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'Rachel's Law' Loses Major Provisions

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By MIKE SALINERO

msalinero@tampatrib.com

Published: March 19, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Key elements of a bill meant to protect people who work for police as confidential informants were stripped out of the legislation Wednesday at the insistence of law enforcement agencies.

The bill, called "Rachel's Law," is supposed to remedy police actions that put 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman's life in jeopardy last year. Hoffman's body was found near Perry on May 9, two days after she went undercover for Tallahassee police to buy drugs and a gun.

The original bill sponsored by state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, included provisions requested by Hoffman's parents, Irv Hoffman and Margie Weiss of Pinellas County. These included requiring police to advise potential confidential informants that they could see a lawyer before agreeing to an undercover operation.

The parents also want to prohibit police from using people in court-approved substance abuse programs as informants without notifying the state attorney or the court, and from using non-violent offenders in operations targeting violent felons.

"If any of those three had been in place, Rachel would be alive today," the parents' attorney, Lance Block, told the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice on Wednesday.

But when Fasano presented the bill to the committee, he recommended an amendment striking the parents' requests from the bill. The deletions were urged by the Florida Sheriff's Association, the Florida Police Chiefs Association and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Fasano said he would offer the parents' requests as amendments at the bill's next committee stop.

"I learned after 14 years in the Legislature if you want to keep a bill moving, you have to give a little something," Fasano said to committee members.

Michael Ramage, general counsel for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, told committee members the original bill would bring drug investigations using confidential informants to a "screeching halt." He said informants must often be recruited for an undercover operation quickly. Waiting to find an attorney for the potential informant could jeopardize the operation.

Ramage also said law officers oppose "creating a new right" to see an attorney before the potential informant is arrested. Police often detain someone pending charges and offer to speak to prosecutors and judges on their behalf if the suspect will act as a confidential informant.

The bill passed by the committee establishes procedures that police are to follow when recruiting confidential informants that put a priority on protecting the informant's lives. Upper-level officers would supervise all confidential informant agreements and would consider a person's age, maturity and mental stability when deciding whether to recruit him or her.

"This will go a long way toward increasing an agency's awareness of their responsibilities toward confidential informants and the importance of having good policies and procedures in place," Ramage said.

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303.

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