Santa Clara Law Review Volume 50 | Number 3 Article 3 1-1-2010 Coerced Informants and Thirteenth Amendment Limitations on the Police-Informant Relationship Michael L. Rich Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Michael L. Rich, Coerced Informants and Thirteenth Amendment Limitations on the Police-Informant Relationship, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 681 (2010). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol50/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Santa Clara Law Review by an authorized administrator of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COERCED INFORMANTS AND THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT LIMITATIONS ON THE POLICE- INFORMANT RELATIONSHIP Michael L. Rich* INTRODUCTION On May 7, 2008, Rachel Morningstar Hoffman, a twenty- three-year-old Tallahassee resident and recent graduate of Florida State University, disappeared while trying to purchase 1500 pills of ecstasy, two-and-a-half ounces of cocaine, and a handgun for $13,000 from two suspected drug dealers.' Two days later, the Tallahassee Police Department ("TPD") arrested the dealers, Andrea Green and Deneilo Bradshaw, who led police to Hoffman's body.2 Hoffman had been shot and her body dumped in a rural area outside of the 3 city. The swift apprehension of Bradshaw and Green might, at first glance, appear to be an example of efficient police work. But in fact, the TPD were intimately involved in the events that led to her death, as Hoffman was a confidential *Assistant Professor of Law, Capital University Law School.