Record
Court opinion
2016-03-04
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
United States v. Bulger, 816 F.3d 137 (1st Cir. 2016)
First Circuit opinion of March 4, 2016 affirming James J. Bulger's racketeering conviction and life sentences after a three-month trial, and rejecting his claim that a prosecutor had given him immunity.
- Date
- 2016-03-04
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- No. 13-2447
- Rights
- Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit, March 4, 2016 (Thompson, J.). The opinion opens: “After evading authorities for fifteen-plus years, fugitive James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, the head of an organized crime syndicate in Boston from the 1970’s to the 1990’s, was captured.” It states that he was charged in 2001 on a racketeering indictment alleging a conspiracy from about 1972 to 2000, and that “Law enforcement finally caught up with Bulger in June of 2011, finding him living under an assumed identity in California.” After a three-month trial he was found guilty of most counts and sentenced to life in prison, plus a consecutive life term and five years.
On appeal Bulger argued that he had immunity, relying on a remark attributed to the former strike-force chief Jeremiah O’Sullivan. The court rejected the argument. It summarizes testimony from Stephen Flemmi, John Martorano and Kevin Weeks, and the role of John Connolly as Bulger’s FBI handler. The court states that in 2003 Flemmi “pled guilty to twelve murders” and other charges.
The court’s closing sentence is: “Having closely considered the array of claimed errors, we affirm.”
