Justice has evidently been served for four men wrongly sent to prison. It has to do with how the FBI intentionally withheld information and then fought to justify the conviction of innocents. Boston.com has a recent time-line of events including the fact that three of the four were sentenced to death on the testimony of a mob hit-man. The AP described the situation as a “bargain written in blood”:

For more than 20 years, FBI headquarters knew that its Boston agents were using hit men and mob leaders as informers and shielding them from prosecution for serious crimes, including murder, The Associated Press has learned.

[…]

The arrangement stayed secret until 1995, when Massachusetts state police and federal drug agents finally built a racketeering case against the Winter Hill Gang, and the story began to tumble out.

The Sydney Herald has the latest chapter in this sad story of corruption:

The government argued that federal authorities had no duty to share information with state officials who prosecuted Limone, Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco. Federal authorities cannot be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution, a Justice Department lawyer argued.

The men’s lawyers said the four were treated as “acceptable collateral damage” in the FBI’s priority at the time – taking down the Mafia through the use of criminal informants.

“It took 30 years to uncover this injustice, and the government’s position is, in a word, absurd,” US District Judge Nancy Gertner said today.

Harsh words. The judge not only points out that ends do not justify the means, but also that this case has parallels to national security both domestically and in terms of international conflict. I assume “these wars” is a reference to Iraq and Afghanistan:

“No lost liberty is dispensable,” she told the packed courtroom. “We have fought wars over this principle. We are still fighting these wars.”

I’m not sure I follow that logic. I thought at least one of the wars being fought was based on false pretense, no?

And if I read the story correctly, while the FBI sought to take down one notorious group, they literally held the door open so another mob could step right into its place. The appearance of security, through scape-goat trials and investigative theater, appears to have been the federal objective in this situation rather than a real and overall increase in security.