Government officials conspired with a mobster to frame 4 people for murder. One spent 33 years in jail, and another 29 years. The other two died in prison. Now, these government officials have names. They have home addresses which are known. They are free men. Why?
Why is the legal remedy only a payment by the government?
In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge today ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.
Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison.
“It took 30 years to uncover this injustice,” Federal District Judge Nancy Gertner said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about “the framing of innocent men,” adding that F.B.I. officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives.”
The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret F.B.I. memos that were never turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated that the government’s key witness, a hit man for the mob named Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, had lied when he said the four men had killed the victim, a low-level mobster, Edward Deegan, known as Teddy.
Mr. Barboza’s motivation was to protect the real killer, and F.B.I. officials went along, the memos suggested, because Mr. Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an F.B.I. informant.
In her decision today, Judge Gertner forcefully criticized the F.B.I. and the argument made by Justice Department lawyers that federal authorities were not required to share information with state prosecutors, and were not responsible for the results of a state prosecution.
“The government’s position is, in a word, absurd,” Judge Gertner said.
I'm taking a shot at this off the cuff without benefit of research, so I could very well be wrong, but here goes - prosecution of the FBI agents is likely barred by a statute of limitations.
The crime was committed in 1965, when the FBI agents collaborated in perjury, obstruction of justice, or some other similar event. The traditional statute of limitations has almost certainly run on such things.
Now, I think it's not unusual to have an exception where the statute does not run during times while the crime is unknown or the person committing the crime is unknown. Basically, the clock starts running from the point the state knew or should have known of the crime. Problem is - the crime was known, at least to the FBI, since the story suggests that the FBI had memos that indicated they knew the witnesses who fingered the plaintiffs were lying.
An argument can be made, I think, that the statute should have kept tolling due to the FBI concealing the information from the state and the state could still prosecute, or that the crime was still ongoing, due to the victims' continued wrongful incarceration. But I think the problem of the information being in possession of the FBI is going to make it hard to successfully argue that the clock hasn't already run.
That's before you take into account whether or not the FBI agents are still alive or healthy enough to stand trial, and whether you still had enough evidence to convict any such agent beyond a reasonable doubt, especially when they start pointing fingers at each other (or more likely, someone who's since passed away - it's amazing how often criminal conspiracies are all the fault of the one guy who's not in the courtroom.)
It'd be nice if they could be prosecuted, but the sad truth is it may not be legal, and almost certainly isn't logistically possible even if it is.
Posted by: Gib | July 27, 2007 at 12:03 PM