What does the FBI screw-up indicate for the capital punishment debate?
I mean, here’s the biggest case the FBI’s ever had. They’ve got all the resources imaginable to handle it. They know it’s going to be watched closely and reviewed forever. And they hope to get a rock-solid conviction in the end.
And with all that, they screw up. They lose 3100 documents that neither the federal prosecutor nor the defence team ever saw. They only discover them a week before the execution.
Now, it sounds, so far, like these documents won’t change the outcome, especially since he’s confessed to the murders.
But what does it say for capital punishment if the FBI can’t run a perfect case in these circumstances? If the FBI can’t do it, then what police force can? What other exhibits are going missing in other cases - and perhaps in other cases the exhibits may be crucial to the question of guilt or innocence?
I guess the first federal execution in 38 years will have to wait a little longer.
Not a whole helluva lot, really, as Spooje alluded to. The FBI doesn’t have jurisdiction over all capital-punishment cases. They’re stuck with Federal trials… hence the name “Federal Bureau of Investigation”.
However, this DOES serve as an example of the “court cases can screw up and can put innocent people behind bars” argument. But only a lone, isolated example.
So what that it is the bigest case they have ever had? The bigger, the more likely that at least ONE document gets left behind. In all likelihood, these documents are nothing but documents that contain extremely trivial facts on even more trivial matters, that no one cares about. You have to look at 3100 documents minus the number that are actually just copies in perspective to the millions of pages of ducuments created by this investigation. These documents would barely fill half of a black and white filing box, let alone make any significant impact upon any case.
I am not saying that we should suspend the rights of appeal of any of the accussed, but assuming that the first trials were not simply incredible chance flukes, neither Nichols or McVeigh have a chance in hell at changing their fates.
I AM curious as to the total number of documents that the FBI gathered in this matter. If 3100 were a significant percentage, I’d be a tad uneased, but if it were out of several million (as Threemae indicated), I wouldn’t be too concerned.