Record
Court opinion
2000-09-11
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
United States v. Flemmi, 225 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2000)
First Circuit opinion of September 11, 2000 reversing the district court's suppression order and holding that FBI agents acting on their own cannot confer use immunity on an informant.
- Date
- 2000-09-11
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- No. 99-2292
- 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, September 11, 2000 (Selya, J.), on the Government’s interlocutory appeal from Judge Wolf’s order suppressing evidence from electronic surveillance at three locations.
The court opens: “This appeal arises out of a relentless effort by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to infiltrate, and eventually to smash, the New England branch of La Cosa Nostra (LCN). To achieve its goal, the FBI struck a Faustian bargain with two reputed organized crime figures, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger and Stephen Flemmi.” It describes Flemmi and Bulger “as the leaders of the Winter Hill Gang (also known as the Irish Mob)” who “did extensive business with LCN,” and states that “By 1967, the FBI had designated both men as top-echelon informants.” The words “reputed” and “reputedly” are the court’s.
The court held that FBI agents acting on their own lack authority to confer use immunity on a confidential informant. It wrote: “Reversed and remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.”