Whitey Bulger Sentenced to Two Life Terms in Boston: Appeal Upcoming on Immunity Defense

James “Whitey” Bulger was sentenced on Friday to two life sentences in federal prison for eleven murders committed over decades when he effectively ran the criminal underworld in Boston.  The New York Times reports that the judge, when she handed down the sentences took umbrage not only at the “scope, callousness and depravity” of his crimes, but also that he had become the face of Boston.  Bulger was also ordered to pay $19.5 million in restitution to his victims’ families and forfeit $25.2 million to the government, though no is sure where the millions he made running drugs, prostitution and extortion rackets is or how to get it..

 

James "Whitey" Bulger

There was some mention of the appeal, but the Times thinks he has little chance. The times cites legal experts who say that Bulger’s appeal, based on his claim of de facto immunity given by Boston FBI agents that he grew up with in a South Boston housing project, have little chance of success, since during the trial, Bulger maintained that he wasn’t an informant.

The judge referred to law enforcement officers who were “on your payroll and in your pocket.”  The new special agent in charge of Boston’s FBI field office addressed this too stating:  “I realize that the actions of a small percentage of law enforcement many years ago caused some people to lose faith and confidence in us,” Mr. Lisi said. “Our job now is to make sure that we can regain the faith and confidence of those people who may have lost it years ago.”

This is pretty well ignoring two facts: first, Bulger was denied the right to claim that he was an FBI informant and because of that relationship had de facto ability to commit crimes. That left him no incentive to claim to be in informant. Once he’s prevented from making a legal argument, he shouldn’t be bound to continue to argue the same argument in the trial.  Second, it ignores how pervasive were Bulger’s crimes in Boston and how deep was his relationship with the Boston FBI.

At the time of his conviction, weposted about it, here, but it bears repeating:

Len Levitt on Huffington Post: We know the outlines of the Bulger case: how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, having failed for decades to recognize the existence of organized crime, sought in the early 1970s to destroy its Italian part, La Cosa Nostra. Enter FBI agent John Connolly from Southie, Bulger's home turf, and Connolly's organized crime squad supervisor John Morris. The two agents allowed Bulger and his Winter Hill Irish gang to kill not just the Italians but civilians with no connection to organized crime. While Bulger and his associates were allegedly committing 19 murders, Connolly and Morris tipped Bulger to investigations of him by the Boston Police, the Massachusetts State Police and the Drug Enforcement Agency, ultimately allowing him to take it on the lam for the next 16 years until his capture two years ago.  

Meanwhile, the FBI hierarchy went along in lockstep and protected both Bulger and his two FBI handlers. 

A dozen FBI agents -- many of them supervisors, both in Boston and in Washington, were so fearful of short-circuiting their careers by rocking the Bureau boat that they lacked the courage, honesty, moral outrage and common sense to stop both Bulger and the Bureau's betrayal of its law enforcement partners.

Bulger was deep into the Boston FBI, and the FBI’s battle with the Italian Mob.  He was allowed to murder, deal drugs, and extort with impunity for decades.  He had de facto immunity, even if it was not official.  The government really, really, doesn’t want to have a trial about that.  Bulger preserved the argument for appeal.  It will be interesting to see how it plays out in the future. Unless he dies in prison before the appeal is heard (and he’s in his 80s now), it could get a lot more interesting. And it should.  There should be a long, hard discussion about why the people of South Boston had to live with this devil of a man extorting and terrorizing them for decades because the FBI thought the Italian Mob in other cities was more important than them.