Word: atlanta
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Last week, however, Jewell stepped forward to claim a tremendous victory. On Oct. 26, in a highly unusual move, a federal prosecutor sent Jewell's lawyer a letter saying that Jewell is no longer a "target" in the federal investigation of the bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta last summer. For three days in July, Jewell had been a hero, since he was the security guard who had noticed the unattended knapsack containing the bomb. Then, just as suddenly, he was identified as the prime suspect and was relentlessly pursued by both the FBI and the press...
...weeks, Jewell's lawyers had been trying to persuade the government to clear Jewell and apologize to him. The letter that finally arrived from U.S. Attorney Kent B. Alexander, the prosecutor investigating the Atlanta bombing, fell far short of an apology, but it did free Jewell from the fear that he would be arrested at any moment. Jewell, the letter stated, was "not considered a target" of the investigation. "Barring any newly discovered evidence," it continued, "this status will not change...
...professor of criminal procedure at Michigan Law School, "there's a point at which an open investigation of who committed a crime becomes instead the prosecution of suspect X. If that happens early on in the case, the chances of making a mistake are very great." In the Atlanta bombing, the shift from an open investigation to the prosecution of a particular suspect does seem to have taken place very early, and the result was certainly a mistake...
Confusion may have arisen because Freeh was switching signals with the field while Jewell was sitting in the FBI interview room. According to several sources, the FBI agents and prosecutors in Atlanta initially decided that they did not need to read Jewell his Miranda warning. Case law has held that a person who is speaking to the federal investigators voluntarily and who is not being detained need not be read his rights. Partway through the interview, however, Freeh called Atlanta and said agents had to give Jewell a Miranda warning. While there are conflicts about what was said when...
What truly angers Jewell's lawyers is not that the press reported that he was a suspect, which after all was true, but that it did so in ways that seemed to convict him on the spot. That's why the attorneys are first targeting the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which broke the story, and NBC in their lawsuits. Attorneys Wood and Martin criticize the Journal-Constitution for asserting, in its special edition on the bombing, that Jewell sought publicity. "By saying he tried to be a hero," says attorney Bryant, "they gave him the motive, but it's not true...