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A snitch borrows the prosecutor's credibility
Sponsored by prosecutors
The first witness in a murder trial might be the lead investigator who reached the scene, the second a paramedic or the medical examiner. An informant like Skalnik appears within that line, sponsored by prosecutors who are telling jurors they can trust him.
The former-cop pitch
His pitch fit the role. He talked about how proud he had been to be a police officer, how law enforcement was still in his blood, and how the least he could do to redeem the minor financial crimes he committed when he was desperate was to be one of the good guys. He set himself apart from the riffraff in the jail, since he was a former cop.
Hidden history
Defense attorneys had little chance to find him out. Skalnik testified in many cases, and with court records not digitized, tracing them meant going through files page by page. The state attorney's office kept a running list of every case he had given information in, but public defenders with a few hours, little money, and no investigator did not have it.
When a defense attorney asked whether he had been promised anything for his testimony, he could truthfully answer no, because nothing had been promised yet. The prisoner's understanding that help would be repaid never had to be spoken aloud. Prosecutors in that tough-on-crime era were rewarded for convictions, and one of them put it as having to work with a sinner to catch the devil.
Why can't prosecutors vouch for their own witnesses?
Vouching means a prosecutor telling jurors, directly or by implication, that a witness is honest. Courts treat it as improper because jurors may give weight to the government's apparent personal knowledge instead of the evidence. In United States v. Young in 1985, the Supreme Court noted that a prosecutor's opinion carries the imprimatur of the government and may lead jurors to trust the government's judgment over their own view of the evidence. In that case the Court found the prosecutor's remarks improper but did not reverse the conviction.
How heavy are public defenders' caseloads?
The Supreme Court guaranteed lawyers to defendants who cannot afford one in Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, a case that began in Florida. Public defender offices then grew quickly, and in many places caseloads have stayed heavy ever since. In 1973, a national advisory commission recommended that a public defender handle no more than 150 felony cases a year.
Why are most prosecutors elected officials?
Voters began electing local prosecutors in the Jacksonian era, when states shifted many offices from appointment to election. Mississippi was the first state to do so, in 1832. Today nearly every state elects its chief local prosecutors, so a prosecutor's record of convictions becomes part of how he or she runs for office. Connecticut and New Jersey are among the exceptions, where prosecutors are appointed.
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