Informants trade for shorter sentences

The extent of cooperation in the federal court is often secret, in part because judges routinely seal court records that could reveal who provided information to the government and what they got in return. To figure out how often prosecutors agreed to reduced sentences in exchange for information, USA TODAY analyzed data on 545,000 criminal cases from the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which tracks the complicated array of considerations that goes into every federal prison sentence. USA TODAY used those anonymous records, ranging from 2006-2011, to determine how many defendants actually had their sentences reduced.

Those records likely understate the extent to which defendants are rewarded for cooperation. In some cases, for example, prosecutors agree to charge the defendant with a less serious crime rather than asking the court to impose a shorter prison sentence, a bargain the Sentencing Commission records would not capture. And thousands of other defendants win sentence reductions months or even years after they are convicted and sentenced.