On April 17, the Washington Post reported what activists and the Black community learned decades ago: that the FBI will do whatever is necessary to convict political prisoners, including manipulating evidence. Prison rights activists and lawyers have long argued that this was the case, often, as the Post investigation demonstrates, while lacking the very evidence needed to vindicate their argument. The U.S. injustice system has often fabricated or spun evidence in such a way that the truth was never available to judges, juries or the people.
The Post investigation focused on high-profile cases, such as the Oklahoma City bombing, the O.J. Simpson trial and the trial of Omar Abdel Rahman, who was charged with organizing the first attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993. However, the broader implications are that the manufacturing and manipulation of evidence by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have condemned thousands of innocent victims to rot in jail, or be put to death.
The scam first came to light in the Rahman trial in 1995, when the FBI’s forensic specialist testified in court that he was told by his superiors to bias his interpretation of evidence to support the prosecutor’s case. It was later learned that this specialist had been warning for years that FBI officials were pressuring forensic lab technicians to distort evidence. But because his testimony occurred in a very public case, it embarrassed the Justice Department under President Clinton and forced them to launch an investigation.
Shortly thereafter, a 517-page “scathing report” was issued that only broadly condemned these practices, and stopped short of calling them what they were—fabrications. Another nine-year investigation followed, which was “closely controlled” by the FBI and at its conclusion faded away, failing to draw any definitive conclusions or identify the victims of these fabrications.
The latest revelations expose the rot at the base of the so-called justice system, concealed by popular TV crime programs such as CSI, which portray crime labs as being staffed by highly skilled specialists who relentlessly pursue justice through forensic truth.
In reality, we now see that these lab workers are tools used by police agencies to justify pre-formed conclusions and attacks on the working class and oppressed, particularly if they happen to be political activists or convenient scapegoats. The Post investigation concluded with detailed evidence of its own about how this happens, suggesting that evidence, such as DNA, fingerprints, handwriting, polygraph (lie detector) tests, firearm, hair, fiber evidence, pattern impressions and bullet lead tests are all subject to manipulation and/or error in the testing process.
The injustice of the system is not new. It is a system designed to be manipulated by powerful capitalist interests to spread fear and confusion and draw attention away from their own crimes. The only way to transform it into a true justice system is to replace the capitalist order the current system is set up to protect and serve.
