Nick Jimenez
Sunday, May 13, 2001
Execution delayed
FBI's blunder shames the organization and casts doubt on our important institutions
Many Americans might ask, what does it matter if thousands of FBI documents were never turned over to defense attorneys for Timothy McVeigh, the convicted chief perpetrator of the worst act of domestic terrorism in the nation's history?
After all, here we have a person who has not only been convicted, but has virtually boasted of his part in the killing of 168 people, including 19 children which were only so much "collateral damage" to McVeigh.
Poster boy for death penalty
McVeigh is the poster boy for capital punishment, the prime exhibit for why there should be a death penalty. If McVeigh doesn't qualify for the death penalty, who does?
But in an incredible act of either stupidity, incompetence or outright duplicity, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Thursday, just six days before McVeigh's scheduled execution, that it had turned up some 3,100 pages of documents, including field reports, related to the Oklahoma City bombing case that it never turned over to McVeigh's defense team.
The McVeigh case, because of the horrible loss of life in the Oklahoma City bombing, not only called the world's attention to the specter of terrorism in the heartland of the United States, but in the prosecution of McVeigh and co-defendant, Terry Nichols, put the nation's criminal jurisprudence system on view to the world.
Now the revelation of suddenly discovered documents has not only embarrassed the FBI, it has called into question the very fairness of the nation's criminal justice system and whether, in fact, justice is blindfolded.
The astonishing development in the McVeigh case is another in a string of events that has put the nation's institutions in less than flattering light. Florida and the case of the hanging chads put our electoral system on display for the world. Though the end result, the election of George W. Bush, may well have happened anyway, the fact that the courts intervened in the vote counting didn't speak for the glory of the ballot.
The nation's military is trying to recover from a series of horrible tragedies, the worst being the collision of the submarine Greeneville with a Japanese fishing boat. Nine people died; that civilians were at the controls of the ship during the critical fatal maneuver painted a picture that joyriding was taking place with the government's most powerful weapons.
Big outfits make big mistakes
The reputation of the FBI, a national institution of world repute, has been taking some heavy hits recently, but the revelation of the lost documents may be the worst hit yet. Large organizations make big mistakes; the larger the organization, the bigger the mistake. A deliberate attempt to hide, to squirrel away evidence important to McVeigh's defense seems a stretch. But is it any better if we find out that the documents were lost because of incompetence?
But what does it matter if McVeigh himself says he is guilty?
This is essentially the same question that surrounds other death penalty cases in which the evidence clearly points toward the guilt of the defendant. This is the question that hangs over Texas Attorney General John Cornyn's intervention in the death penalty verdict for Victor Soldano. Cornyn is trying to get a new punishment hearing for Soldano because a prosecution witness injected race into the issue.
McVeigh, perhaps the most heinous criminal in American history, must receive the absolute best legal defense the nation can provide. He has done nothing to deserve the benefits of the rights of the most democratic nation in the world. He did the utmost his brutal mind could conjure, a deadly fertilizer bomb that brought down the federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, to destroy that nation.
McVeigh should get the complete exercise of his rights precisely because his guilt is utterly incontrovertible. Justice should be administered without emotion and without bias and with full respect for the integrity of the system precisely because McVeigh's crime is so evil and so without remorse.
McVeigh and those like him would have us live by revenge and a thirst for blood. But what separates us from the McVeigh's of the world is that we live by laws.
The apparent bungling of the FBI is so damaging because it puts under a cloud the system that guards the rights of not only McVeigh, but also each of us.
The prosecution of McVeigh and McNichols was not just to determine his guilt or innocence. The weeks of testimony and thousands of hours of investigation and millions of documents was, in effect, every criminal case tried in every court, from county to state court, writ large across the international stage.
System must be fair
The system is supposed to be fair and unbiased whether the defendant is guilty or not. It has to be fair. I believe the death penalty underscores the value of life. To allow McVeigh to escape the ultimate judgment would be to diminish the 168 lives that perished in Oklahoma City. But to allow the justice system to be corrupted, either by incompetence or by malfeasance, is to be in league with McVeigh in the destruction of our democracy.
Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com.
Nick Jimenez can be reached by phone at 886-3787 or by e-mail at jimenezn@caller.com
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