4 ms·
> "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI th
by leekleak 13y ago
> "parallel construction" isn't new. It's also what happens when highly-placed criminal informants help make cases against organized criminals; to use the CI themselves as part of the chain of evidence would be to risk losing that CI.
The difference is that the use of informants to generate investigatory leads is constitutionally unproblematic. There is no constitutional right to not be ratted out by an associate.
On the other hand, there is a constitutional right to the privacy of ones telecommunications. Therefore, using investigatory leads that are the product of illegal surveillance is constitutionally problematic, because of the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine.
A failure to inform the defendant of how the investigation began deprives him of his ability to argue that the evidence against should be suppressed because it was obtained directly or indirectly as the fruit of an illegal search (wiretap).
- tptacek 13y agoNo, the use of informants to kickstart an investigation without having that informant be in the chain of evidence is not Constitutionally unproblematic. Defense attorneys have campaigned against it for three decades. There is a complicated balancing act involved in using but not disclosing CIs, and it is very similar to the balancing act involved in using surveillance. It isn't helpful to pretend that one use is cut-and-dry and the other not.
- leekleak 13y agoIf that's the case, then it only makes parallel construction used in the context of leads generated from wiretaps all the more suspect.