Rein in ‘Mr. Big’ stings, experts advise
Rules needed to avoid coerced confessions
Lawmakers in Ottawa should consider creating guidelines for undercover police operations, including controversial “Mr. Big” stings, say a pair of Canadian academics in a recent paper.
The researchers do not suggest that political masters meddle in actual police operations. However, they do say that elected officials ought to set some parameters for the use of these techniques because of the potential they can lead to coerced confessions.
“I don’t want police to be completely hamstrung in their techniques and tools, but we also want to prevent wrongful conviction,” said Troy Riddell, a political science professor at the University of Guelph. “We shouldn’t just leave it up to police to decide where that balance lies.”
Riddell and Kate Puddister, a doctoral candidate in political science at McGill University, outlined their recommendations in an article titled The RCMP’s “Mr. Big” Sting Operation: A Case Study in Police Independence, Accountability and Oversight.
It was published in the journal Canadian Public Administration
In a Mr. Big operation, undercover officers posing as members of a criminal organization befriend the suspect — usually a murder suspect — and then gain the suspect’s trust with money, booze and companionship. They get the suspect to carry out jobs for the group and involve them in staged criminal acts, including assaults, money laundering, drug trafficking — even “Mafia-style executions,” the researchers write.
Eventually, a meeting is set up between the suspect and the boss of the group, Mr. Big. The meeting is designed to get the suspect to cough up details of past crimes “to establish credibility and to protect the organization against future surprises.”
The RCMP — which spends an average of $155,000 per Mr. Big operation, the researchers found — claims a high success rate using the secretive technique, and insists all operations are subject to extensive planning and approval processes.
In a review of 153 Mr. Big cases that went to trial from 1987 to 2011, the researchers found that the police method was accepted in all but 13 of them.
But some defence lawyers, academics and civil rights groups say the technique — which is not allowed in the United States and Britain — needs more scrutiny because of the potential for police to cross the line and induce the innocent into a confession.
Last month, an appeal court in Newfoundland found that a videotaped confession from a father accused of drowning his twin three-year-old daughters should not have been admitted at trial because it was obtained by improper coercion during a Mr. Big operation.
Nelson Hart had received nearly $16,000 from the fictitious criminal organization and had a chance to make an additional $25,000. Hart, who has a Grade 5 education and was living on social assistance, came to view the undercover officers as “more than family, telling them he loved them like brothers.”
Hart initially told Mr. Big that he had suffered a seizure at the time of his daughters’ drowning.
But Mr. Big kept pressing him, and insisted that Hart was lying.
“When it subsequently became obvious that Mr. Big was angry with his responses and that his lifestyle was in jeopardy, Mr. Hart changed his story once again and told Mr. Big what he thought Mr. Big wanted to hear,” the appeal court said.
Ultimately, Hart was the subject of a “dishonest trick” by police, the appeal court said in ordering a new trial.
While researchers Puddister and Riddell do not call for a ban on Mr. Big stings, they say the tactic needs to be “reined in.”
They recommend that Parliament pass a series of legislative guidelines, modelled after those in England, to govern police investigations. Those guidelines could include a requirement that the RCMP get approval from a Crown attorney before conducting a Mr. Big operation.
They also suggest that undercover police videotape their interaction with suspects as often as possible and that bodies that handle civilian complaints against police be given more power to examine their policies and practices.
Asked to respond to the recommendations, a spokeswoman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson emailed this brief statement: “We are not involved in the day-to-day operations of the RCMP, which is required to operate within the confines of the law.”
If lawmakers are unwilling to take action, the authors suggest the courts undertake a bit of judicial activism to force elected officials into action.