and blood consistent with hers was found at the scene.
The murder weapon was recovered from her.
The situation looked bad for Potter, until she implicated Burrows and a mildly
retarded friend of his, Ralph Frye. No physical evidence linked either man to the
crime, and four witnesses placed Burrows 60 miles away when it occurred. After
a lengthy interrogation, however, Frye corroborated Potters version of events.
Burrows was sentenced to death, after which Potter and Frye were sentenced
30 and 27 years respectively. (Under an Illinois day-for-day good time policy then
in effect, they would serve only half that time.) Two years later, both recanted
and Burrows was granted a new trial. Potter then admitted under oath that she alone
committed the crime, and the prosecution dismissed the charges.

Alan Gell
Sentenced to death in 1998 for a murder
in North Carolina. Snitches:The actual killers
who were allowed to plead to second-degree
murder in exchange for their truthful
testimony against Gell. Exonerated by:
New alibi evidence.Years lost: 9
Charles Ray Giddens
Sentenced to death in 1978 for a murder
in Oklahoma. Snitch: A man whom police
initially had arrested for the crime. Exonerated
by: Dismissal of charges after the Oklahoma
Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new
trial.Years lost: 4

Perry Cobb
Perry Cobb and Darby Tillis were convicted and
sentenced to death for the 1977 murder and
armed robbery of the owner and an employee of a
restaurant on the north side of Chicago.Their
convictions rested on the testimony of Phyllis
Santini, who portrayed herself as an unwitting
accomplice in the crime. Both men professed their
innocence, but police found a watch taken from
one of the victims in Cobbs room. Cobb told
police he bought the watch for $10 from Johnny
Brown. It took three trials to convict Cobb and
Tillis.The first two ended in hung juries, but the
third resulted in convictions and death sentences
in 1979.
Four years later, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed
the convictions based on judicial error. Michael
Falconer, a recent graduate of DePaul University
College of Law, happened to read an article about
the reversal that mentioned Santini and described
her role in the case. Falconer knew Santini. Before
beginning law school, he had worked with her in a
factory. She had confided to him that she and
her boyfriend none other than Johnny Brown

had robbed a restaurant and shot someone. Falconer

did not take her seriously at the time, but the
article persuaded him that she was not kidding.
Falconer contacted the defendants lawyers. By
the time the case came up for retrial, Falconer was
an assistant states attorney in neighboring Lake
County. Cook County prosecutors pressured him
not to testify, but he resisted and provided testimony
that led to the exoneration of Cobb and Tillis in
1987. In 2001, they received gubernatorial pardons
based on actual innocence. Brown and Santini were
never charged.

Steven Smith
National Roster
Larry Hicks
Sentenced to death in 1978 for a double
murder in Indiana. Snitches: Two women
who claimed to be eyewitnesses. Exonerated
by:The womens recantations.Years lost: 2
Madison Hobley
Sentenced to death in 1990 for an arson fire
that claimed seven lives in Chicago. Snitch:
A suspect in another arson fire in the
same neighborhood. Exonerated by: Pardon
based on innocence.Years lost: 13
Verneal Jimerson
Sentenced to death in 1985 for a double
murder in Illinois. Snitch: A purported accomplice promised release for testifying.
Exonerated by: DNA and convictions of
three actual culprits.Years lost: 11
Richard Neal Jones
Sentenced to death in 1983 for a murder in
Oklahoma. Snitch: One of the actual
killers. Exonerated by: Confession of one of
the snitchs confederates.Years lost: 4
Curtis Kyles
Sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder in
New Orleans. Snitch:The actual killer.
Exonerated by: Evidence that the snitch lied.
Years lost: 14
Fredrico M. Macias
Sentenced to death in 1984 for a double
murder in Texas. Snitch: A purported
accomplice who testified pursuant to a plea
agreement. Exonerated by: A solid alibi.
Years lost: 10
Steve Manning
Sentenced to death in 1993 for a murder and
armed robbery in Illinois. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant. Exonerated by: Dismissal of
charges.Years lost: 10
Walter McMillian
Sentenced to death in 1988 for a murder in
Alabama. Snitch:The actual killer.
Exonerated by: Exculpatory documents withheld at the trial.Years lost: 10

Virdeen Willis Jr., an off-duty assistant warden at the Illinois penitentiary in Pontiac,
was shot to death in the parking lot of a Chicago tavern in 1985. Steven Smith, 36,
who had been in the bar, as had Willis, was charged with the crime several days
later after he was identified by Debra Caraway, who claimed to have witnessed the
murder. Her testimony persuaded a jury to send Smith to death row.
The jury, however, was told neither that Caraways boyfriend, Pervis (Pepper) Bell,
was in custody as the primary suspect when she accused Smith nor that she was high
on cocaine when the crime occurred. Caraways testimony was all the more dubious
because she claimed that only Willis and Smith were in the parking lot, but, in fact,
Willis was accompanied by two friends.
In 1999, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the conviction outright, holding
that Caraways testimony was less reliable than the testimony of the men who were
with Willis when he was shot, neither of whom identified Smith.There was no
physical evidence, or evidence of any kind other than Caraways testimony, linking
Smith to the crime.

Juan Roberto Melendez

Sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder
and armed robbery in Florida. Snitch:
A convicted felon who testified in anticipation
of leniency. Exonerated by:Withheld police
reports.Years lost: 18

Gary Gauger
Gary Gauger was sentenced to death in 1994 for the
murder of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger,
on their farm in northern Illinois the previous year.
The conviction stemmed primarily from an alleged
confession that the authorities claimed Gauger
made during interrogation. However, the prosecution
also relied in part on a jailhouse snitch Raymond
Wagner, a twice-convicted felon, who testified that
Gauger repeatedly admitted the crime.
The conviction was reversed on appeal in 1996 on
the ground that the purported confession should
have been suppressed at the trial because it was the
fruit of an arrest made without probable cause.
With no remaining evidence, other than Wagners
dubious testimony, prosecutors dropped the charges
and set Gauger free, although they continued
to insist publicly that he had committed the crime.
A year later, Gaugers innocence became apparent
when a federal grand jury in Milwaukee indicted

two members of a motorcycle gang on multiple

counts of racketeering, including the murder of the
Gaugers. One of the Outlaws, James Schneider,
pleaded guilty in 1998, and the other, Randall E.
Miller, was convicted in June of 2000. At Millers
trial, federal prosecutors played tape recordings in
which Miller was heard boasting that the authorities
would never link him and Schneider to the
Gauger murders because they had worn hairnets
and gloves to avoid leaving physical evidence.
In 2002, Gauger received a gubernatorial pardon
based on innocence.

Steven Manning
National Roster
Adolph H. Munson
Sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder in
Oklahoma. Snitch: A prisoner with
whom Munson was incarcerated. Exonerated
by: Discovery of previously withheld evidence
establishing that the killer was white, Munson
being black.Years lost: 11
Larry Osborne
Sentenced to death in 1999 for murdering an
elderly Kentucky couple. Snitch: A purported
accomplice who died in an accident before
the trial but whose grand jury testimony was
erroneously admitted against Osborne.
Exonerated by: Acquittal at retrial.
Years lost: 4
Aaron Patterson
Sentenced to death in 1989 for the murder
of an elderly couple in Chicago. Snitch:
A cousin of an alternative suspect in the case
who claimed Patterson admitted the crime.
Exonerated by: Gubernatorial pardon.
Years lost: 14

Steven Manning, a former Chicago police officer and FBI informant, was sentenced
to death in 1993 for the murder of his former business partner, a suburban trucker.

Alfred Rivera
Sentenced to death in 1997 for a double
murder in North Carolina. Snitches:Three
informants who received leniency on
pending charges. Exonerated by: Acquittal at
retrial based on a credible alibi.Years lost: 3

The conviction rested primarily on the testimony of a jailhouse informant,Thomas

Dye, a cocaine dealer with a record of ten felony convictions dating to 1978. Dye
testified that Manning admitted the murder to him. In exchange for his testimony, a
14-year prison sentence Dye was serving on theft and firearms charges was cut to six
years already served and he was released into the federal witness protection program.

James Robison
Sentenced to death in 1977 for the conspiracy
murder of a Phoenix newspaperman. Snitch:
A criminal admittedly involved in the murder
who received leniency in exchange for
testifying. Exonerated by: Acquittal at retrial.
Years lost: 16

The Illinois Supreme Court awarded Manning a new trial in 1997 based on trial
errors and the Cook County States Attorneys Office dropped the charges in
2000. Manning was then sent to Missouri, where he had been sentenced to prison
on unrelated charges. In 2004, he was exonerated of those charges as well.

Jeremy Sheets
Sentenced to death in 1997 for a murder
in Nebraska. Snitch:The actual killer, who
made a tape-recorded statement accusing
Sheets in exchange for promise of leniency.
Exonerated by:The snitchs recantation.
Years lost: 4

Manning claimed he had been framed in both cases by his former FBI handlers out
of spite because he stopped cooperating with them.

Charles Smith
Sentenced to death in 1983 for a murder
in Indiana. Snitch: A purported accomplice
granted immunity from prosecution.
Exonerated by: An alibi that the judge did
not allow Smith to present because his lawyer
failed to file a pretrial notice.Years lost: 8

10

Rolando Cruz

Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were twice

convicted of the 1983 abduction, rape, and murder
of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County.
They initially were tried together and sentenced to
death in 1985. After their convictions were reversed
in 1988 on the ground that their trials should
have been severed, separate re-trials ended in another
sentence of death for Cruz and 80 years for
Hernandez.
In all, six snitches testified at the trials. Four
Stephen Ford, Steven Pecoraro, Dan Fowler, and
Robert Turner claimed Cruz had admitted the
crime, and the others Jackie Estremera and
Armindo Marquez Jr. claimed Hernandez had.
After Ford came forward, prosecutors dismissed
burglary charges against him. Pecoraro, Fowler, and
Turner denied being offered or receiving anything
in return for testifying, but one of the prosecutors
later testified on Turners behalf at a re-sentencing
hearing. Estremera was facing contempt sanctions at
the time he implicated Hernandez, and Marquez
received leniency on pending burglary charges.

11

Shortly after the first trial, Brian Dugan, a repeat

sex offender, confessed that he alone committed the
crime. Although his confession was detailed and
compelling, prosecutors insisted he and Cruz and
Hernandez had committed the crime together.They
clung to that theory even after DNA linked
Dugan but not Cruz and Hernandez to the rape
after the second trial.
In 1995, Cruz and Hernandez were exonerated
when it became obvious that sheriff s deputies had
fabricated an inculpatory statement that they
attributed to Cruz at both trials. Cruz and
Hernandez received pardons based on innocence
in 2002.

Madison Hobley
National Roster
Steven Smith
Sentenced to death in 1985 for the murder of
an off-duty prison guard in Chicago. Snitch:
A cocaine-addled girlfriend of an alternative
suspect in the case. Exonerated by:
Outright reversal by the Illinois Supreme
Court.Years lost: 14
Christopher Spicer
Sentence to death in 1973 for a murder in
North Carolina. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant. Exonerated by: Discovery that
Spicer and the informant did not share a cell.
Years lost: 2
Gordon (Randy) Steidl
Sentenced to death in 1987 for the murder
of an Illinois couple. Snitch: A jailhouse
informant and a purported accomplice allowed
to plead to lesser charges. Exonerated by:
Evidence disproving the purported accomplices
testimony.Years lost: 17
John Thompson
Sentenced to death in 1985 for a murder
in New Orleans. Snitches: A man originally
charged with the crime but allowed to
plead to lesser charges after implicating
Thompson, and a second man who claimed
that Thompson had admitted the crime and
applied for a $15,000 reward. Exonerated
by: Exculpatory physical evidence concealed by
the prosecution at trial.Years lost: 9
Dennis Williams
Twice sentenced to death, in 1978 and 1986,
for a double murder in Illinois. Snitches: At
the first trial, a jailhouse snitch; at the second,
a purported accomplice who testified in
exchange for release. Exonerated by: DNA,
recantation of the purported accomplice, and
convictions of the actual killers.Years lost: 16
Ronald Williamson
Sentenced to death in 1988 for a rape and
murder in Oklahoma. Snitches:The
actual killer and two jailhouse informants.
Exonerated by: DNA.Years lost: 16

At least four men were sentenced to death for murders they did not commit during
the 1980s based primarily on confessions extracted by a group of rogue Chicago
police officers later found by their own department to have engaged in methodical
and systematic torture of suspects.The convictions of two of the innocent men
Madison Hobley and Aaron Patterson also rested in part on snitch testimony.
Hobley was accused of setting a fire that claimed seven lives, including those of his
wife and infant son, in an apartment building on the south side of Chicago in 1987.
The snitch was Andre Council, a suspect in another arson fire in the same neighborhood. In exchange for police agreeing to drop the investigation in which he was
a target, Council testified that he saw Hobley purchase gasoline at a filling station and
a little later, after hearing fire engines, saw him standing outside the burning building.
Hobley was convicted and sentenced to death.
Patterson was accused of a double murder on the south side in 1986. A few days after
the victims bodies were discovered, Marva Hall, a 16-year-old cousin of a suspect in
the case, told police that Patterson had admitted the crime to her. She later provided
an affidavit saying she had lied to protect her cousin, but not before her testimony
helped send Patterson to death row.
In 2003, both men received pardons based on actual innocence from Illinois
Governor George H. Ryan and were released from prison.

Nicholas Yarris
Sentenced to death in 1982 for a kidnaping,
rape, and murder in Pennsylvania. Snitch:
A jailhouse informant. Exonerated by: DNA.
Years lost: 22

12

A Quintessential Snitch
Darryl Moore
Not much good has ever been said of Darryl
Moore. He is a hit man, drug pusher, robber, rapist,
junkie, parole violator, and, perhaps foremost,
perjurer. For money, an assistant Cook County
states attorney once told a jury, Mr. Moore either
beats people, maims them, or, if need be, he will
kill them for the right price.
Rather than protecting society from Moore,
however, prosecutors entered into a pact with him.
He would testify for the state concerning an alleged
contract murder. In return, he would be paid cash.
Pending drug and weapons charges against him
would be dropped. He would be immunized from
prosecution for a contract murder in which he
admittedly participated. And he would be turned
loose on the streets of Chicago.
The deal seemed ill-advised even to Moores mother,
who took the stand as a defense witness after her
son testified for the prosecution in a murder case.
Do you know Darryls reputation for being
truthful? asked a defense lawyer. Yes, Ethel Moore
answered. Is that reputation good, or is it bad?
Bad. Would you believe Darryl Moore under
oath? No, I wouldnt.
If Moore had been convicted of drug and
unlawful-use-of-a-weapon charges pending when
prosecutors decided to let him go, he would
have faced a long prison term. Because of his prior
convictions for rape and armed robbery, he
could have been sentenced as an habitual criminal.
In exchange for the testimony of this man whose
own mother would not believe him, however,
prosecutors set him free and spent some $66,000 in
public funds to, among other things, house him
and a woman friend in a Holidome hotel.
The purpose of the deal was to convict a drug
kingpin, Charles Ashley, who allegedly paid two
co-defendants to murder a suspected informant.The
prosecutors efforts to put Ashley out of business,

13

ironically, were soon rendered moot by natural

causes at the time of his trial, Ashley was dying
of cancer. Moore did testify for the state. Ashley
was convicted of murder and sentenced to spend the
brief remainder of his life in prison.
Ashleys co-defendants, James Allen and Henry
Griffin, also were found guilty. Allen was sentenced
to life, Griffin to death (later commuted to life).
As their convictions were appealed, Moore recanted,
claiming that the states attorneys office paid him
to lie as part of a scheme to frame Ashley. In truth,
said Moore, he knew nothing of the crime of which
Ashley, Griffin, and Allen had been convicted.
Before he recanted, however, with the freedom
prosecutors bestowed upon him, Moore descended
on Chicagos Uptown neighborhood, his home away
from jail and the Holidome.There, on a February
evening in 1987, he came upon an 11-year-old girl
who was on her way to the grocery store. He
dragged her into an alley, pushed her down, and
raped her. For this, Moore was charged, convicted,
and sentenced to 60 years.With day-for-day good
time, he is eligible for release in 2017.
Griffin and Allen, who lost their appeals, are serving
life without parole.

Major Causes of Wrongful Convictions

in U.S. Capital Cases Since 1973
CASES ANALYZED: 111*
Key:
A = Snitch: 50 (45%)
C = False confession: 16 (14.4%)

name

Adams, Randall Dale

Amrine, Joseph

name

Gauger, Gary

Gell, Alan

Keine, Ronald

Giddens, Charles

Kimbell,Thomas H.

3 3

Gladish,Thomas

Krone, Ray

Bloodsworth, Kirk

Golden, Andrew

Kyles, Curtis

Bowen, Henry

Graham, Ernest

Lawson, Carl

Banks, Jerry
Beeman, Gary

Brandley, Clarence

Graham, Michael Ray

Bright, Dan L.

Grannis, David W.

Brown, Anthony

Green, Joseph N.

Brown, Shabaka

Greer, Richard

Brown,Willie A.

Guerra, Ricardo A.

Burrell, Albert R.

Harris, Benjamin

Burrows, Joseph

Charles, Earl P.

3 3

Clemmons, Eric
Cobb, Perry

3 3

Cochran, James

name

Creamer, James

3
3
3

3
3

Hennis,Timothy
Hernandez, Alejandro

Hicks, Larry

Hobley, Madison

Jimerson,Verneal

Deeb, Muneer

Johnson, Lawyer

Dexter, Clarence R.

Johnston, Dale

Drinkard, Gary

Jones, Richard Neal

3

Ferber, Neil

3 3

Jones, Ronald

3 3

3 3 3

3 3

Robison, James

3
3

Martinez, Joaquin

Smith, Charles

Mathers, Jimmy Lee

Smith, Clarence

Smith, Jay C.
Smith, Steven

McMillian,Walter

Spicer, Christopher

Melendez, Juan R.

Steidl Gordon

Miller, Robert Lee, Jr.

Thompson, John

Morris, Oscar Lee

Tibbs, Delbert

Peek, Anthony Ray

Skelton, John C.

Patterson, Aaron

Jones,Troy Lee

Rivera, Alfred

Manning,Warren D.

Tillis, Darby

3
3 3
3

Treadaway, Jonathan
3

Troy, Larry
3

3
3

Wilhoit, Greg
3
3

3 3

Washington, Earl

Pitts, Freddie

Williams, Dennis

3 3 3

Williamson, Ronald

Yarris, Nicholas

3 3

* This is a Center on Wrongful Convictions analysis of cases identified as exonerations by the Death Penalty Information Center.The criteria are that the defendant
was convicted after 1973 and subsequently restored to a state of legal innocence. Most commonly, the conviction was overturned on appeal and the defendant
was acquitted upon re-trial, the charges were dropped by the prosecution, or the defendant received a gubernatorial pardon based on innocence.When no cause of
the wrongful conviction is checked above, none of the factors analyzed was present.

14

Quick,Wesley

Ross, Johnny

Padgett, Randall

Sheets, Jeremy

Osborne, Larry

Ramos, Juan
3

Orange, Leroy

Prion, Lemuel

Nieves,William

3 3 3

Fain, Charles I.

Manning, Steve

Nelson, Gary

Cruz, Rolando

McManus,Vernon

Porter, Anthony

Scott, Bradley

James, Gary Lamar

Jarramillo, Anibal

Matthews, Ryan
3

name
Poole, Samuel A.

Munson, Adolph H.

Macias, Fredrico M.

Howard,Timothy

Cruz, Robert Charles

Linder, Michael

Howard, Stanley

Cox, Robert

3 3

Lee,Wilbert

Holton, Rudolph

Cousin, Shareef

Keaton, David

Hayes, Robert
3

Butler, Sabrina

B = Erroneous identification: 28 (25.2%)

D = False or misleading science: 11 (9.9%)

Reining in the Snitch System

Given the unreliability and tragic consequences of
incentivised testimony, some legal authorities and
not just criminal defense lawyers have called
for banishing snitches outright from the courtroom.
If justice is perverted when a criminal defendant
seeks to buy testimony from a witness, it is no less
perverted when the government does so, observed
Judge Paul J. Kelly Jr., of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Tenth Circuit. The judicial process is tainted
and justice is cheapened when factual testimony is
purchased, whether with leniency or money. *
Be that as it may, the reality is that neither legislatures nor courts are about to ban snitch testimony
in the prevailing tough-on-crime political climate.
There are, however, less drastic safeguards against
wrongful convictions based on snitch fabrications
that may be more politically palatable.
Among the ideas are requiring that:

Snitches be wired to electronically record

incriminating statements made by suspects, at least

when the relevant conversations occur in jails
or prisons. (There is precedent for wiring snitches.
It was done in the Steven Manning case in Illinois,
discussed on page 10. Extensive conversations
between Manning and the informant,Tommy
Dye, were surreptitiously recorded in jail. Although
the conversations were not incriminating,
the fact that they were recorded demonstrates the
feasibility of the idea.)
Law enforcement authorities electronically record
their discussions with potential snitches and
provide copies of the recordings to the defendant.
(This would not be a major imposition on law
enforcement, since most such discussions occur in
custodial settings. It merely would be an extension
of the increasingly prevalent practice of recording
custodial interrogations of suspects.)
Prosecutors disclose to defendants whether
snitches be they jailhouse informants, purported
accomplices, or eyewitnesses have received
or been promised leniency, immunity from
prosecution, cash, or anything else of value. (The
impact of this reform might be limited because
the snitch system sometimes operates on implicit

15

promises. Even absent a formal understanding,

the reward inevitably comes because failing to
deliver in one case would chill prospective
future snitches.)
No state has adopted either of the first two ideas,
but the Illinois General Assembly in November
2003 adopted the third, as part of a sweeping
package of death penalty reform legislation. Also in
Illinois, in any capital case in which the prosecution
proffers jailhouse snitch testimony, the reform
package requires the judge to conduct a pretrial
hearing to determine whether the testimony of the
informant is reliable. If not, the court must deny
admission of the testimony into evidence.
At this writing, it is too early to gauge the
effectiveness of the Illinois measure, but it appears
to have rendered snitches less ubiquitous than
they were in the recent past. In the first 11 months
that the reform was in effect, in fact, prosecutors
have not proffered snitch testimony in any potential
capital case.
* United States v. Singleton, 144 F.3d 1343

(10th Cir., 1998).Vacated by rehearing en banc.

Northwestern University School of Law

Center on Wrongful Convictions

Dedicated to identifying and rectifying wrongful convictions and other serious miscarriages of justice
Lawrence C. Marshall
Legal Director
Rob Warden
Executive Director
Thomas F. Geraghty
Director, Bluhm Legal Clinic
David E.Van Zandt
Dean, Northwestern University
School of Law

S TA F F AT TO R N E YS
Karen L. Daniel
Steven A. Drizin
Jane E. Raley
Jeffrey Urdangen

E X E C U T I V E S TA F F
Edwin Colfax
Zakia Holly
Jennifer Linzer
Karen Ranos
A. Sage Smith

CO O P E R AT I N G
AT TO R N E YS
Danielle Carter
John H. Gallo
Stephanie Horten
Jonathan D. King
Betsy Lehman Levisay
Joe Matthews
Michael B. Metnick
David Morris
Stuart Reynolds
Judith Royal
Ronald S. Safer
Jennifer L. Schilling
Jennifer Smiley

A DV I S O RY B OA R D

B E N E FAC TO R S

Thomas P. Sullivan*
Chairman

Jane and Floyd Abramson

Ace Foundation
Arca Foundation
Richard Armbrust
John W. Baird
Thomas M. Breen
Steven Cohen
Patricia D. Cornwell
Arie & Ida Crown Memorial Foundation
James and Judith K. Dimon Foundation
Gary M. Elden and Phyllis Mandler
Fifteen Two Four, LLC (James Newsome)
Jason Flom
Leonard C. Goodman
Robert Goodman
Jenner & Block
Jane Kaczmarek and Bradley Whitford
Kirkland & Ellis
Kovler Family Foundation
Lerer Family Charitable Fund
Peter B. Lewis
Michael Lynton and Jamie Alter
Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw
Kenneth F. and Harle G. Montgomery Foundation
New Prospect Foundation
Open Society Institute
Pittman Family Foundation
Ivy Lewis Powell and Marc Powell
Jay Pritzker Foundation
J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation
Willie Raines Trust
Judith Royal
Keith Rudman
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom
Synapses Foundation
Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal
Scott Turow
Jeffrey Urdangen
Mike Wallace
Donald A.Washburn
Winston & Strawn

Jane Beber Abramson

Kimball Anderson*
Jamie Alter
Jeanne Bishop
Thomas M. Breen
Stephen B. Bright
Stuart J. Chanen*
Donald Connery
Philip H. Corboy
Phoebe C. Ellsworth
Michael Farrell
Marshall B. Front
Thomas H. Geoghegan
Leonard C. Goodman
Samuel R. Gross
Robert A. Helman
Walter Jones*
Michael Kurzman
George N. Leighton
Jeffrey P. Lennard*
John G. Levi*
Ellen Liebman
Terri L. Mascherin*
Donald J. Mizerk
Joseph T. Monahan
Gareth Morris*
Peter Neufeld
R. Eugene Pincham
Dom J. Rizzi
George H. Ryan
Ronald S. Safer*
Barry C. Scheck
John R. Schmidt*
Seymour F. Simon
Phillip A.Turner*
Dan K.Webb*
Wayne W.Whalen*
Sheldon T. Zenner
* Executive Committee

The Center on Wrongful Convictions is part of Northwestern University, which is exempt from federal taxation
under Sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.

BLUHM LEGAL CLINIC

Center on Wrongful Convictions

Bluhm Legal Clinic
Northwestern University School of Law
357 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60611
www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions
312 503-2391