Opinion: Injustice

A Times Editorial

Injustice

Treating a man's false imprisonment ascommonplace says something terrible about our federal judicial system.

There are certain cases of injustice that simply take your breath away. Peter Limone's case is one of those.

Limone was imprisoned 33 years for a murder he didn't commit, and the FBI agents who put him there apparently knew it all along. They let Limone and three other men take the blame for a crime that evidence suggests was actually committed by informants the FBI was protecting.

Limone, 66, was in prison for half his life, spending four years on death row. His four children grew up without him. His wife, who stood by him during his entire prison stay, was left to support the family by sewing.

There is no way for Limone to get his life back, but his case should be taught at every judicial conference and federal, state and local law enforcement training academy in the country. Maybe Limone's tragedy can lead to a legacy: systemic reform in the way informants and their testimony are handled.

While investigating the mob in New England, FBI agents obtained the cooperation of a hit man, Joseph Barboza, also known as The Animal. In exchange for his testimony, Barboza was given various inducements and protected by the FBI from prosecution for crimes including murder. His testimony implicated Limone in the 1965 murder of Edward Deegan, but according to newly disclosed FBI documents, the agents knew that it was really Barboza, not Limone, who participated in the murder. They also were forewarned that Deegan was about to be murdered but did nothing to stop it.

Harvey Silverglate, a Boston defense attorney familiar with the case, says as shocking as it is to the average American, "people who do this kind of (criminal defense) work see this daily." He says FBI agents routinely engage in practices designed to implicate an individual rather than serve the truth. From rewarding witnesses for favorable testimony to barring tape recorders when they interview suspects so they can "spin the interview," the FBI, says Silverglate, engages in techniques that make it easy to produce false testimony.

The FBI and Department of Justice have a legal and moral responsibility to oust and prosecute agents who participate in any scheme to manipulate testimony. A few federal agents facing long prison terms for framing an innocent person might help chill the practice. But the sad reality is those agencies are not likely to reform until the federal judiciary demands it.

Since the Warren Court, it has been recognized that the federal courts have supervisory power over the way in which the federal government investigates and prosecutes crime. The courts must use that power more forcefully, potentially barring testimony that wasn't obtained in a fair and objective manner.

A case such as Peter Limone's should be universally shocking. Something is deeply wrong with our federal justice system when defense attorneys don't blink an eye, shrug and say, "what else is new?"