A “Mr. Big” sting is a controversial undercover operation developed in Canada during the 1990’s that has been shown to lead to false confessions in numerous cases.
Police officers spend weeks and months undercover learning as much as they can about their suspect. After they have gathered the information they need, police set up an elaborate, fake criminal operation. In order to lure their suspect into their gang, an officer will be tasked with befriending the suspect. As the final step in the process, the head of the gang, “Mr. Big”, asks for a confession to the crime as proof of loyalty to the organization, usually with the promise of helping them prove their innocence by having another member of the gang confess. Confessing to Mr. Big appears to have no consequences on the suspect, who may also have been threatened, causing them to fear for their safety, and enticing them even further to confess.
In 2014, the Supreme Court addressed in its ruling on R. v. Hart the reliability, or lack thereof, of Mr. Big confessions: the inherent prejudice against the target that the operations create, and police misconduct during the sting. The Hart framework for determining the admissibility of a Mr. Big confession is a two-pronged test. The first prong requires that the Crown show, on a balance of probabilities, that the probative value of a confession outweighs its prejudicial effect. The second prong is the “abuse of process,” which addresses concerns about police conduct during the sting. Breaching either one of these prongs is sufficient to have a confession excluded, it doesn’t have to be both.