5 things to know about undercover police stings in California jails

At least 10 cases are lined up at the California Supreme Court this year challenging convictions involving undercover agents in jails, including stings that took place after suspects say they invoked their rights against self-incrimination.

District attorneys say the so-called Perkins operations are a powerful investigative tool to solve crimes or exonerate people. The practice has helped to secure hundreds of murder convictions. 

But critics say law enforcement has gone too far, arguing that the operations are coercive, risk false confessions, and disproportionately target Black and Latino people. 

In the most comprehensive look yet at Perkins operations, CalMatters reviewed over 5,000 pages of court records and conducted more than 40 interviews with scholars, public defenders, district attorneys, prosecutors, lawmakers, advocates and incarcerated people. 

Here is what we found:

A legal gray area

In 1990, the United States Supreme Court held that statements made by a suspect during a Perkins operation are voluntary; therefore, it is not necessary to give Miranda warnings. But several of the cases before the California Supreme Court today argue that the ruling failed to address a central question: Can the operation continue after a suspect has invoked their Miranda protections? 

In 2019, the California Supreme Court rejected a petition to review the case of a Kern County man who was targeted in a Perkins operation one day after he invoked his Miranda rights in a police interrogation. 

Although the court declined to hear the case, Justice Goodwin Liu had harsh words for law enforcement. 

“The use of deceptive schemes to elicit confessions from suspects who have invoked their Miranda rights appears to be a pervasive police practice in California,” he wrote. “How is it possible, one might ask, that the protections of Miranda are so easily evaded?” 

The Perkins operation playbook

Undercover operatives, also known as Perkins agents, are often described in court filings as older and physically larger than their targets. They frequently presented themselves as experienced gang members with a history of violence. In some cases, as many as five were placed in a cell with one person. 

Martín Flores, a gang expert who specializes in Perkins operations, said agents present themselves as “active, older homies with influence in the county jail and in the streets.” 

“In my opinion, most of these Perkins operations, it’s about impressing that agent,” he said “And why does that matter? Because it’s survival. If you look weak and vulnerable, you’re going to become the prey.”

A CalMatters analysis of Perkins operations showed jail cells outfitted with recording devices, hefty cash payments to undercover agents, and false evidence ploys intended to “stimulate” conversation between agents and their targets. 

Perkins operations under the microscope

CalMatters found Perkins operations in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Orange, Santa Barbara and Santa Clara counties.

Riverside County conducted its first operation in 2014, according to records obtained by CalMatters. Those records reveal that its law enforcement agencies conduct multiple operations each week — approximately half of which are run for unnamed outside agencies. 

But as the operations proliferate, more and more defendants say they are being coerced into waiving their Miranda rights before speaking with the police or making self-incriminating statements after having invoked those rights. 

A significant ruling came down earlier this year when the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed the conviction of a Riverside County man who has maintained his innocence after finding that law enforcement violated his rights during a Perkins operation. 

“When a suspect invokes and does not waive the right to counsel, and a known law enforcement officer continues to ‘stimulate’ a Perkins operation in a manner that amounts to a custodial interrogation, the suspect’s resulting incriminating statements are inadmissible,” the justices wrote. 

Disparities in who’s targeted

Among the cases the California Supreme Court is reviewing, four defendants are Hispanic, four are Black and two are white. The youngest was 18 years old at the time of the Perkins operation. 

The California Public Defenders Association and American Civil Liberties Union urged the court to look closely at the highly coordinated police practice because they say it produces extreme racial disparities and perpetuates racially biased policing. 

They cited recent data from the Riverside County Public Defender’s Office, which found significant racial disparities when it analyzed roughly 881 murder cases between January 2015 and June 2023, including 145 Perkins targets. The analysis showed Black defendants were more than four times as likely to be targeted in a Perkins operation than white defendants. Latino defendants were targeted at twice the rate of white defendants, they found. 

Public defenders in San Diego county have also voiced concern over racial disparities in California’s first-ever Racial Justice Act petition regarding a Perkins operation. The law, passed in 2020, allows people to challenge a prosecution, conviction or sentence that they believe was based upon racial bias. 

In an analysis of roughly 40 Perkins operations in San Diego County, public defenders found agents consistently used racially discriminatory language, including slurs and cultural stereotyping, to develop a false sense of rapport and generate incriminating statements.

But San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan told CalMatters in an interview that Perkins operations “are applied across the board, wherever it appears that a heartless murder can benefit…no matter what the race, what the gender, what the orientation, what the cultural background or anything is.”

The operations are highly secretive

Law enforcement has gone to great lengths to withhold records regarding Perkins operations, including how much money they spend on them and how operatives are recruited and trained. CalMatters filed nearly two dozen formal public records act requests with law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, San Bernardino, Orange and Santa Clara counties. Almost all were denied. 

After consulting with the First Amendment Coalition, CalMatters asked attorneys from the Covington & Burling law firm to press for more transparency. Over the course of several months, their efforts yielded a handful of exclusive law enforcement records. 

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This project was completed with the support of a grant from Columbia University’s Ira A. Lipman Center for Journalism and Civil and Human Rights in conjunction with Arnold Ventures.