Are Federal Civil Rights Laws a Second Bite?

[Stravo]

In law school there was a term used for when a plaintiff got a second crack at a defendant if the defendant got away and that was termed "getting a second bite at the apple."

In NYC particularly in the 90's there were many cases where a black plaintiff sued - almost invariably because of police brutality - and his case was either thrown out by the courts or the jury found for the cops.

What would invariably happen is that Al Sharpton or someone like him would appear on the courthouse steps, make a lot of noise about racial discrimintaion and viola - the Federal Prosecutors hand down an indictment for Civil Rights discrimination and that would usually lead to some form of conviction against the offenders.

Is that fair?

We've debated this ad nauseum in school and every once in awhile at work but the flood of cases that happened like this in NYC have greatly subsided taking it out of the spotlight.

What you essentially have is a person charged with a crime based on the same facts and circumstances in which he was charged with a previous crime in state court. He got off on that state charge but now a federal charge - alleging something different, a violation of the person's civil rights, arises and does that not then expose the person to double jeopardy in terms of being brought to trial on the same circumstances but different crime?

Are minorities getting a second bite at the apple or is this fair under Federal Jurisprudence? Keep in mind that the history behind the Civil Rights charges was that blacks in the 60's could not get a fair trial in the South so the Federal government found a way for them to have the actions removed to Federal court in order to get a better shot at justice. Is something like this still neccessary?

[Tommy J]

Stravo, I think this is a two sided sword that unfortunately doesn't always work the way we want it to in an ideal world. Civil Rights protections and enhanced crimes committed against an ethnic group or minority group were enacted to try to obviously deter people from targeting specific groups through harsher punishment.

Obviously it is also used as a defense as well. Do some exaggerate their need for protection or embellish the discrimination that is placed on them -- YES.

Nonetheless, it seems to me that you cannot have it both ways. You cannot give a minority group special protections on one end of the law without having it affect the other as well.

Couple of examples of crimes committed against a minority group that I think deserves the extra punishment for committing such.

Trenton, Georgia:

On November 19, 2003, at approximately 1:10 a.m., a cross constructed of lumber, wrapped in cloth and placed upon a tripod, was set on fire in the driveway of a home occupied by a white woman. For several days prior to the cross burning, the woman's daughter had been staying at the home with her African-American boyfriend.

Investigation quickly identified six individuals responsible for the construction and burning of the cross. The subjects admitted that they were opposed to the interracial couple staying at the residence. The subjects insisted that they had no involvement with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and subsequent investigation supported this assertion.

On December 17, 2003, Jerrell Timothy Garner, Stacy Paul Jones, Steven Garland Jones, Jeremy Ray Sims, Eric Shane Sullivan, and Bill Richard Wells, were indicted on two counts of civil rights charges related to the cross burning incident and were arrested by the FBI on January 6, 2004. On February 23, 2004, all six men pled guilty to conspiracy to violate civil rights, Title 18, U.S.C. 241.

On May 7, 2004, Garner was sentenced to 12 months incarceration; Stacy Paul Jones received 34 months incarceration; Steven Garland Jones received 42 months; Sims received 46 months incarceration; Sullivan received six months incarceration; and Wells received 24 months incarceration.

Orangevale, California:

On July 19, 2002, a United States Postal Service mail carrier was delivering mail in a residential neighborhood in Orangevale, California. The uniformed mail carrier, who was a Sikh, was of Indian descent and wore a turban and a full beard. While making his rounds, the mail carrier felt a sharp pain after something hit him in the back of his neck. A subsequent x-ray indicated that the mail carrier had a pellet from a pellet gun embedded in his neck.

It was later determined that the pellet which hit the mail carrier originated from a home within line of sight of where the victim had been standing. Matthew John Burdick, a resident in the home, admitted to investigators that the pellet gun was his and that he had been using the gun to practice target shooting at a Confederate flag he had hanging in his garage. On October 30, 2002, Burdick was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury. On May 28, 2003, Burdick pled guilty in Federal Court to the pellet gun assault of the mail carrier. On September 17, 2003, Burdick was sentenced to 70 months in prison for one count of 18 U.S.C. 111 (a) (1) (b) (Assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees/Enhanced penalty).

[Edi]

Stravo, it'd only be double jeopardy if the federal charges were the same as the state charges. The same action can easily fulfill the criteria of multiple offenses and being acquitted of one does not clear you of the other.

It's much like a person knifing another one in the course of mugging him and taking his wallet. All of the following are/could be applicable: attempted murder, aggravated assault, assault, robbery. If there is not enough evidence to convict of attempted murder, there should be enough to convict of aggravated assault (because the perp used a knife) and so on down the ladder toward the lesser offenses until either there is a conviction or there is not enough evidence to convict of anything.

In your example cases, either the state prosecutors are incompetent for not also charging for the civil rights violations (and everything else they can hit the defendants with that can cover what they did), or the NY law books don't recognize the offense on the state level and they would be out of jurisdiction and therefore not eligible to pursue those charges. So there is acquittal on the brutality charges. But the question of the federal charges (another crime, completely different definition than police brutality) has not evenb been examined, and when it is, they find themselves again in court. Same circumstances of the event, yes, but they are accused of a different crime. As they should be, if their actions fulfilled the criteria set down in federal law.

I simply do not see how this can even be the subject of a debate. This stuff is so elementary that people who merely intend to be lawyers should know it. Professional lawyers (or at least criminal lawyers and prosecutors) should know it ex officio.

Edi

[Stravo]

I simply do not see how this can even be the subject of a debate. This stuff is so elementary that people who merely intend to be lawyers should know it. Professional lawyers (or at least criminal lawyers and prosecutors) should know it ex officio.

Edi

Its not the mechanics of it that we debate, its the principle of the defendant getting slammed twice, the state in essence gets to have at the guy twice. If the state charges don't stick don't worry we'll get your ass on the Federal charges.

There should be a system in place that will either roll these charges into one Federal case - Federal courts hear state matters quite often if certain criteria are met - and thus you hit the guy with all the charges at once.

It is a fairness issue when you think about it. People spend a lot of money defending themselves from criminal charges, to have to do so twice on a cop's salary is not easy. The government holds alot of power by holding this extra charge over the defendant's head and has been used to coerce plea deals in the past.

How would you feel if you were innocent, dodged the state charge, spent up all your life's savings and mortaged your house and then two months later after our good freind Al Sharpton makes a speech you suddenly get indicted by the government for the same offense on a different charge. Deja Vu all over again.

Notice I am not debating the Civil Rights Law itself, merely the mechanism for how it is enforced and procedures used to enforce it. There should be no reason why a Federal Court should not sit in place of the state court and hear all the matters at once and save both the state and the defendant time and money.

[Edi]

Ah, seems I misread your question. Indeed, I agree with you, there should be such a mechanism that it should be all rolled into one. Our system does not have so many different levels, so we don't have this problem all that much. People who are acquiteed of charges here can also usually get a substantial chunk of their legal fees back from the state, because the state put them in a shitty situation without adequate cause, hence must pay damages, i.e. the legal fees, or part of them anyway. If the defendants fees are determined to be exorbitant, he must pay the difference himself. The amount of compensation is also decided by the court, it is not left up to the state.

Edi

[Patrick Degan]

I believe the situation is that State and Federal entities are seperate as far as the law is concerned. It's the same as when a mobster is prosecuted for crimes committed in a jurisdiction by the local district attorney and is then subsequently charged for whatever crimes fall under the definitions of the Federal racketerring statutes if those apply to said defendent's activities. Two sets of crimes, two sets of laws, two seperate prosecutorial authorities.

[Queeb Salaron]

You know, I don't think that cases in which abuse due to racial discrimination occurs should have to be dealt with on a one-count level. I think the separation of these crimes is fair. It is one thing to abuse someone. It is another thing entirely to do it because of racial discrimination. And in the cases where racial bias can be clearly (and I emphasize clearly) demonstrated, it is clear to me that there are two crimes being committed. The first -- assault, harassment, etc. -- is certainly an issue to be dealt with on a state court level. The second -- racial discrimination -- is a violation of Federal law, and should therefore be punishable as such. I really have no problem with this system. It just so happens that sometimes it takes someone like Al Sharpton to force people to recognize that there was, in fact, a racial bias in the commission of the crime itself, and that it must be dealt with on a Federal level.

In general, I think the more specific we are in charging people with crimes, even if one act has to be broken into several fragments to be prosecuted, the better off we are. Maybe not economically, but in terms of ensuring that justice is served. But that's just my opinion.