The prosecution relied on a single eyewitness to tie Hill to the 2004 shooting deaths of Robin Battie and Tinesha Lewis in Camden, New Jersey. Police were unable to locate a murder weapon, and there was no forensic evidence, such as DNA or fingerprints, tying Hill to the killings. He maintained his innocence throughout.
Gurbir S. Grewal, then the New Jersey attorney general, whose Conviction Review Unit took on Hill's case, noted that the use of jailhouse informants was "subject to fewer safeguards" at the time, and as such the prosecution relied on two inmates to corroborate the single eyewitness.
Both subsequently recanted their testimony.
"One of the guys I never even met," Hill told Law360 Pulse. "He literally watched the news, he heard the rumors about what was going on, and he made up a story. He made it up and said we actually had a conversation. … We never even spoke."
The other informant, he said, was a jailed paralegal Hill had approached for advice ahead of a hearing. That inmate used the information Hill gave him about his case and turned it against him.
"I was just very, very hurt and very humiliated," Hill said. "Every judge, every court — the Superior Court, Supreme Court — everyone denied me."
He remembers when he learned Grewal's team took his case.
"I knew I was going home," he said. "I knew that all it took was for a third-party entity to step in and review my case to see exactly what I was arguing all those years."
Hill was wrongfully convicted, Grewal's task force found. His conviction and 60-year prison sentence were vacated, representing the first win achieved by the Conviction Review Unit, and he was released from prison on July 9, 2021.
In an effort to prevent a situation like Hill's occurring again, Grewal issued a directive in October 2020 instructing prosecutors to meet a series of standards when relying on jailhouse informants. Under the directive, prosecutors must seek approval from the county prosecutor before using a jailhouse informant by providing the informants' criminal history, the benefits they would receive for their testimony, and known recantations. The directive also instructs prosecutors to maintain a database of approved informants.
The New Jersey Supreme Court took it one step further and, on Jan. 31, published proposed amendments to discovery requirements that mandate jailhouse informant transparency. Under the proposed rule change, prosecutors must provide the known criminal history of the jailhouse informant, promises made to informants in exchange for their testimony, known recantations, and any other criminal cases in which the informant testified or was intending to testify.
Public comments on the rule change are being accepted by the state's Supreme Court until March 31.
Support for Reform
Both prosecutors and defense attorneys in New Jersey commended the high court for taking on the issue.
Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina, who serves as president of the County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey, said that the rule change codifies the attorney general's directive and "would increase the predictability of our discovery obligations."
The rule change, he said, is a step forward.
"The County Prosecutors Association of New Jersey supports the enhanced transparency that this rule fosters and any measures that help ensure a fair trial for all parties involved in the criminal justice system," he said.
Jennifer Sellitti, the director of training and communications at the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender, said the attorney general's directive was not binding in court, so receiving information on a jailhouse informant was not always a guarantee for the defense.
"Sometimes there will be a jailhouse informant, and we'll get that information, but we're fighting in court about exactly what information the state has to provide," she said. "Some of the stuff has already been happening, but piecemeal. The new rule would make it very, very clear what everyone's obligations are."
Sellitti added that the proposed change is especially important because jailhouse informants "are a dangerous type of witness in a case."
"A jailhouse informant is someone who lacks any personal knowledge about the facts of the case because they're a person who was not there," Sellitti said. "You have a highly motivated witness — most of these witnesses are people who themselves have cases they're trying to get out from under. So you have somebody with a lot of motivation and no personal knowledge about the facts and circumstances of a case."
Across the Country
The issue of informants is widespread, according to Rebecca Brown, the director of policy at the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that aims to exonerate those wrongly convicted of crimes.
"The baked-in incentive to provide testimony in exchange for leniency stops at no jurisdictional borders," she said. "So this is something that needs to be regulated throughout the country."
Brown said jailhouse informants are often brought in to fill gaps in a case, which can lead to harmful outcomes for both the accused and the crime's victim.
"If you're using an informant who lacks credibility, that is an entry point for a wrongful conviction," she said. "Anytime you have a wrongful conviction, the person who committed the crime is undetected."
Since 1989, there have been 2,991 exonerations in the U.S., 212 of which, or 7%, involved a jailhouse informant, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project of the Newkirk Center for Science and Society at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Michigan Law School and the Michigan State University College of Law. Additionally, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law found that jailhouse informants were involved in nearly half of the nation's death row exonerations.
Brown said she believes that more states are coming to recognize that jailhouse informants can lead to wrongful convictions, partly because of increased public awareness and lobbying efforts by the Innocence Project in legislatures across the country.
Some of the states that have issued reforms and tracking requirements on the use of jailhouse informants, either by state law or court rules, are Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Florida, where a serial jailhouse informant resulted in dozens being convicted and sent to prison.
When multiple Florida death row inmates were exonerated based on the informant's false testimony, the Florida Supreme Court adopted reforms bolstering its jailhouse informant rules. The case was highlighted by the New Jersey Supreme Court in its rule proposal.
Walter Ogrod spent 23 years on Pennsylvania's death row based on a confession he said was coerced and later recanted, and the testimony of a serial jailhouse informant. He was exonerated in June 2020.
James Rollins, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP and a member of Ogrod's post-conviction team, said that the prosecution's use of notorious jailhouse informant John Hall was "fundamental" in securing Ogrod's conviction.
"John Hall was the gentleman who had the nickname of 'The Monsignor' because he allegedly heard more confessions than a priest," Rollins said, adding that his testimony resulted in Ogrod spending "half his life in prison."
Jailhouse informants are "inherently questionable," he said, but they become more problematic without transparency. He lauded the New Jersey Supreme Court for setting clear guidance.
"The System Is Broken"
Pennsylvania, however, does not have any rules or guidance on the use of jailhouse informants.
In California, where the use of jailhouse informants has resulted in scandals in Los Angeles and Orange County, efforts to achieve major reforms have fallen short.
Scott Sanders, a California public defender, sounded an alarm a decade ago when he realized that the same jailhouse informant appeared in two high-profile murder cases he was working on. His questioning of the over-reliance on the informant resulted in an investigation by then-state Attorney General Kamala Harris, but no penalties were ever brought against prosecutors.
While many view the reforms on the use of jailhouse informants as a step forward, Sanders believes transparency and disclosure should already have been taking place across the country because of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland
, a 1963 decision that established the standard that the prosecution must turn over any evidence to the defense that could exonerate a defendant."You could arguably say none of these rules are necessary," Sanders said. "All of these things aren't necessary if prosecutors and law enforcement are fastidious about honoring their obligations."
Justin Bonus, the attorney who represented Hill, the exonerated New Jersey inmate, echoed Sanders' sentiments.
"The problem is the justice system is just broken," he said. "It's about getting a conviction; it's not about doing an investigation."
After spending 16 years behind bars while maintaining his innocence, Hill is also skeptical. Even if New Jersey adopts its reform, he said, there will still be those searching for the "loopholes in it."
"I think until these prosecutors and these detectives are held accountable, they're going to continue to work the system," he said. "So until there is some type of accountability on their end, everything is going to continue to be the same."
--Editing by Jill Coffey.
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