A jailhouse informant is a person in jail who informs police or prosecutors that another prisoner confessed to them about a crime or revealed important information.
The informant may testify in court in exchange for a possible benefits like reduced charges or an early release.
The central problem is that these benefits can give informants a strong incentive to lie and for prosecutors to look the other way when there is strong evidence that the informant is unreliable and is lying.
Investigative journalist Pamela Colloff examines that injustice in "Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast."
The book expands her reporting on Paul Skalnik, a prolific con man who repeatedly turned his arrests into opportunities to snitch while cooperating with prosecutors.
Skalnik impersonated lawyers, oilmen and military officers, married nine women (some marriages were concurrent) and defrauded women and acquaintances. When jailed, he claimed fellow prisoners had confessed to serious crimes.
Colloff’s reporting found that Skalnik provided information or testimony in at least 40 cases in Florida and Texas, helping send four men to death row. In return, he repeatedly received lighter punishment or early release.
The most troubling example of Skalnik's misdeeds is James Dailey, convicted in the 1985 murder of 14-year-old Shelly Boggio in Florida. No physical or forensic evidence linked Dailey to the killing. Skalnik testified that Dailey confessed, strengthening the prosecution’s circumstantial case.
Dailey has maintained his innocence, while a co-defendant has repeatedly said he acted alone. Florida courts, however, have upheld Dailey’s conviction and rejected his post-conviction challenges.
Prosecutors argue that informants can provide truthful, indispensable evidence and that jurors can evaluate their credibility under cross-examination. The constitutional danger arises when officials conceal promised benefits, withhold an informant’s history or knowingly allow false testimony to stand.
A 2025 law-review analysis identified 241 exonerations involving jailhouse informants. Texas and several other states now require greater disclosure and tracking, while some jurisdictions require pretrial reliability hearings.
But in Texas the tracking of jailhouse informants is only required at the county level and there is no centralized state database of this practice.
Colloff’s account shows why those safeguards are critically important — but may not be enough.
Guest:
Pamela Colloff is an award-winning investigative journalist at ProPublica and a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, known for her reporting on criminal justice and wrongful convictions. A two-time National Magazine Award winner, she is the author of "Catch the Devil," an investigation into con man and jailhouse informant Paul Skalnik.
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