I'm still trying to understand this, does everyone get the chance to snitch?
Will the feds tell Pappy that they'll excuse him for murdering their colleague if he gives them some people that they already know sell drugs? Or some murder of another drug dealer? Where it's one criminal's word who will say anything to get out vs another criminals word.
If not given a chance to snitch, than definitely given a chance to plea. It's much cheaper and easier than going to trial. It really depends on the individual. As far as Pappy Mason goes, he was behind the assassination of a cop - it turned into a national story and the dead cop's family is still going hard for him to this day (foundations, charity, street re-named) to keep his name alive - so Mason getting any sort of break would be a bad look publicly and I don't think the world would go for it, no matter who he snitched on
The Feds let a sitting 5 families mob boss snitch and he's been since released on time served. I think he was personally involved in murders and decades of mayhem. In his case I'm sure the FBI was able to fill in the gaps on like 45 years worth of crimes, plus get a full list of names, ages and locations of every member in the family - plus info on other families, crooked business owners, crooked cops, all sorts of stuff. The public at the time was of the thought that the FBI spent years trying to get this guy, flipping other people to get to him, etc... and when they get him, they allow HIM to cooperate? But no one in history was probably able to give up info like he was.
So I guess it really depends on what you can give up. Some of those guys mentioned in that post earlier either didn't have anything to give up that they wanted, or they were just trophies who needed (in the DA or AUSA's eyes) to be prosecuted no matter what