FRONTLINE - SNITCH (part 3 of 3)

ERIC STERLING, President Criminal Justice Policy Foundation: There don't
have to be drugs. People are amazed. "Well, aren't there drugs?" There
don't have to be drugs. All there have to be are witnesses who say, "I saw
drugs" or "He said there were drugs."

NARRATOR: There don't have to be drugs because in federal cases oral
testimony is enough. So when a small technical amendment to the mandatory
minimums was issued in 1988, it created a huge change in the prosecution of
drug offenders. The conspiracy amendment stipulated that the lowest person
in a so-called drug conspiracy could be punished with the maximum sentence
designed for a kingpin.

ERIC STERLING: If the mandatory minimums were a result of haste and excess
by Congress, "conspiracy" as applied to these mandatories was completely by
oversight and by accident. It was submitted as part of a simple "technical
corrections" amendment. No one even thought at all about what the
implications were of applying conspiracy.

NARRATOR: Its implications were enormous and would change thousands of lives.

ERIC STERLING: Mandatory minimums designed for kingpins with very long
sentences, conspiracy bringing in the lowest level offenders who become
eligible for those. The only way they can avoid those mandatories is to
provide substantial assistance to a prosecutor. And if it means telling a
wild story to avoid spending almost life in prison without parole, there
are many people who will do that.

NARRATOR: Defense attorneys had their work cut out for them.

GORDON ARMSTRONG III, Defense Attorney: There is no case that's not a
conspiracy case. If I possessed it, I had to get it from somebody or
somewhere, so technically I conspired to get it. Every case is a conspiracy
case, but conspiracy cases are much easier to prove.

BOB CLARK, Defense Attorney: We can call each other on the phone and make
an agreement. Once the agreement's made, 30 minutes later you say, "Well,
no, I don't think I want to do that," and call it off, you've already
committed a criminal offense by making the agreement.

INTERVIEWER: You can be indicted?

BOB CLARK: You can be indicted and sent to prison.

INTERVIEWER: How many witnesses do you need to indict somebody and convict
them?

LYN HILLMAN-CAMPBELL, Assistant Federal Defender: Under the conspiracy law,
you only need one. So one person says you're a drug dealer, you could get
convicted and go to jail.

INTERVIEWER: That's it? I can put you in jail tomorrow like that?

GORDON ARMSTRONG: If the government thought I was involved in drugs, and
you told them I was involved, then I would probably get indicted. It's that
easy.

Sen. JEFF SESSIONS (R), Alabama: Well, you have to be careful. A good
prosecutor must always be careful, and if there's not corroboration on the
testimony of a co-conspirator drug dealer, you should not proceed with the
case. You should have absolute confidence that the facts given to you are
true or you should not proceed.

NARRATOR: Yet after the conspiracy amendment was enacted, the prison
population swelled. Within six years, the number of drug cases in federal
prisons increased by 300 percent. From 1986 to 1998, it was up by 450
percent. Not only were there more prisoners, but they were serving much
longer sentences as a result of conspiracy charges. [www.pbs.org: More on
the laws and statistics]

The social costs were also rising. Charged with being involved in a drug
conspiracy, Dorothy Gaines is serving a 20-year sentence.

DOROTHY GAINES: "Conspiracy" is so broad. Anyone can get caught up in
conspiracy- just knowing someone. That's what I constantly tell my kids-
just being around someone. But it don't take 20 years to learn your
mistake. I know that I got caught up by being associated.

NARRATOR: Dorothy Gaines agrees that she did not always keep very good
company. Several times in her life she was involved with men who either
used or dealt drugs. When one of them was caught, he implicated her in
exchange for a reduced sentence. When the case was thrown out of state
court for lack of evidence, the federal government picked it up and added a
charge of conspiracy with a drug-smuggling ring.

When she went to trial, her children were certain she'd be acquitted.

NATASHA GAINES: I figured my mother would get a "Not guilty" verdict. There
was no evidence. There were four people on trial with her, and everybody
was putting evidence on. "Well, this is exhibit A or exhibit B for this
defendant or for this defendant." There was never any evidence placed on
the table or bar for Dorothy Gaines.

NARRATOR: Forty-year-old Dorothy, mother of three and grandmother of two,
was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Her then 20-year-old
daughter, Natasha, had to leave college and become the head of the family.

NATASHA GAINES: I had to become Mother. I had to reverse from sister to
mother because I had to take on my sister and brother. I was at an age at
that time that I'd learned to do for myself. They didn't. They were 11 and
10 years old.

DOROTHY GAINES: Both of them have failed twice since I've been locked up.
That's the big worry. They tell me all the time that they are doing the
time. "Mamma, when are you coming home?"

NARRATOR: They've pinned their hopes on her appeal lawyer, Lyn Campbell,
who firmly believes in her client's innocence.

LYN HILLMAN-CAMPBELL: I've read all of the evidence in the case, the entire
trial, and there's, like, a little voice in the back of my head that says,
"Wait a minute. There's just nothing here." It's just these five drug
dealers, and who have, you know, great, big reasons not to tell the truth.
You know, some of them had guns when they were caught and weren't
prosecuted for the guns- you know, extensive criminal histories,
everything. And you've got this lady who has no criminal history to speak
of. She doesn't have two nickels to rub together. And it just doesn't make
sense to me.

NARRATOR: U.S. attorney J. Don Foster reviewed the case.

J. DON FOSTER: From my review of the record in this case, there is no doubt
in my mind about her guilt. She knew a lot about what was going on. Whether
she knew absolutely everything, I don't know. But she knew enough to be on
the board of directors, in effect.

INTERVIEWER: Because the co-conspirators said so?

J. DON FOSTER: Confirmed by other witnesses.

LYN HILLMAN-CAMPBELL: Well, I guess if you call getting five guys in a room
and saying, "Well, is that true what he said? Is that true what he said?"-
I mean, that's pretty much the way they corroborate. When I think of
corroboration, I think hard evidence, phone records, beeper records,
unexplained money. You know, it doesn't take a lot to corroborate that
someone's a drug dealer. But when you don't have any of those things, and
you see it in case after case after case, how easy it is to come up with
that stuff- you know, a snitch corroborating a snitch is not corroboration,
to me.

NARRATOR: Bob Clark, a well-known and outspoken defense lawyer in Mobile,
Alabama, will not represent snitches.

BOB CLARK: Snitches are used by the government because it makes their life
a lot easier. You put everybody in prison, and then you cut deals with
those that are willing to rat on everybody else. And people generally tell
the government what they want to hear. In fact, when they try people here
in the southern district of Alabama, they put all the rats and the snitches
together in one cell. And after they testify, they go back to the snitch
cell and compare stories and compare notes.

NARRATOR: In the case of Dorothy Gaines, her lawyer moved for a mistrial
when he learned that the informants who testified against her were
returning to their holding cell, comparing notes. The judge found that as
long as the witnesses assured him that they did not discuss their
testimony, he couldn't see any problem with that. The motion was denied.

J. DON FOSTER, U.S. Attorney: If the judge tells them not to talk and they
talk, they're in violation of the judge's order. And the judge does tell
them not to talk with each other, does tell them not to tell each other
what they're going to- what they have testified to. So if they've- if they
obey the judge's orders, which they certainly should do, they're not going
to be doing that.

BOB CLARK: [laughs] Do I feel that snitches lie? Only when their mouth is
moving. You know, if they're asleep, most of the time they don't, but- oh,
they'll say anything. They're prostitutes. I mean it is- I don't know how
you could run a criminal justice system without the use of informants, but
at the same time, it allows itself for such abuse. I mean absolutely
unbelievable abuse.

INTERVIEWER: Why do you believe these people? I mean, they're felons, they
have everything to gain.

J. DON FOSTER: Well, you can be sure that defense attorneys remind juries
of that every chance they get. They are- the juries are bombarded with the
fact that these people are criminals themselves and that they may be trying
to help themselves out by testifying, but it's hard to make up a story that
fools 12 people.

ERIC STERLING: We believe in the presumption of innocence, as a society.
Once you get in the courtroom, that presumption is very, very thin. It's
not a whole lot of protection. And when you have a witness who says, "Yes,
I am getting a deal, but I was there, and this is what the defendant did,"
jurors will say, "Well, he must"- you know, "Even if I don't believe all
that he's saying, I believe enough of it, and that enough is proof beyond a
reasonable doubt for me."

NARRATOR: Tony told us that in his experience, not only can juries be
misled, but that informants often mislead the prosecutors.

"TONY": I would like to believe that the majority of the prosecutors are
using witnesses they believe to be telling the truth. The problem is, they
have no idea if they're telling the truth.

For example, when I was in prison, I was asked to cooperate in a case that
would have been very dangerous to my family. It would have possibly gotten
them killed, and I told the government I couldn't do it. So I mentioned
this to my cellmate, that there was this case that was probably my ticket
to walk out the door, and I told him I couldn't do it. And he said, "Are
you crazy?" He said, "If you can't do it, I'll do it. Just get me some
details about the case and get me a picture of this guy, and I'll call the
government, and I'll tell them that I've been doing business with him."

If I would have gone along with that, he would have all the information
which I had, plus any information that he wanted to make up. He would have
all the details. He would have a photograph so he could identify the guy,
and he probably would have gotten himself out of prison with this
testimony. And informants do that all the time.

ERIC STERLING: The entire criminal justice system knows that perjury is the
coin of the realm. In New York City, police officers call it "testalying."
In Los Angeles, they call it "the liars club." Lying- everybody knows that
lying takes place. The prosecutors don't feel bad about it. This is simply
part of the system. They justify it by saying, "We have to get the bad guy."

NARRATOR: In Uniontown, Alabama, getting the bad guy turned out to involve
the whole community. Almost every family was affected when the government
indicted more than 70 people, accusing them of conspiracy to possess with
intent to distribute 150 kilograms of cocaine.

1st WOMAN IN CHURCH: My name is Christine Johnson. I'm a friend of Leroy
Williams. He was sentenced for 13 years on drug conspiracy charges. There
were no drugs found in our home.

2nd WOMAN IN CHURCH: I am Ernie Strother's wife. He's serving 13 years for
conspiracy

3rd WOMAN IN CHURCH: My brother, Thelbert Staton, is waiting to be
sentenced on conspiracy charges. He wasn't even searched. No drugs found.

SALLY McGEE: My name is Sally McGee. I have four brothers incarcerated for
drug conspiracy, but they did not find any drugs the morning that they
picked these guys up.

NARRATOR: In the early morning of May 29, 1997, a small army of state and
federal agents descended on Uniontown, a small rural community of fewer
than 2,000 people in southern Alabama. They arrested more than 70 people,
charging them with conspiracy to posses with intent to distribute cocaine.

GORDON ARMSTRONG: If you listen to their arguments, if you listen to the
amounts that they claimed was involved, the dollar figures, the sources
coming in from California, from Texas, from Miami, Detroit, the different
areas, you would think that this was a hub, basically, where everything was
shipped into and then moved back out of.

NARRATOR: With so many people indicted, Gordon Armstrong from Mobile,
Alabama, was one of the lawyers, mostly appointed by the court to represent
the accused.

GORDON ARMSTRONG: Once you see what the evidence turned out to be, and you
met the people involved, there's no way that that dollar figure and those
amounts were possible.

NARRATOR: Yet it was hailed by the government as one of the greatest drug
crackdowns in Alabama's history, a result of an intense investigation based
on the help of informants.

WOMAN IN CHURCH: If these people have that many drugs in Uniontown, and
they didn't get the drugs- they have all these confidential informants, why
didn't they get the drugs along with the people?

1st MAN IN CHURCH: They charged all of us with a 150-key conspiracy, but
yet and still they didn't have no 150 keys. Well, well where's the dope? If
everybody had dope, where is it?

2nd MAN IN CHURCH: This town ain't but that big, and they make it seem like
this is Florida, where all the kilos coming in at. There wasn't nothing
here. Wasn't nothing here.

NARRATOR: What was there were a few drug dealers who were caught, pled
guilty and turned informant. The main one was 23-year-old Cedric Jones.

GORDON ARMSTRONG: He was the stereotypical person that you would think of
when you thought drug dealer. He had the cars and the jewelry, and he had
the AK-47, the Chinese assault weapon. And he'd- he'd been shot three times
in drug deals. He had ordered somebody shot who had disrespected him. He
made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obviously, he had most of the
evidence against him. So he went down, and he testified and, basically, he
was able to buy some freedom.

J. DON FOSTER, U.S. Attorney: We try to go up the ladder, if we can,
starting with the little fish and going up the ladder to the big fish. But
sometimes you've got the big fish, and you need to come down the ladder. So
it just works however it fits for that particular case.

NARRATOR: In Uniontown, once they got the big fish, Cedric Jones, he rolled
over and informed on the smaller fish. Cedric let it be known that he would
snitch on his own mother if it would help him. His mother wasn't indicted,
but his uncles were.

In trial after trial, Cedric implicated his family, friends and
acquaintances. How much of what he said was true is an open question. Sally
McGee is Cedric's aunt.

SALLY McGEE: Is he telling the truth to the government? I can't see any
truth to what he's saying, if he's calling us constantly saying "They're
telling me what to say. And I have to please them, I got to help myself."

NARRATOR: Whether the informants were truthful or not, their testimony was
proof enough for many families to lose their properties through the
forfeiture law.

LYN HILLMAN-CAMPBELL, Assistant Federal Defender: They say you're a drug
dealer, and you have a house, it's gone. I mean forfeitures- it's not even
beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a very low burden of proof, and all they
have to say is it's more likely than not that you used your house in a drug
deal, and your house is gone. It's more likely than not that you used your
car in a drug deal, and your car is gone. It's more likely than not that
your account is drug proceeds, and your bank account is gone.

NARRATOR: There wasn't much all that much to take in Uniontown, but farm
equipment, livestock and properties were seized. Sally and Charlie McGee's
new house had cost them $90,000, both their life's savings. The government
was suspicious.

SALLY McGEE: They had us to go down- had me, rather, to go down and testify
before the grand jury. They questioned me as to what kind of work we did
and how long we had been working and this that and the other.

NARRATOR: Sally McGee is a teacher. Her husband, Charles, is a retired NCO
in the Army.

CHARLIE McGEE: I've been in the military most of my life because I went in
at an early age, I came out at an early age. So that's all I ever knew was
the military. It's an insult. It's really a insult. For the government to-
if they come to me, it's an insult.

SALLY McGEE: And I've taught 18 years- no kids, no fancy lifestyle. I'm
just plain Sally. And I had to explain how we managed to accumulate what we
got, the little we've got. And to be honest, I was taught as a child from
growing up to start saving, put away. Worked in the cotton field, picked
okra. We farmed.

I mean, I know what it means to sow the corn, to help take care of the cows
that my deceased father left that the government came and took, all of
that. I know what it means to drink out of a jelly jar. I know what it
means to eat out of a tin pan. I know how to save, trust me. Ask my
husband. I don't need any kind of fancy lifestyle. I know nothing but
saving and working hard all of my life. And then, you know, the government
has the nerve to ask how did we get this.

WOMAN IN CHURCH: Over 80 percent of the people, the residents here, work. I
don't care what kind of job they work, they work. And that's the American
dream, is to work and accumulate the same thing that you see everyone else
have. Here, if you own one house and you drive a nice car, you have to be
selling drugs. If you try to get your own business started, like many of
the people, you have to be selling drugs. Even though they found out that
these cars were financed, these houses were financed, these trucks were
financed, they still took them.

YOUNG MAN IN CHURCH: How can you come in and take farm equipment that was
left from grandfathers and borrowed from people here and people there? How
can the government come in and just take this stuff?

LYN HILLMAN-CAMPBELL: It's a very, very easy thing for them to do,
especially when they've got- you know, snitches come in, and you get
convicted, and then all of the sudden you're a convicted drug dealer. Well,
of course you were dealing drugs, you know, out of your house. Your house
is gone.

YOUNG MAN IN CHURCH: How can you take three people's testimony and corral a
whole bunch of other people? Like I said, certain people that they said
were bringing the drugs in, those people are still riding around like there
ain't nothing happened. You know, come to the club, go to the corner. They
don't care. They're still free. But everybody else they done rodeoed, and
they locked up, hurt many people's lives.

GORDON ARMSTRONG: It doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people. It
really doesn't. It might look good on paper, but in real life the way it
works out is an awful lot of people are getting an awful lot of jail time
based on the word of other people and without a lot of real proof, just
based on snitches.

ELAINE ALFORD: [preaching in church] We have in Mobile, Alabama, a
population of about 200,000, and guess what? The records are so staggering
that I don't even want to go into numbers because that means nothing!

NARRATOR: Mobile, Alabama, has the highest percentage of informants in the
country. Elaine Alford is a pastor of a small church whose members are
deeply affected by these statistics.

ELAINE ALFORD: What bothers me the most is that the law puts these young
men in a position to snitch on each other. And they'll make them say
things, put such fear in them and make them say things, you know, cause
them to snitch on people that have been friends and family. That's, I
guess, the most profound thing is that family members are telling lies on
family members in order to save themselves.

NARRATOR: That's what happened to Linda Aaron's son, Clarence, when his
first cousin turned informant and testified against him, helping to put him
behind bars for the rest of his life.

LINDA AARON: It tore the whole family up. Everybody. I couldn't believe it.
You know, why would he say the things that he said about Clarence, and he
knew that they wasn't true? And then I couldn't even understand why he
could even testify against his own cousin, and tell- and tell a lie. If it
was the truth, I could have understood it. But it wasn't. None of it was
the truth. He was just trying to save his own butt.

MARTIN AARON: This is my nephew. This is my sister's child. This is my
son's first cousin. They was raised together, from children. I mean, you
can imagine what this does to a family.

LINDA AARON: It tore the whole family up. It even tore me and his father
up. That's the reason why I'm not with him right now.

MARTIN AARON: That's what the emotional strain had done to her, some woman
I had been with for 30 years. We had stayed together and raised all our
children from birth, but because of what happened to Clarence, the trial,
it destroyed everything.

DENNIS KNIZLEY, Defense Attorney: Drug dealers, they're going to testify
against anybody. It doesn't matter who it is. And if Clarence Aaron is out
there, and they knew him from childhood, whether they- whether what they
say is true or untrue, they're going to find somebody to testify against
because if they can't find somebody to testify against, they can't get out
of the life without parole. They can't get out of the 360 months to life.
They've got to have somebody to testify against. And if they're sitting in
jail, they're just going to manufacture the testimony if needed.

ELAINE ALFORD: I know several in Clarence's case that have come to me
personally and expressed how bad and how sorry they were, how bad it made
them feel that they had to do to him what they did- you know, that they had
to do it. And if it was anything that they could do to change it, they would.

INTERVIEWER: Why did they do it?

ELAINE ALFORD: Because that was the only opportunity that they had to be
free and to take the minimum that the law offers. Whereas Clarence received
the maximum.

NARRATOR: Of the four witnesses who testified against Clarence in order to
avoid life sentences, two served less than five years and are now out. The
self-avowed kingpin is serving a 12-year sentence. Clarence's cousin did
not serve a day.

INTERVIEWER: Why did they want Clarence?

LINDA AARON: Because they wanted Clarence to say something that he didn't
know, and he wouldn't say it, and that was the reason why. They wanted him-
and they wanted to make an example out of- "If you don't help us, we'll get
you," to show all these black boys that, "We'll get you if you don't do
what we say do."

INTERVIEWER: Is it true?

BOB CLARK: It's true. He refused to snitch. He refused to make a deal. So
he's now doing life without.

J. DON FOSTER: He thought he was going to win. And he was given every
opportunity to help himself early on, and he didn't- he didn't want to do it.

INTERVIEWER: Why wouldn't you?

CLARENCE AARON: Miss Ofra, who was I to testify against? I was the last one
to be arrested. When I got arrested, all the guys that was involved in our
conspiracy was already cooperating. So what do you want me to tell, what
they already told? Ain't nothing else I could tell. Only people I could
have testified against, the guy that was already cooperating at that
particular time already.

J. DON FOSTER: You know, the tendency to feel sorry for him is in relation
to these other people that did cooperate and that did help themselves and
got less. And even though they were perhaps guiltier or more culpable, they
got less because they helped solve the case. They helped to bring everybody
to justice. And the one person or two- I think there were two that went to
trial in that case- that didn't, you know, suffered the results or the
consequences of the arrogance of thinking that you're- you're going to beat
this, that "I'm too good. I'm too good to take a deal."

NARRATOR: Dennis Knizley is infuriated by this logic.

DENNIS KNIZLEY: We're trading our paranoia to get rid of these drugs for
our constitutional rights, and we're making a terrible mistake in doing that.

INTERVIEWER: And I'm hearing it in Mobile, Alabama?

DENNIS KNIZLEY: You're hearing it in Mobile, Alabama, from the conservative
guy that went to West Point, that hates drugs and doesn't do drugs. And
you're hearing it from him that we- this war on drugs is quickly, quickly
eroding our constitutional rights.

"TONY": It's no longer about protecting people who are innocent. Now it's
part of the casualties of the drug war. "Well, if a couple of them have to
go, then that's what has to happen. Just like in any other war, that's what
has to happen." That's how they justify it in their minds, I guess. That's
how they can sleep at night. "Well, maybe I did prosecute the wrong guy" or
"Maybe he wasn't do guilty. But hey, these other 15 guys, they were
certainly guilty."

J. DON FOSTER: Believe me, we don't want to indict anybody who's innocent.
You know, that's what a trial is really for. It's a search for the truth.
And it's the best system in this world that we have, and- I mean, right in
the United States. It's not perfect, but it's the best in the world.

NARRATOR: It is the system that put the fate of Clarence Aaron in the hands
of 12 jurors. We talked to one of them, Willie Jordan.

WILLIE JORDAN: It's about as fair a system that I guess as we can- you can
have because you take 12 people on a jury, they pretty well going to do the
right thing, make the right decision, no matter who they are.

INTERVIEWER: You felt you had all the information that you wanted to have
from the government?

WILLIE JORDAN: Yes, I did. It was pretty clear-cut, I thought.

NARRATOR: But federal jurors are not let into the sentencing session and
often do not know the end result of their verdict.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know what the sentence was?

WILLIE JORDAN: Well, you know, I meant to look in the paper later to see
what kind of sentence they served, and somehow or other I missed it, and I
never did know what kind of sentence they got.

INTERVIEWER: What kind of sentence do you think he deserves?

WILLIE JORDAN: Well, I wouldn't have thought a large number of years, no.
Just a- just a- probably a short sentence. Now, what a short sentence is I
don't know- three to five years, maybe something like that. I don't know.

INTERVIEWER: Do you know that he got life?

WILLIE JORDAN: Life!

INTERVIEWER: Three concurrent life sentences.

WILLIE JORDAN: Three concurrent life sentences. With no hope of parole?

INTERVIEWER: No hope of parole.

WILLIE JORDAN: Well, that's more than I thought it would be. But see, I had
no idea. Well, I'm surprised at that, I really am, that harsh a sentence.
He seemed to be a pretty promising boy. Why did they get such a high
sentence, I wonder? I wish I didn't know now that they'd got life.

[Since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing in 1986, the
availability of drugs on the street in the U.S. has remained virtually
unchanged.]