1975 to 2000
Investigations and deregulation
The Church Committee, the secret surveillance court, Iran-Contra and its pardons, Waco, and the repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Key facts
- The Church Committee found 500,000 FBI files on Americans. Congress was asked for a law against assassination and did not pass one.
- In 1978 Congress created a secret court for surveillance warrants. It hears only the government.
- Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. In 2000 swaps were exempted from regulation.
Timeline
8 events in Police, Courts & Prisons, oldest first
- 1978January 18, 1978Police, Courts & Prisons
Supreme Court: a prosecutor may threaten a life sentence to make a defendant take a plea
Paul Hayes turned down five years for an $88.30 check and got life.
- 19791979Police, Courts & Prisons
Kent State settled for $675,000 and a statement of regret
Less than $52,000 for each person shot.
- 1989December 7, 1989Police, Courts & Prisons
Texas executes Carlos DeLuna for a murder another man kept confessing to
Prosecutors had called that man a phantom; the police knew he was real.
- 1992August 22, 1992Police, Courts & Prisons
FBI sniper kills Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge
Rules of engagement later found unconstitutional; $3.1 million paid.
- 1993February 28, 1993Police, Courts & Prisons
ATF raids Waco knowing surprise is lost; four agents and six Davidians die
Treasury: some agents lied and their lies became the public explanation.
- April 19, 1993Police, Courts & Prisons
Waco fire kills about 80 after the FBI's tear gas assault
Pyrotechnic rounds denied until August 1999.
- 1997August 15, 1997Police, Courts & Prisons
No prosecution of the officials who approved the Ruby Ridge rules
One conviction, for destroying the after action critique.
- 2000July 21, 2000Police, Courts & Prisons
Danforth: the government did not start the Waco fire, and hid the pyrotechnic rounds for six years
2 million documents, 900 witnesses.
Stories (2)
- 1983 to 1989The 1989 Texas Execution of Carlos DeLuna After Police Ignored the Real KillerCarlos DeLuna was executed by Texas on December 7, 1989 for the stabbing of a gas station clerk, Wanda Lopez, in Corpus Christi. He said from the start that another man did it, a man named Carlos Hernandez, and prosecutors told the jury that Hernandez was a "phantom" who might not even exist. Hernandez was real, was known to the same police, had a record of knife attacks, and told people for years that he was the one who killed Wanda Lopez and that his namesake had taken the blame. A team at Columbia Law School spent years reconstructing the case and concluded DeLuna was innocent: the conviction rested on a single nighttime eyewitness who later said he was only partly sure, there was no physical evidence tying DeLuna to the bloody scene, and the crime scene was washed down within two hours. DeLuna was never exonerated. He had already been executed.Police, Courts & Prisons
- 1992 to 2000Ruby Ridge (1992) and Waco (1993): Federal Rules of Engagement, Tear Gas Fires, and Cover-UpsIn August 1992 federal marshals went to arrest Randy Weaver on a gun charge after a probation officer had sent him the wrong court date. His fourteen year old son and a deputy marshal were killed in the first exchange, and the next day an FBI sniper, under rules that said agents can and should shoot any armed adult male, killed Weaver's wife as she stood in her doorway holding their baby. The Justice Department's own review found the rules did not meet the Constitution. Weaver was acquitted of everything but missing the court date. Six months later, in Waco, the ATF raided the Branch Davidians knowing it had lost the element of surprise and lied about it afterward, by the Treasury Department's finding; four agents and six Davidians died. Fifty-one days after that the FBI's tear gas assault ended in a fire that killed about 80 people, including children, and the bureau denied for six years that it had fired pyrotechnic rounds that day. The government paid the Weavers $3.1 million. One FBI official was convicted, for destroying a document.Police, Courts & Prisons