"Today, in modern America, the FBI pretends to investigate, but its agents tap phones and plant bugs under beds so they can listen to the snoring and love-making. They’d rather hear a couple of (n-words) fuck than make an honest case,” Professor Jones said boosting his rating ten points. “Occasionally an agent subpoenas a document, and if things get boring a couple of honkies with the collars of their topcoats turned up and wearing snap-brimmed fedoras and imitation Porsche sunglasses corner a witness and scare the living shit out of him. But they don’t engage in detective work. They are merely getting things set up to make a deal.

“Now when the guy is ‘ripe,’ as the Bureau likes to phrase it, when the pressure has been on the suspect for Lord-knows-how-long, and the poor bastard has laid awake for six months staring up at the ceiling wondering how to convince his wife and his kids and the old folks at home that he is really innocent, when he gets up in the morning and the first thing that hits him is a ghastly fear that makes his heart beat out of sync, then like the Chinese water torture, the fear dripping down, the terror of the unknown having captured his mind, the pain of it, minute by minute, hour by hour, day after relentless day, wearing away at him until he has endured one drip too many, well, then he disintegrates into an inglorious pile of blubbering fucking rubble at the feet of the FBI, and he’s ready for a deal!” At the conclusion of the longest sentence uttered by a professor in our law school career, we erupted in loud hoops and applause.

Professor Jones bowed slightly and continued. “The FBI has several classes of deals available. The Class I deal is made with subjects who are guilty of nothing and against whom the Bureau has no case whatsoever. But they have been harassed so long they think they’re guilty, or still believing themselves innocent, they’re helpless to defend themselves, and stupefied by fear, they’ll testify to anything or against anybody if the Bureau will only leave them alone.

“But the FBI makes Class II deals, too. The Class II deal is for subjects who are actually guilty, but still running at large. Usually the more guilty you are the better deal you can make. The Class II dealee might be more guilty than the guy they’re after, but to nail the ‘target,’ the Class II dealee can walk or take ‘short time’ in exchange for his testimony against the target who will likely get twenty years to life. The target could be innocent. That is not the point. The point is the deal. The government isn’t in business to solve cases. It isn’t in the business of bringing criminals to justice. The government has but one function and one function only—to make good, solid, saleable deals!”

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