By Mrs. Eileen Hunter — about the author. Posted August 11, 2026.
Provenance: the declaration of Professor Robert M. Bloom, sworn December 21, 2022, was filed as Exhibit B-1 to Tony Hunter’s Application for Post-Conviction Relief (La. C.Cr.P. art. 926.2), filed December 30, 2022, in the Fourth Judicial District Court, Parish of Ouachita. The transcription below is made from counsel’s file copy; wording and paragraph numbering follow the original, and only the signature and notary blocks are omitted. Context and analysis: the Bloom authority page. If any part of this transcription diverges from the filed original, our corrections policy applies.
DECLARATION OF ROBERT M. BLOOM
I, Robert M. Bloom, state as follows:
QUALIFICATIONS
1. I have taught at Boston College Law School since September, 1973. I have been a full professor since 1994. I have also taught at Boston University School of Law, Temple University School of Law (summer abroad in Rome), University College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin, and Kwansei Gakuin Japan. My teaching includes courses in substantive criminal procedure and comparative criminal procedure. In addition, I have directed a law-school clinical program in which my students represented indigent, criminal defendants and on sabbatical acted as prosecutors for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In these capacities I have handled, supervised, or consulted on hundreds of criminal cases. I have written numerous articles and five casebooks and 10 examples and explanation books.
2. Since 1999, I have been researching the use of informants in the criminal justice system. This has included reviewing numerous studies, investigations, and cases about informants in general, and jailhouse informants in particular. I have also interviewed judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys regarding this issue. My publications in this area include: a book, Ratting: Use and Abuse of Informants in the American Justice System (Praeger, 2002); “Jailhouse Informants” in the American Bar Association (ABA) publication, Criminal Justice (Spring, 2003); and “What Jurors Should Know about Informants: the Need for Expert Testimony” Mich. St. L. Rev. 345 (2019). I have lectured on jailhouse informants at an ABA Criminal Justice Section program (Baltimore, MD, November, 2005). My publications have been cited on numerous occasions.
3. I have been retained as an expert or consultant on the issue of informants in approximately eleven cases. I have testified in Connecticut Superior Court regarding this issue at trials on six occasions: State v. Covington (2016), State v. McClendon (2016), State v. Lashawn (2016), State v. Wilson (2017), State v. Bruny (2018). I have also testified in the State of Washington in 2019 in State v. Sun and State v. Rivas and in 2022 State v. Phelps. I also testified on this issue in a pre-trial informant reliability hearing in State v. Hammond (2014) in Lexington, Kentucky. I was also prepared to testify in U.S. v. Wells (2019) in U.S. District Court of Alaska. In these cases, I have testified generally concerning the behavioral patterns associated with the use of criminal informants and related academic research. I am currently a consultant to the ACLU on a case out of Orange County California on the issue of “informant tanks,” where people in custody are put with informants who are likely to get information to be used at trial. I have not offered an opinion on the credibility of any particular informant in any particular case. I have tried to help the fact finder evaluate facts they should be aware of when considering the reliability of jailhouse informants in general.
JURISPRUDENTIAL CAUTION RE: JAILHOUSE INFORMANTS
4. As early as 1952, Justice Robert Jackson opined in Lee v. United States 343 U.S. 747 (1952), “[t]he use of informers, accessories, accomplices, false friends, or any of the other betrayals which are ‘dirty business’ may raise serious questions of credibility.” Federal Judge Stephen Trot[t], 43 Hasting[s] L.J. 1381, in his article “Words of warning for a prosecutor using criminal witnesses,” observed: “Informants[’] willingness to do anything includes not only truthfully spilling the beans on friends and relatives, but also lying, committing perjury, manufacturing evidence, soliciting others to corroborate their lies, and double crossing anyone they come in contact with including and especially the prosecutor.” Louisiana has not been exempt from the problems associated with jailhouse informants. In United States v. Colomb, 448 F.Supp.2d 750, 756 (W.D. La. 2006), Federal Judge Tucker Melancon, hearing a motion for new trial, observed that even though he would rarely grant such a motion to set aside a guilty verdict in a criminal case — and that decision should be exercised with great caution and only in exceptional cases — he ordered a new trial in that case because “Issues that have arisen in this case – before trial, during trial and after trial – are troubling. While it may not be, as argued by one of the defense lawyers, that ‘a cancer is growing within the incarceration system,’ occurrences such as occurred in this case suggest that a systemic problem may exist within the penal facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. In the view of the trial judge, the issues raised herein are so substantial and grave that those who have the power and the authority to do so need address them.”
5. The concerns of these distinguished judges ha[ve] been borne out by DNA exonerations. Since the first DNA exoneration in 1989, there have been exonerations of people convicted of serious offenses – including those sentenced to death – in numbers never imagined before the development of DNA technology. Several studies of this phenomenon have shown that false testimony from jailhouse informants is one of the leading contributing factors of wrongful convictions across the nation. According to The Innocence Project, jailhouse informants have played a role in nearly one in five of the 367 DNA-based exoneration cases. A 2004 study conducted by Northwestern Law School’s Center on Wrongful Convictions found that testimony from jailhouse or other criminal informants played a role in 45.9% of the wrongful convictions in capital cases. Today, the National Registry of Exonerations indicates that 22% of all death row exonerations were cases where the prosecution relied on at least one jailhouse informant.
6. Jailhouse informant testimony is notoriously unreliable because the incarcerated witnesses are strongly motivated to say what the prosecution wants in exchange for substantial benefits to themselves. Notwithstanding the inherent problems with credibility, jailhouse informant testimony is among the most persuasive to jurors because jailhouse informants typically allege to have personally heard defendants confess their guilt to the crimes charged. Introduction of a defendant’s confession, from any source, can significantly bolster the prosecution’s case, particularly one lacking other evidence that directly implicates the defendant in the crime. In fact, according to one study, secondary confession testimony has a greater effect on jurors than even eyewitness identifications. (See Stacy Ann Wetmore et al., On the Power of Secondary Confession Evidence, 20 Psychol. Crime & L. 339, 354 (2014)).
7. One of the earliest, and most extensive, studies to date concerning jailhouse informants was conducted by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury (hereinafter, “LCGJ”) in 1989-90. One hundred and twenty witnesses testified, including judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, law enforcement officials and six self-professed jailhouse informants. (See Report of the 1989-90 Los Angeles County Grand Jury: Investigation of the Involvement of Jail House Informants in the Criminal Justice System in Los Angeles County 149-5 (1990)). This investigation, and other studies discussed herein, have shed light on how these informants operate within the criminal justice system. They have also demonstrated that traditional protections against false testimony – discovery, cross-examination, and jury instructions – are insufficient to ensure reliable jury evaluation of jailhouse informant testimony.
INCENTIVES TO LIE AND BENEFITS
8. Jailhouse informants testify for benefits. The most sought-after benefits are early release and dropped charges. However, jailhouse informants have testified to seeking many other rewards within the prison system, such as more food, access to television and phones, increased visits, better work assignments and transfer to more desirable housing. Another benefit may involve help with parole hearings. In considering the benefits, it is important to be aware that jails and prisons are undesirable places by design. It is hard to imagine a greater incentive to testify falsely than a promise to get out of jail or reduce one’s time in prison.
9. In most instances, the benefits for informant testimony are not realized until after the testimony has been given. This arrangement allows an informant to testify that there were no promises or benefits given in return for his testimony. The withholding of specific promises until after the testimony may also allow a prosecutor to avoid the disclosure requirements of Giglio v. United States 405 U.S. 150 (1972).
10. However, benefits are expected, and are realized, depending upon the helpfulness of the testimony. Everyone in the system knows how the game is played. Prosecutors and informants share a tacit understanding that the informant will ultimately be rewarded for his testimony. (See Michael Cassidy, “‘Soft Words of Hope’: Giglio, Accomplice Witnesses, and the Problem of Implied Inducements,” 98 NW. L. REV. 1129, 1138 n.52 (2004)). In his study of the initial 250 DNA exoneration cases, Professor Brandon Garrett discovered that jailhouse informants often produced “made to order” statements supporting the State’s case. Few admitted they were testifying for any gain, and “[s]ome informants claimed they were testifying as public-minded citizens.” Professor Garrett found that many of these informants nevertheless ultimately received favorable outcomes in their own cases. (See Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, 124 (2011)).
11. In recognition of this problem, in 2012 the Florida Innocence Commission recommended specific provisions to Florida discovery rules to require the disclosure of informant “expectations,” as well [as] explicit promises made, in exchange for testimony. (See Florida Innocence Commission Final Report, 76-82 (June 2012); In re: Amendments to Fla. Rule of Crim. Procedure 3.220, 140 So. 3d 538 (Fla. 2014)).
12. Informants are also well aware that the benefits to be received will be based on the usefulness of the testimony on behalf of the State. Studies have shown that jailhouse informants can be quite resourceful in gathering the information necessary to provide “useful” testimony. For example, witnesses in [the] LCGJ investigation described relying on media reports, having friends and relatives provide the information by attending court hearings or investigating themselves, and even impersonating a law enforcement officer over [the] phone to tap into knowledge already in law enforcement’s hands. Informants often share or exchange information they have gathered with one another. In the end, a determined informant can create a very convincing story for the jury. As one informant explained: “[T]he jury not knowing the system of how it works is going to believe [me] when I get up there with all these details and facts that this guy sat in the jail cell, or he sat on the bus [transporting to court], or he sat in the holding tank somewhere or told me through a door or something, they’re going to believe me.” (See Report of the 1989-90 Los Angeles County Grand Jury, at 72.)
13. Prosecutors also have incentives to rely on informants, particularly when it will shore up an otherwise weak case. Professor Yaroshefsky of the Hofstra Law School interviewed 25 former U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York, and sixteen defense attorneys. She discovered that prosecutors would often shape and polish the testimony of informants so as to meet with their theory of the case. (Ellen Yaroshefsky, Cooperation with Federal Prosecutors: Experiences of Truth Telling and Embellishment, 68 Fordham L. Rev. 917, 930 (1999)).
14. Even if prosecutors understand the risk of a jailhouse informant manufacturing evidence in the abstract, there are a number of psychological impediments the prosecutor faces, including confirmatory bias or “tunnel vision”, which may make the prosecutor a poor judge of an informant’s credibility. (See, e.g., Alafair S. Burke, Improving Prosecutorial Decision Making: Some Lessons of Cognitive Science, 47 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1587 (2006); Keith A. Findley & Michael S. Scott, The Multiple Dimensions of Tunnel Vision in Criminal Cases, 2006 Wis. L. Rev. 291; Dianne L. Martin, Lessons About Justice from the “Laboratory” of Wrongful Convictions: Tunnel Vision, the Construction of Guilt and Informer Evidence, 70 UMKC L. Rev. 847 (2002)).
15. In addition, prosecutors or law enforcement officers may erroneously believe they will be able to reliably weed out lying informants. Yet, “[d]ozens of studies of the communication of deception provide compelling evidence that people are not very skilled at distinguishing when others are lying from when they are telling the truth. In experimental studies of detecting deception, accuracy is typically only slightly better than chance.” Bella M. DePaulo et al., The Accuracy-Confidence Correlation in the Detection of Deception, 1 Personality & Soc. Psychol. Rev. 346, 346 (1997); Saul M. Kassin, Human Judges of Truth, Deception, and Credibility: Confident but Erroneous, 23 Cardozo L. Rev. 809, 809 (2002).
16. In February, 2005, the American Bar Association House of Delegates, concerned about the veracity of jailhouse informants, passed the following resolution: “Resolved that the American Bar Association urges federal, state, local and territorial governments to reduce the risk of convicting the innocent while increasing the likelihood of convicting the guilty, by ensuring that no prosecution should occur based solely upon uncorroborated jailhouse informant testimony.”
STATE V. TONY HUNTER
17. There were no eyewitnesses to the homicides and no physical evidence to link Mr. Hunter to the homicides on Greenwood Drive. The prosecution presented the testimony of three jailhouse informants who testified to having heard Tony Hunter confess to the triple homicide in Tanglewood while incarcerated at the Ouachita Parish Correctional Center. I have reviewed the testimonies of Clarence Kennedy, Vaccarra Comanche, Christopher Wiggins, and Glen Dale Nelson, as well as their recorded statements to investigators, and criminal histories.
The circumstances under which the informants came forward and testified suggest[] that the testimony of these informants should be carefully scrutinized. Particularly problematic is the fact that Glen Dale Nelson, the informant at the center of the conversations that were allegedly overheard, was never called to testify because he was found to be so thoroughly unreliable that neither the prosecution nor the defense called him as a witness.
For the three jailhouse informants that were called by the prosecution, each informant’s testimony was at critical times inconsistent with their own previous recorded statements to investigators and with each other. There was likewise limited corroboration evidence of these informants: no video footage, recreation yard logs, or corrections witness to bolster the reliability of the alleged confessions. There is information to indicate that due to the acoustics of the window separating the rec yard from the cells, a conversation could not have been held between inmates on the rec yard and inmates inside a cell on POD 10.
In addition, all three informants had extensive experience with the criminal justice system and were facing lengthy prison sentences. […] [P]rosecutors want their informant witnesses to testify that they received no promises or deals to increase their credibility in front of the jury. Nevertheless, prosecutors and informants share a tacit understanding that the informant will ultimately be rewarded for his testimony.
No expert testimony or cautionary jury instructions were presented to the jury at Tony Hunter’s trial to educate them about how to judge the credibility of jailhouse informants.
Weeks before any of the informants came forward, on June 12, 2001, KTVE aired multiple stories announcing: “A Ouachita Parish triple homicide case remains unsolved, but investigators hope an arrest today could help the investigation. Today… Tony Hunter, also known as Trigger, was arrested for second degree murder charges. He’s accused in the Monroe robbery and shooting of Roderick Hall last year in January. Investigators admit this case could have a possible connection to a triple homicide in March which took the lives of a man and two young children. However, deputies will not give any more details on that connection.”
[Paragraph 17 continues with detailed reviews of each informant’s statements, trial testimony, charges and dispositions — the substance of which is presented, with record citations, in the individual evidence files: Kennedy, Comanche, Wiggins, Nelson. Full text available on request.]
18. It is my opinion that the circumstances of this case, specifically the lack of external corroboration for the informants’ testimony, the media contamination of the informants, the number of cases the informants were providing information about and their status as career offenders facing lengthy sentences at the discretion of the prosecution, the informants’ perceived and/or real incentives to provide information against Tony Hunter and to testify falsely, and the failure to give a cautionary jury instruction, raise serious risks that the informants’ testimony was fabricated and/or false.
I declare under penalty of perjury that the foregoing i[s] true and correct.
[Signature and notary blocks appear on the filed original.]
Bracketed characters mark minor corrections of file-copy typographical artifacts; wording is otherwise as in the original. Analysis and context: Professor Bloom’s authority page · the informants, measured against the record · all case documents.