What is the name of your state? Ohio.
What are the rights for drug Informants? If the accused is going to court does the informant HAVE to testify? Does his name stay out of anything to do with the court trials? Just give me all the info you have on this. Thanks in advance
Matt
They have no more rights than anyone else has. In fact, many times they are already felons who have been busted and are looking at their second or third felony charge and some serious time, so they agree to roll over on their connection, or their source for illegal drugs, or provide information of significant value to the police, in order to have their charges reduced or dropped all together.
Being a felon, they have already lost certain rights. Most often, their right to refuse any law enforcement's request to search their person or property, their right to own a gun or other weapons, their right to vote, their right to sit on a jury etc.
As far as being a "confidential" informant, I wouldn't consider anything confidential in this day and age. The police may act like they are your friend and will help you as long as you help them, but in reality, they don't think much more of a snitch, than do the people they roll over on. If a case goes to trial and the defendant has a good attorney, the informant will eventually have to be identified and their credibility scrutinized.
It's like fighting fire with fire, your bound to get burned whenever your setting fires. If you should happen to expire when you're working with the police, don't expect any to be at your funeral service. They'll be busy, breaking in another informant.
Look at it this way, have you ever gone fishing? If you catch a nice big bass or trout, when you pull your hook out of it's mouth, are you ever worried about getting the worm back, or do you just reach into the bait box and grab you another one?
So volunteering to become an informant for the police, is the equivelant of volunteering to be the worm on a fishing trip,,,,,,
