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A quick internet search for “confidential informant list Indiana” will yield little more than forum posts, legal blogs, and conspiracy theories. There is no centralized, publicly available database of CIs in Indiana.
Why not? The answer lies in two critical factors:
No. The Indiana State Police (ISP), local sheriff’s departments, and the FBI do not maintain a spreadsheet named “Confidential Informants.xlsx” sitting on a shared drive.
Informant relationships are handled on a case-by-case basis, usually through a single handling officer and a prosecutor. To protect the informant’s identity, even other officers on the same task force often don’t know who the informant is. confidential informant list indiana
Why? Because if that list existed and got leaked, it wouldn’t just ruin investigations—it would get people killed.
There is no legitimate public CI list for Indiana. Anyone claiming to sell or provide one is either a scammer or offering illegally obtained information, which could expose you to criminal liability. If you need CI information for a legal case, work through a licensed Indiana attorney.
Would you like a template for a motion to disclose a confidential informant in Indiana courts? A quick internet search for “confidential informant list
Indiana recognizes a governmental privilege to withhold informant identities, but it is not absolute. The Indiana Supreme Court in Snyder v. State (1993) and Davis v. State (1998) outlined a three-part inquiry:
If the defendant succeeds, the court can order an in camera (in chambers) review where the judge examines the CI’s information privately. Only if the judge finds the information crucial to the defense will the prosecution be forced to reveal the CI’s identity—sometimes to the defense attorney only, not to the defendant directly (a process called a Kyle hearing, referring to Kyle v. State, 1991).
Important limitation: If the informant is merely a “tipster” and not a witness to the actual crime (e.g., someone who called in an anonymous tip about drugs in a house), the privilege almost always remains intact. If the defendant succeeds, the court can order
A defense investigator in Hammond was charged with attempting to bribe a police clerk to obtain the county’s confidential informant list. The sting operation revealed that a black-market CI list could fetch up to $50,000 from drug traffickers. The investigator received a 4-year sentence, and the incident prompted legislative hearings, though no new disclosure laws were passed.
Secrecy cuts both ways. Indiana has seen scandals where police fabricated informants or kept “off the books” informants not on any official list. In a 2019 FBI-ISP joint investigation, a Clark County deputy was found to be running a side business selling drug protection; his “confidential informants” were actually customers. Because no official list existed, internal affairs struggled to identify his network. The lesson: No list can create accountability risks, but a secret list carries corruption risks.