Legal Commentary

NYT Takes Another Look at the Anthrax Attacker

By TChris

In this post and this one, TalkLeft wondered how the FBI could be so sure that Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks seven years ago. (Some of the comments to those posts are quite informative.) Ivins, you will recall, committed suicide but never admitted responsibility.

Scott Shane writes that The New York Times has finished a thorough examination of the investigation, and is less persuaded of Ivins' guilt than is the FBI:

That examination found that unless new evidence were to surface, the enormous public investment in the case would appear to have yielded nothing more persuasive than a strong hunch, based on a pattern of damning circumstances, that Dr. Ivins was the perpetrator.

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Particularly in high profile cases, a "strong hunch" can be all the proof a law enforcement agency needs. When the pressure to solve a crime is intense, accuracy sometimes gives way to expedience. Revealing the villain becomes more important than making sure the chosen villain is actually guilty.

If the F.B.I. is wrong, then a troubled man was hounded to death and the anthrax perpetrator is still at large, as many of Dr. Ivins’s colleagues at Fort Detrick believe.

Circumstantial evidence points to Ivins' involvement, but circumstantial evidence earlier convinced the FBI that Steven Hatfill was guilty -- a conclusion that, once released to the public, ruined Hatfill's life. Others were also once viewed with strong suspicion, as well. Here are the evidentiary gaps that remain in the Ivins investigation:

No evidence placed him in Princeton, N.J., where the letters were mailed. No receipt showed that he had bought the same type of envelopes. No security camera had caught him photocopying the notes. Nor, in his e-mail messages and conversations with confidants, could agents find any hint of a confession.

The inability to link Ivins to the place where the letters were mailed is the most disturbing weakness in the FBI's case. Also disturbing is the decision to close the case when the results of the investigation are less than certain.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 04, 2009 (boomark / email).