John Henry Horton, Lazy Prosecutors and Jailhouse Informants.

The murder trial du jour in Johnson County is in the hands of the jury. John Henry Horton is accused of raping and murdering a young girl in 1974, while working as a custodian at a Shawnee Mission high school. Horton was originally convicted in 2004 but the case was overturned on appeal. Besides some physical evidence the case relies on the testimony of 2 jail house informants, who claim that Horton confessed to the crime while they were all locked up on unrelated cases. Horton will most likely be convicted, and he is probably good for the murder. The day after the victim disappeared, authorities found chloroform, a knife and other items in Horton’s car. Investigators also saw scratches on his arms, legs and back.


I'm all for the guy being put away for the rest of his natural life if he is guilty, and it sounds like he is and will be. That said I have a problem with the states use of jail house stool pigeons and here is why. People will say anything about anyone if it will help their own cause. Time and again prosecutors will build a case around the testimony of some jail house informant. This usually means that the case lacks enough real evidence to gain a conviction. The problem with using testimony of jail house informants is that often times the entire justice system is subverted, wrongful convictions are won, innocent lives are destroyed.

Can any reasonable person be led to believe that Horton walked around with a secret for 30 years and out of the blue just up and tells 2 other inmates, "I killed her"? Unfortunately the answer is yes, juries time and time again rely on the word of jail house informants to convict people of crimes. It is in my opinion one of the most often repeated miscarriages of justice in America today. Juries aren't comprised of bad people hell bent on convicting someone regardless of the facts. Juries want to do the right thing. They believe in right and wrong, so when a prosecutor who is the defender of right and wrong introduces testimony and says it is the truth, juries tend to believe it.

The average person really doesn't care how convictions are gained. What matters to most folks is that the bad guy goes to jail. How we get them there is just semantics to most of us. If someone gets on the witness stand and says that the defendant told them he/ she did it, then it must be true. Prosecutors build entire cases around the testimony of people that most of us wouldn't trust as far as we could throw them, yet we suddenly believe them when they say what we want to hear.

More often than not the people convicted in our courts are guilty. Even when informants are used, even if and when informants give false testimony, most convictions are good ones. So whats the problem? The problem is that sometimes, in a minority of cases people are wrongly convicted based on false testimony. The reason that there isn't more outrage over the practice of using the testimony of jail house informants or co defendants is because the vast majority of people will never face a jury in a fight for their lives. Most people are only interested in seeing the guilty brought to justice, and it doesn't matter how the prosecution does it.

Having been on the wrong end of a prosecutors barrel you might think I have a grudge against the legal system. i don't. I honestly believe we have one of the best legal systems in the world. Its not perfect, it often unfairly targets people based on race, economics and a variety of other factors, but in the end they usually put away the right person. Having been fairly convicted and sent to prison I'm all to familiar what it is like to lose years of your life, but that's the price we pay for doing dirt. I can only begin to guess what someone wrongly convicted must go through, and even if the case is eventually overturned, the black mark on that persons name can never be completely eradicated.

Like I said , I think Horton is probably going to be convicted, and I think it will be a good conviction, albeit slightly tainted for its use of informants who have no real credibility. Luckily, the state has more to their case than just these two clowns testimony. So justice will most likely be served, this time.

Anytime I see a prosecutor introducing the testimony of some jail house informant or co defendant I shudder just a little. And so should you. I know, I know, you are an upstanding citizen, you have raised stellar children, there is no way anyone in your family will ever have a brush with the law. I'm sure that is what countless wrongly convicted people have told themselves. And I'm sure they keep repeating that mantra, right up to the time they end up on the wrong side of false accusations.