By R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
[Editor’s Note: Prosecutorial Misconduct/Corruption is rife, but rarely are those responsible held accountable. As in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, they frequently place disingenuous police officers/detectives on the stand who they KNOW are going to lie under oath. Judges typically ignore the problem. Worse, bribed jailhouse snitches are allowed to testify while a blind eye is turned to the credibility of the informant’s testimony. This has lead, in the worst case scenarios, to unjust convictions of murder and death sentences. Only a handful of states have laws restricting or prohibiting such tainted testimony. While prosecutors jubilantly carve notches in their roster of convictions, prisons continue to swell with the innocent as well as the guilty.]
There’s an old saying among prosecutors and police: “Crimes committed in hell don’t have angels as witnesses.” Well, meet Ronnie Archuleta. He’s no angel. He’s a five-time convicted felon. He’s been a fugitive. He’s 31 years old and has been arrested or cited 28 times. He’s also been a jailhouse informer — or “snitch” — and despite doubts about his record of telling the truth, he’s the kind of person authorities often rely on to convict other criminals.
In late October 1998, Archuleta was almost halfway through a six-month sentence at the El Paso County jail for check fraud. More charges were pending, and prosecutors were considering tagging him a habitual felon, which could mean 10 years or more in prison. Though a police detective called Archuleta a “chronic liar,” authorities ‘believed’ the felon when he said another inmate privately confessed to murder. In 1999, he testified in the trial of Kent LeBere, accused of strangling Linda Richards, whose body was found in her burning van in a Colorado Springs car wash.
By testifying, Archuleta earned early release from jail and probation in another felony case, and he avoided a habitual felon filing. His testimony helped send LeBere to prison for 60 years. But Archuleta now says he lied in court, that LeBere never confessed. He says police told him what to say and showed him their reports. He testified, he says, to get preferential treatment from prosecutors.
It’s the main basis for LeBere’s fight for a new trial. The case provides a rare glimpse into the shadowy world of jailhouse informers. They often lie — because it can get them out of jail or simply because that’s what they’ve done all their lives. And that has resulted in a string of overturned convictions across the country.
Several states have laws or jury instructions to limit the impact of the testimony of informers, who are widely regarded as the least reliable of witnesses. “People who are incarcerated are desperate to get out,” said Guss Guarino, executive director of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. “Nobody wants to be in jail. Nobody wants to be in prison, and nobody wants to be there a second longer than they have to.”
By the time LeBere and Archuleta had their alleged nighttime jail conversations — over games of chess played with pieces made from bits of toilet paper — Archuleta had already made a career out of working with police. He got “connected with the Police Department” at an early age through neighborhood beat cops and worked for the Colorado Springs Metro, Vice and Narcotics Unit on minor drug buys. He made $100 to $300 a deal and, he said, felt he was doing something positive by taking drug dealers off the street. He testified to helping police on up to 50 cases.
But, Archuleta had his own legal problems, most stemming from bad checks he was passing all over town. He had convictions for fraud, domestic violence, bad checks, harassment, theft, forgery and assault. Yet, until 1998, he’d always gotten probation or community service, when others received lengthy jail terms. Between arrests, he worked as a bail bondsman, and then a truck driver. In jail, court records show, he used his bondsman experience to talk to other inmates, offering to help them set up bail. This was how he got to know LeBere.
According to Archuleta’s own testimony, LeBere was warned, by another inmate when he arrived in jail, that Archuleta was a snitch. But, he said LeBere confessed to him anyway. When Archuleta told a deputy at the jail he had information on LeBere — not long after his sentence reconsideration was denied — Colorado Springs police detective J.D. Walker met with him and agreed to help.
Walker went to the prosecutor and “told her that Ronnie Archuleta was informing on a murder suspect, and I think it was something to the effect of, ‘Is there anything that we could do for him?’” the detective testified in a 1999 hearing. Prosecutors offered to drop his charge from a fourth-degree felony to a sixth-degree felony, with a sentence of probation if he could pay restitution.
Six months after the trial, Archuleta called Bobby Lane Daniel, one of LeBere’s attorneys, and told him his conscience was bothering him and that he had lied in the trial. “He would lie on a dime or for a dime,” Daniel said in a recent interview. “This guy was pretty incredible. He lied to suit his own purpose, whatever his purpose was; and if his purpose changed, he would concoct another story.”
Legal experts say jailhouse informers have a place in the justice system. “There are times when good law enforcement demands you make deals with unsavory characters to get evidence against even more unsavory characters,” said H. Patrick Furman, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Law. But, he said prosecutors and police must ensure the informer has details that only the killer would know, and must do their utmost to verify the informer is telling the truth. “You are dealing with people who have flouted the law. They may have a lot to gain if they say the words prosecutors and police want to hear,” he said. Rarely are their motives for coming forward altruistic.
“In 36 years, I have never had anyone call me because they just felt the need to get something off their chest,” said Bobby Brown, a Colorado Springs bail bondsman and former law enforcement officer. “Jailhouse snitches are a dime a dozen, and as a rule I would really question their reliability,” said Brown, who often receives tips from the jail about people who have jumped bail. However, Lou Smit, a retired Colorado Springs police detective, said, “Jailhouse informants are used all the time, and they are a good source of information.” “If it matches the facts in the case and they have no other way of getting it, it can be reliable information,” Smit said.
In Colorado, it’s up to police and prosecutors to make that determination. A jury is not given any special instructions regarding a jailhouse informer’s credibility. Jailhouse conversations usually occur with no other witnesses, so it often comes down to the word of one criminal against that of another. And prosecutors acknowledge that, as witnesses, informers are far from perfect. “The use of snitches is something I think those of us in law enforcement are increasingly wary of doing,” said 4th Judicial District Attorney John Newsome. Newsome said he is immediately skeptical when someone wants a deal in exchange for information. “You have to start weighing the cost versus benefit in terms of your case, and you have to start weighing if they are telling the truth,” he said.
When the hammer finally came down on Archuleta, it came down hard. On May 31, 2001, he stood before 4th Judicial District Judge Thomas Kennedy and pleaded for mercy. He’d been picked up in Alabama five months before on three felony warrants for check fraud and theft, plus numerous misdemeanor counts of criminal impersonation, forgery, theft, check fraud and violating bail conditions. Prosecutors were no longer interested in making deals. “He’s been playing the system for an extremely long time,” prosecutor Krysia Kubiak said at the hearing. “And I’m not saying the DA’s office and the Police Department has not been complicit in this abuse of the system, but that’s what it is,” she said. “He has used his time in prison — in jail — and his sentences as a kind of Monopoly game to work off each other to see if he can get a better deal and if he can get out of all the crimes he committed.”
Judge Kennedy told Archuleta, “You know and I know that you have zero credibility in this building. Anyone that would put you on the stand would have a fool for a lawyer. You have caused nearly a reversal of a murder conviction next door; you have had police officers testify in open court you have no credibility.” Kennedy gave him the maximum, eight years in prison. Archuleta was released this summer after spending most of his prison time in isolation because of his past as an informer.
LeBere’s appeal is pending before Judge Timothy Simmons. The case has attracted the interest of a congressman from LeBere’s native Minnesota, who helped arrange for an international law firm to pursue the appeal for free. David Bergin, the Pueblo prosecutor who tried the case because the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office had a conflict of interest over Archuleta, declined to comment on Archuleta. Police have said his testimony was a small part of the case against LeBere, who admitted getting a ride home with the victim the night she died.
In a recent interview, Archuleta said he regrets being an informer and stands by his claim that he lied in the LeBere case to get a deal. “I wanted to take care of my children. I was at the point where I’d do anything to get out of jail,” he said. He recanted, he said, because his conscience was bothering him and he believes LeBere deserves a new trial. Since he has lied so much, Archuleta was asked, why should anyone believe him now? “There comes a time in a person’s life when you don’t hold their past against them,” he said. “We all make mistakes, but people do change.”
(CONTACT THE WRITER: 476-1605 or srappold@gazette.com USE OF SNITCHES)
No firm numbers exist on the use of jailhouse informants in criminal trials, but experts say it is common, especially in high-stakes cases such as murder trials in which prosecutors are under pressure to get a conviction. A report released last fall by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions found that, of 111 death-row exonerated defendants since capital punishment was resumed in the 1970’s, 51 of the convictions were based at least in part on informants’ testimony.
Offering people deals in exchange for testifying is “tantamount to bribery,” said the center’s executive director, Rob Warden. “Anybody who has been given an incentive to testify, other than wanting to see justice done … This kind of testimony is inherently suspect,” he added.
The center is encouraging states to pass laws requiring electronic recording of any incriminating statements made to informants. No state has done so.
RESTRICTIONS
In response to problems with the use of jailhouse informants, some lawmakers and courts have increased restrictions on their use by prosecutors: – Illinois: In any capital case in which prosecutors are using a jailhouse snitch, a judge must conduct a pretrial conference to determine if the informant is reliable. – California: Whenever prosecutors have a snitch testify, a judge instructs jurors “the informant should be viewed with caution and close scrutiny” and to consider how much the testimony may have been influenced by favors or leniency from prosecutors.
Courts in a handful of other states, including Oklahoma, Montana, Mississippi and Louisiana, have adopted similar jury instructions. Courts in Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, California and Illinois have determined that credibility of a witness — even an informant — is up to the jury to decide. The American Bar Association’s ruling body in February recommended that prosecutors carefully limit snitch testimony “ensuring that no prosecution should occur based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony.”
OTHER CASES
1989: Leslie Vernon White, a longtime jailhouse informant in Los Angeles, admitted lying in a dozen cases. A grand jury later found widespread problems with the use of snitches and complicity by police and prosecutors.
2001: Prosecutors in Colorado, Florida, South Carolina and Missouri dropped 26 drug cases because an informant who received $2 million in payments over 12 years lied under oath dozens of times.
2004: A state court in California threw out the murder conviction of Thomas Goldstein because of an unreliable jailhouse snitch, 24 years after he testified.
2005: A California man serving a murder sentence was granted a new trial when the jailhouse informant who testified against him was found by a judge to lack credibility.
