A retired lieutenant for the Santa Clara County Jail classifications unit says that from the late 1980s through the 1990s, he and other jail officials routinely used jail informants to solicit information from suspects. If the former lieutenant’s claims are true, it could mean that the county jail violated the civil rights of countless criminal suspects.
According to the San Jose Mercury News, Frank Dixon said in a sworn declaration for the appellate case of Surinder Bains—convicted of killing his brother-in-law in 1990—that it was commonplace for the county jail to intentionally place jailhouse informants in holding cells with defendants to “tease out” information at the request of prosecutors and law enforcement officials. Bains claims that Raymond Delgado, the informant who testified against him, was purposely placed in his jail cell to question him at the request of the prosecution.[MORE]