Criminal Defendants Who Help the Government

      A defendant or suspect in our criminal justice system who is offered a deal, who cooperates or provides information to the government, can expect some benefit. The most famous benefit, of course, is leniency. A leniency for their own crimes, either a shorter stint or the ability to avoid charges altogether. And the use of informants is an enormous and central part of the way we run our criminal justice system. You can understand it as a kind of off-the-books form of plea bargaining. We don't keep track of it, but it is a form of negotiation that is legal, tolerated and very common practice.

Alexander Natapoff, Professor, University of California Irvine School of Law on Adam H. Johnson's The Appeal Podcast, October 10, 2019