Federal law enforcement officials made a decision to use murderers as informants beginning in the 1960s. Known killers were protected from the consequences of their crimes and purposefully kept on the streets. ... This Committee report focuses on only a small segment of what happened. ...
Federal law enforcement personnel appear to have tolerated, and perhaps encouraged, false testimony
in a state death penalty prosecution. When Joseph Barboza testified in the 1968 trial of six men for the murder of Teddy Deegan, his testimony was contradicted by a compelling body of evidence collected by federal law enforcement. Most of this evidence was kept from defendants and prosecutors. ... To date, there have been no adverse consequences for those who permitted the false testimony.
As a result ... four men were sentenced to death and two men were sentenced to life in prison. Evidence ... indicates that four of these individuals did not commit the crime... Two died in prison and the other two spent in excess of thirty years in prison. Furthermore, federal officials appear to have taken affirmative steps to ensure that the individuals convicted would not obtain post-conviction relief and that they would die in prison.