Family of slain woman wants stricter laws
TALLAHASSEE (AP) – The parents of a 23-year-old Florida woman killed during a botched police drug operation said Thursday they’ll work with state lawmakers on legislation to better protect confidential informants like their daughter.
The family of Rachel Hoffman said at a news conference at the state Capitol that law enforcement agencies’ policies on informants vary throughout the state and don’t do enough to ensure informants’ safety.
The bill, being called Rachel’s Law, would require informants to get a written description of what they will be required to do and an agreement from prosecutors on how they can expect to benefit in return. The law has a number of other provisions meant to protect the informant, but some prosecutors and law enforcement officials say they’re wary of the bill.
Hoffman became an informant for the Tallahassee Police Department in April 2008 after officers searched her house and found marijuana and a small amount of ecstasy. Officers told her she would not be charged if she agreed to help them. After a sting operation she participated in went awry, however, the recent Florida State University graduate was found dead of gunshot wounds on May 9 in a rural area southeast of Tallahassee. Two men charged in her death are now in jail awaiting trial.
“Rachel made mistakes and was paying the consequences for her actions, but her punishment should never have cost her her life,” said her father Irv Hoffman, who was joined by Hoffman’s mother, Margie Weiss, at a news conference where they stood next to a poster-size photograph of their only daughter.
Hoffman said that when police recruited his daughter to be an informant she was already in a court-ordered drug treatment program after being caught with marijuana. That “should have automatically disqualified her from serving as an informant,” he said, because it meant she was continuing to be involved with drugs.
Under the proposed law, prospective confidential informants in drug treatment programs, like Hoffman, would have to get approval from a judge to become an informant. Similarly, a person who is on probation or parole would have to have approval from prosecutors and their supervising officer. Potential informants would also have to be allowed to talk with a lawyer before deciding whether to work with authorities. Finally, law enforcement officers would have to take into account the age, maturity and criminal history of the informant and compare that with the person or people they would be contacting to decide whether the assignment is appropriate.
In Hoffman’s case, the psychology major had never been convicted of a violent crime or bought cocaine, but she was sent as an informant to buy ecstasy, cocaine and a gun from Deneilo Bradshaw and Andrea Green. Green, 26, had spent time in prison for selling marijuana and aggravated assault with a weapon.
After Hoffman’s death, the Tallahassee Police Department changed its policy on confidential informants. They no longer use people in drug treatment programs without permission, said Tallahassee city attorney Jim English. But confidential informants still don’t get any written promise about what they will have to do and how they can expect to benefit in return. Informants have, however, always had to sign a statement that suggests they talk with a lawyer and letting them know the risks they’re taking, English said.
Not everyone supports the proposed law.