Elon Law Professor Michael L. Rich discussed his article, “Of Brass Rings and Red-Headed Stepchildren: Protecting Active Criminal Informants,” on February 24 at Richmond University School of Law.
Rich’s article is forthcoming in the American University Law Review. In the article, Rich suggests that current law does not protect criminal informants sufficiently and that society has a duty, arising from its general obligation to protect its vulnerable members, to protect these informants.
“Society has a widely-accepted normative obligation to protect its vulnerable members, and informants are often quite vulnerable,” writes Rich. “Moreover, this duty is enhanced when an individual’s vulnerabilities are the result of her engagement in socially-beneficial activities, as they are in the case of the active criminal informant.”
Rich offers several policies to better protect active criminal informants, including: requiring court approval for the use of particularly vulnerable informants and prosecutorial consent for the use of all other informants; training for informants and law enforcement agents in minimizing the risk of harm to informants; and encouraging law enforcement to minimize these risks by including informants in the scope of existing workers’ compensation schemes.
Rich presented at Richmond University School of Law through the school’s Faculty Colloquy Series.
Currently, Rich teaches courses in criminal law, evidence, and criminal procedure. His areas of research include criminal law, civil and criminal white-collar litigation, police investigatory methods, and government fraud. His publications include, “Lessons of Disloyalty in the World of Criminal Informants,” forthcoming American Criminal Law Review, 2012.