In my class last Wednesday, I was trying to explain to some of my more skeptical students why warrantless wiretapping programs bothered me so much. It's easy to explain why from a philosophical standpoint the whole "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about" argument is wrong. Finding a practical example, on the other hand, is a bit harder. Sure, there are cases where innocent US citizens have been sent off to other nations to be tortured, and there are plenty of recent examples of the feds monitoring Quakers anti-war protests, but that wasn't convincing everyone. Maybe tomorrow this will:
BOSTON (Reuters) - A federal judge ordered the U.S. government on Thursday to pay over $100 million in damages, saying four men were wrongfully convicted of murder after the FBI withheld evidence to protect a mob informant.In a stunning reprimand to the FBI, U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner in Boston found the bureau helped convict the four men of the March 1965 gangland murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a crime they did not commit.
Peter Limone, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco had been sentenced to die in the electric chair for the slaying, although their death sentences were lifted in 1972. Joe Salvati was sentenced to life in prison, where he spent three decades.
"This case goes beyond mistakes, beyond the unavoidable errors of a fallible system," Gertner wrote in a 228-page decision, which called the FBI's defense -- that Massachusetts was to blame for an inadequate investigation -- "absurd."
"This case is about intentional misconduct, subornation of perjury, conspiracy, the framing of innocent men," she wrote.
Salvati and Limone, along with survivors of Tameleo and Greco -- who died in prison -- sued the FBI five years ago charging wrongful conviction.
"I'm very happy for the judge's decision. She corrected a wrong and made it right," Limone, 73, told reporters. Referring to the $101.75 million in damages, he added, "All the money in the world couldn't bring me back 33 years."
We're not talking about an accident here; this was willful misconduct on the part of the FBI. In the FBI's "war" on organized crime, the two informants who committed the murders were simply too valuable to lose, so four other innocent men were convicted and sent to prison instead. Imagine spending all of your 40's, 50's, and 60's in prison for a crime you didn't commit. Imagine learning that you did your time so that the government could further some other "more important" goal. Limone, of course, doesn't have to imagine, because he lived it.
Our government is no more perfect than the people who staff it. It will always make mistakes. That's why checks and balances must be built into everything we do. That's why publicly accessible records and publicly accountable officials are so important.
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