Widespread Failure In McVeigh Case
Widespread failures by the FBI led to the belated disclosure of thousands of pages of documents that caused a one-month delay in the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Justice Department said in releasing the results of an investigation Tuesday.
"The OIG's (Office of the Inspector General) investigation found that the failures to disclose documents were widespread and not confined to a single FBI field office or a few individuals," said Glenn Fine, the inspector general of the Department of Justice, in releasing the 192-page report.
The FBI had delayed in giving McVeigh's defense team boxes of documents related to the investigation of the April 1995 bombing that killed 168 people and gutted a federal office building in Oklahoma City.
When the problem of the belated disclosure of documents was first made public in May 2001, just days before McVeigh was scheduled to die by lethal injection, Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered an investigation to see why the FBI had waited so long to turn over boxes of documents to McVeigh's lawyers.
Human error was the chief cause, the inspector general reported.
"Human error, compounded by antiquated and cumbersome information technology systems and procedures," contributed to the documents not being turned up until years after McVeigh's trial, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday, citing the findings of a report by the department inspector general.
The inspector general concluded that four FBI supervisors should be disciplined for what he described as a "significant neglect of their duties." They include Danny Defenbaugh, the inspector in charge of the bombing investigation and currently the special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas office; and Mark White, who was coordinating information exchanged between the FBI's offices in Dallas and Oklahoma City.
The inspector general also recommended discipline, to a lesser degree, for William Teater, a squad supervisor for the FBI unit responsible for parts of the investigation, and for Richard Marquise, who became head of the Oklahoma City office in 1999. The report said Teater "in many ways ... acted appropriately" but that he "should have done more to ensure that someone was making the necessary decisions to resolve the matter expeditiously."
It said it was difficult to know "how much criticism should be directed at Marquise," but said he should have investigated more thoroughly after he received e-mails from Teater indicated a problem with the documents.
"The American people have a right to have confidence in our justice system," Ashcroft said in a statement. "The Department of Justice is committed to implementing necessary reforms at the FBI."
The late turnover of documents resulted in a one-month delay in McVeigh's execution. But the report said that "the direct and circumstantial evidence supports the conclusion that the government did not willfully withhold material known to be discoverable."
Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller both issued statements saying they were committed to implementing necessary reforms at the FBI.
"The FBI has already begun to update technology systems, improve information management and provide more effective and timely accountability," Ashcroft said.
Mueller has begun restructuring the FBI which has been shaken by a series of blunders over the past year, ranging from the McVeigh files to lost laptops to having a Russian spy within its ranks.
"There can be no doubt about the accuracy, completeness and proper disclosure of the records we compile during our investigations and used by prosecutors in support of prosecutions," Mueller said in a statement.
FBI Assistant Director John Collingwood said Monday: "We have brought in new records management experts, consolidated our records functions in one office and retrained our employees - all intended to enhance operations and increase accountability.
"More importantly, with funding from Congress we are rebuilding our computerized information infrastructure in ways that will not permit many of the things that happened here while increasing security at the same time," he said.
Collingwood said a key phase will occur next spring with the unveiling of a new computer system that will not allow FBI agents to create documents unless they are attached to the master case file so that the lead investigative office knows about every piece of evidence in a case.
He added that another key is the "creation of a culture within the agency that understands records management is critical - although quite mundane compared to the spectacular other things we often do - and is just as important in protecting rights and supporting strong investigations and prosecutions."
When the belated discovery of 4,500 pages of FBI documents abruptly postponed McVeigh's execution, it generated an immediate outcry and questions about the FBI's performance. At the time, FBI officials blamed a computer glitch for the failure to discover the documents.
But people familiar with the inspector general's findings, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the internal review identified several human errors involved in the FBI identification, production and preservation of documents that should have been turned over to McVeigh's defense.
Among them, according to the sources, were: