There’s only so much we attorneys can do to forewarn you about possible consequences and arm you with contingency plans. I’m not saying we want to see you behind bars or committing crimes—hell, if people stopped breaking laws, I’d practically be out of a job.
Know that whomever you’ve got in your corner, even if they’re faced with a can’t-win case on paper, they will do their goddamnedest to make it turn out the best for you. Even if your case lines up such that you’re walking into a prearranged marriage between your ass and a guilty verdict, there are still plenty of ways to keep you free of incarceration.
Nobody likes a tattletale. We learned that way back when we snuck cigarettes on the playground. As the sage elders of yore often said: snitches get stitches.
I’m not encouraging anyone to risk a neck by declaring that it’s necessary to rat on their co-conspirators. Popular vote says rats are malicious, they’re working off a personal agenda, and there’s nothing creepier than those beady red eyes.
But! There are times when turning rat and becoming an informant can actually be principled. Sometimes, it’s the right thing to do.
So how do you know? Much like when you’re trying to decide if it’s time for a little more absorbency below deck, it depends. When you’re dealing with legal issues, and especially with criminal law, it comes down to: what’s in it for you? What’s the moral balance, you know? Because sometimes, opening the lid on the toilet and luring passersby to witness the aftermath of an epic shit before the janitor makes the nightly rounds is your best possible course of action, in spite of how far outside your comfort zone it falls. It’s a load off your mind, and maybe a load off your expected prison stay.
What if we were to drop the word “snitch” for a moment and use another word—“whistle-blower?” Suddenly, it feels like a very different thing to do, doesn’t it? A noble thing!
Is it? Well, a guy named Ralph Nader made the word “whistle-blower” mainstream back in the 1970s because “snitch” and “informer” had begun to sound unappealing. All that civil unrest going down in the late sixties was way too interesting to the FBI, so old J. Edgar Hoover sent his crew-cut boys to find hippies and activists who could be turned stool pigeon. Nader used “whistle-blower” to reclaim the righteousness of telling the truth about wrongdoing, so no one would confuse that type of informant with your run-of-the-mill street-corner snitch.
Now that we’ve cleared that distinction up, let’s talk strategy.
An oldie but a goody. It may never be more important than when you’ve got the goods on someone or something—the “something” being some kind of organization. Because (and I know you knew I was going to mention it eventually) once we’ve established a paid relationship, we’ve got attorney-client privilege, and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the relationship all those sweet sonnets are about.
Whatever your snitching situation, whenever it occurs, if you know it’s about legal wrongdoing, there’s a grand old reason to run it up the flagpole and let an attorney see if it’s going to flap in the breeze.
If it’s me looking at what kind of truth you have to drop, I want to work out the best strategy for Team You, every time. The stone cold facts are these—if you have something to tell that is definitely going to work in your favor, and shift the spotlight away from your own misdeeds, well, my friend, let’s pursue it. It’s like spilling your martini on a bartender right before directing his attention toward a giant tidal wave about to crash into the bar—yeah, what you did wasn’t cool, but he’s got bigger and wetter things to worry about now.
So what does whistle-blowing look like? Perhaps you and me, side by side, sipping vinegar-flavored coffee in a cramped room that smells like stale pastries and fear while we paint a verbal picture of what it is that you might know for the police or whomever the investigating body is. The attorney’s extremely important job here is to ensure that while you’re spilling the beans, you don’t do something that negates the goodwill that you’re building up with the boys in blue, like revealing that you’re complicit in another crime. Or that you have committed even more crimes than the cops were aware of in the first place. The point is: you might have a bargaining chip, so it’s your best move to let your attorney size that chip up before you play it. As similar as they might look, there’s a big difference between a $500 purple and a $1 blue. To keep you from getting screwed over, assume that your attorney is the only one in the room who isn’t color-blind and trust their instincts before betting too big.
If you’re in an interrogation room alone with an investigator, they might try and convince you it’s cool to talk to them, a friendly face, just to get everything out in the open. That guy or gal will definitely be trying to wring something incriminating out of you, no matter how much you think you’re buying yourself an invitation to the precinct’s annual holiday party.
An important thing to keep in mind when your personal B-29 bomber is carrying an explosive piece of intel? It’s possible the cops might already be in the know, especially if it involves a group of people. They’ll probably string you along anyway. It’s an investigative thing, and yes, they are totally allowed by law to do it.
So: rehearse with your attorney before you talk to anyone with a badge. “My roommate turned five people into hamburger macaroni for the bake sale and I said nothing because who wants to ruin a bake sale? Nobody!” Share the recipe with your attorney first. “My cellmate is the block enforcer and he’s having sex with all the guards who work third shift!” Let your attorney look through the peephole first. The same information a client is convinced is the hot ticket to save their ass—or at least get them a mattress pad with springs once they’re on the inside—could wind up making their defense strategy useless. Tell your lawyer the whole truth and nothing but the truth so that he or she can keep you from using that truth to incriminate yourself.
All whistle-blowing is snitching, but not all snitching is whistle-blowing.
Maybe if there is a real difference between the way people look at snitching now and the way it was perceived back in those happy, high times, it’s that “no snitching” has been kind of encoded into the criminal life, and it can feel singular, personal. There are some perfectly good reasons for that. Yes, it’s a mistrust of the police that stops people from coming forward, but it’s also a matter of self-preservation. Drop a dime on the guy you saw shoot up that bodega and you take one dude off the street, good for you—but if he’s in a gang, there’s a very real chance they won’t just put you in their crosshairs, but your whole family.
But whistle-blowing… there is a reason there are firms that specialize in that. Even if it was supposed to be just a more pleasant word for snitching, it’s taken on its own meaning. The right whistle-blower at the right time is a goddamned hero—and a hero is a dangerous thing to be.
I won’t try to pull too much history professor shit on you, but: when a lot of people think whistle-blower now, they think of Karen Silkwood.
Karen was a humble technician working at a nuclear power plant.
She noticed that there was a lot of slack bullshit afoot at the plant, lapses in health and safety protocols that could end up killing people who worked there. She decided to gather up all the evidence she could and deliver it not to a lawyer, but to a reporter for The New York Times. A few miles out from her rendezvous, Karen’s car left the road. It skidded a good distance before diving off an embankment. The packet she’d brought with her that was going to rip the lid off her employer’s dangerous issues? Mysteriously gone from her car and never recovered.