{"id":16215,"date":"2015-03-05T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=16215"},"modified":"2015-03-06T12:42:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T17:42:51","slug":"word-salad-for-law-enforcement-confidential-human-source-chs-adopted-by-some-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=16215","title":{"rendered":"Word Salad for Law Enforcement: Confidential Human Source (\u201cCHS\u201d), adopted by some courts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Confidential Human Source (\u201cCHS\u201d) v. Confidential Informant (\u201cCI\u201d) v. Citizen Informant (Citizen Informant) v. Snitch (Snitch)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cConfidential Human Source (CHS)\u201d appears to have started about 2003, but it\u2019s been more popular of late in the federal system. I\u2019ve seen it more often in federal criminal complaints and search warrants, hardly at all in state court. And it\u2019s made it into 81 criminal opinions on Lexis (and one FOIA case). Must be a DoJ and DHS memo went out to desist from using just confidential informant (\u201cCI\u201d) to humanize the \u201csnitch.\u201d It\u2019s even supplanting \u201ccitizen informant\u201d or \u201ceyewitness\u201d or \u201cvictim,\u201d those with already built-in credibility. No informant hearsay problem with the latter.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe it\u2019s because it sounds so much better than CI, or the dreaded \u201csnitch\u201d that is so much more telling, not to mention fun to use, in front of a jury, especially if the snitch is on the stand, who often flinches at the word.<\/p>\n<p>Why \u201cconfidential human sources\u201d? What\u2019s the alternative? Confidential inhuman sources? Confidential canine sources? Do those dog sources have handlers or are they feral? Confidential mechanical sources? Maybe to differentiate a wiretap? Why use it at all? To obfuscate reality? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confidential Human Source (\u201cCHS\u201d) v. Confidential Informant (\u201cCI\u201d) v. Citizen Informant (Citizen Informant) v. Snitch (Snitch) \u201cConfidential Human Source (CHS)\u201d appears to have started about 2003, but it\u2019s been more popular of late in the federal system. I\u2019ve seen it &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=16215\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-informant-hearsay"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16215"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16248,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16215\/revisions\/16248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}