[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 18 (Wednesday, February 27, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H609-H610]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE CASE OF JOSEPH SALVATI

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about what I think is 
one of the greatest miscarriages of justice ever heard of or ever seen 
in this Nation.
  As some people know, I spent 7\1/2\ years before coming to Congress 
as a criminal court judge in Tennessee trying felony criminal cases, 
the murders, the rapes, the armed robberies, the burglary cases, the 
most serious cases. But I want to talk briefly today about the Joseph 
Salvati case, a case in which a man whom the FBI knew was innocent and 
yet they still kept him in prison for more than 30 years, a man with a 
wife and, I think, four children. It is just horrendous to think about 
what was done to this man by our own Federal Government, a man that 
they knew was innocent. They did not discover that he was innocent 
after he had been in prison for 25 years. They knew before he went to 
prison that he was innocent.
  First of all, I want to start by expressing my great admiration and 
respect for the courage and determination of the gentleman from Indiana 
(Mr. Burton), chairman of the Committee on Government Reform, in 
conducting several hearings about this terrible miscarriage of justice 
that I am talking about here. This is my 14th year in the Congress. I 
have been shocked by this Joseph Salvati case and all that I have heard 
in the hearings that Chairman Burton has had so far, but I want to read 
to you the first paragraph of Chairman Burton's opening statement, 
because I am a member of three different committees, five separate 
subcommittees, I have participated in hundreds, maybe even several 
thousand of committee and subcommittee hearings since I have been in 
the Congress, and I have never heard a more shocking statement in a 
congressional hearing than I heard Chairman Burton give. In fact, I 
have heard him now give it on two occasions.
  His opening statement, the first paragraph said, ``The United States 
Department of Justice allowed lying witnesses to send men to death row. 
It stood by idly while innocent men spent decades behind bars. It 
permitted informants to commit murder. It tipped off killers so that 
they could flee before they were caught. It interfered with local 
investigations of drug dealing and arms smuggling. And then when people 
went to the Justice Department with evidence about murders, some of 
them ended up dead.''

                              {time}  1700

  Now, that is a statement by the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman 
Burton). As I said, I think it is the most shocking statement I have 
ever heard made in a congressional investigation.
  I do not really know what all is behind everything that is in that 
statement. I know it is far more than just the Salvati case from 
Massachusetts, which, as I say, was a case in which the Justice 
Department kept a man in prison for more than 30 years for something 
that they knew all along that he did not do.
  But I will say this: anyone who is not totally, completely shocked by 
what the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) said in that 
statement that I just read and who is not totally completely shocked by 
the Salvati case should reexamine his or her commitment to true justice 
and to our legal system.
  The primary purpose of the law and our legal system should be to 
protect the freedom and liberty of innocent citizens. That should be 
the primary purpose and goal of our legal system. Our term ``justice'' 
can be defined in many ways; but in the end, it should and does mean 
fairness, simple fairness from one human being to another. Justice 
should mean fairness to all.
  Apparently, you had and still have Justice Department and FBI 
bureaucrats who are so blinded by arrogance and power that they can no 
longer see what true justice means. To me, this is shocking. The FBI 
and the Justice Department are still refusing to turn over documents 
and papers on the Salvati case and on some of these other cases to the 
gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton), even though these cases are 
many years old. The Salvati case, as I say, occurred more than 30 years 
ago.
  Joseph Califano, who was a member of the Cabinet and a top adviser to 
Presidents Clinton and Carter, wrote in a column a few weeks ago in the 
Washington Post and said, ``In the war against terrorism, which all of 
us support, we are missing a very alarming problem that is growing by 
leaps and bounds,'' and that is what he described

[[Page H610]]

as the ``shocking, alarming rise in Federal police power.''
  If we are going to have true justice in this country, we cannot end 
up with a Federal police state that allows the FBI and the Justice 
Department to do just anything they want, no matter if it means that an 
innocent man ends up behind bars for 30 years when they know he is 
innocent, and they covered it up and then attempt to continue to cover 
it up after the world knows all about it. This Salvati case has been on 
``60 Minutes.'' Everybody knows about it; it has been all over the 
television and the news.
  So I hope the gentleman from Indiana (Chairman Burton) will continue 
the series of hearings that he has held trying to call attention to 
this horrendous abuse, this terrible miscarriage of justice that was 
done to Mr. Salvati, and I hope that people realize that we have a 
Federal Government that has gotten out of control here and they start 
opposing things like happened in this case.

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