Houston, Texas Criminal Defense Trial Lawyers

Snitches, Informers, and Rats In many cases defendants are asked by the government to inform on other people in exchange for lighter sentences. This is a part of how the system now works, especially in federal criminal cases. Although the system is designed this way, it's not right, and it's part of our descent as a nation toward the totalitarianism that we once feared and hated in our most frightening enemy: Once upon a time there was a free country, which had been founded by men who banded together against a despotic government, believing that governments are by their nature dangerous to freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to ensure that freedom overcame tyranny. In the schoolyards and homes of this free country, children learned that it was wrong to be an informant. The child who "told on" someone was ostracized by the other children and corrected by his parents. At the same time there was a country that was not free; it had been founded by men who banded together against a despotic government, believing that they could be better despots than the monarchs they overthrew. In the schoolyards and homes of that unfree country children learned that it was right to be an informant. The child who "told on" someone was following the example of the adults, who were rewarded by the government for informing on their friends and neighbors. Somewhere on its way to the twenty-first century, both the free country and the totalitarian regime changed. Liberty took hold in the USSR. Tyranny took hold in the USA. Children were rewarded for informing on other children, and even on their own parents. Schools taught children to be informers. Government agents gained the authority to buy incriminating information for favors, money, and freedom. Liberty languishes, and tyranny thrives, when citizen turns against citizen to help the government impose order. Only by remembering that government is not to be trusted any more today than 230 years ago do we have a chance of remaining free. We work in a system in which a citizen who is charged with a crime is punished for making the government prove its case, and rewarded for snitching on other citizens. When it is necessary for our clients to help themselves by truthfully informing against other people, we will help them do it. That is our obligation as lawyers. We don't, however, have to like it.