Are Jury Instructions Effective in Combating Jailhouse Informant Testimony?

Indianapolis, IN

Jailhouse informants, also commonly known as snitches, are one of the leading causes of wrongful conviction in the United States (Innocence Project, 2017), and is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in capital cases (Warden, 2004). Given that jailhouse informants pose a significant risk, yet are identified as a necessary tool by law enforcement, methods must be identified to decrease the chances of wrongful conviction based on this testimony. Therefore, the current research was designed to establish whether a new safeguard proposed by the State of Connecticut is effective. The State of Connecticut proposed a set of jury instructions to provide protection against jailhouse informant testimony. Previous research has provided mixed results on the effectiveness of jury instructions in combating biasing evidence, some research indicating that they may be effective (Pawlenko, Safer, Wise, & Holfeld, 2013), while others do not (Alonzo & Lane, 2010). In order to evaluate the usefulness of these instructions, we had mock jurors read through a trial transcript. Four versions of the transcript provided the instruction manipulation at the beginning and end of the trial, only at the beginning, or general jury instructions, which were then compared to a no jailhouse informant control. Overall, the conviction rates were highest when the jailhouse informant was presented in the trial, although not significantly. Interestingly, there were no significant differences in the evaluations of the jailhouse informant based on the instructions. The only significant difference was found in the evaluations except between verdict decisions made by participants.