Boy, does that take you back! Like, to Mississippi Burning.
Is this a good or bad idea, do you think?
A bad idea.
The criteria for a criminal conviction is “beyond a reasonable doubt”. It just doesn’t look like the evidence is there to meet this criteria.
Yup. Bad idea. And one whose mere consideration is motivated by poiitical posturing rather than any rationality.
Move on.
I think that it’s an overreach by the DOJ. This isn’t a federal matter, but rather a state court one. While people may not like what the jury did, I don’t think that this is a good idea.
No, it really doesn’t. That’s probably the stupidest analogy that’s ever been posted on this board.
Horrible idea, and it’s not going anywhere. DOJ is not going to come out and say they won’t prosecute this soon after the verdict, but they are not going to prosecute, and anybody with half a brain knows they are not going to prosecute.
All the evidence necessary was right there in the defendant’s statements.
That said, this is still a bad idea. There’s really no Federal angle, here, and to invent one as vague as “violation of civil rights” is to reject the whole notion behind the protection against double jeopardy. A better response would be to pursue some sort of charges against the prosecution of this case for their gross negligence to present a case using the indisputable evidence they had.
From what I’ve heard onTV, the civil case would have a lower burden of proof, i.e., “a preponderance of evidence”.
To answer the question, bad idea. It’s just going to to keep the pot stirring. Which is exactly what professional racists like Sharpton want.
I think in this case the Obama admin will overcome its worst tendencies and realize nothing productive could come of pursuing a federal case v Zimmerman. The part of the federal code that’s usually used in recent decades (like against the Rodney King cops 18 USC 242) only covers people acting under ‘color of law’ but OTOH allows a prosecution of any such person would violates ‘any rights’. The part of the code used against KKK terrorism 50 years ago (18 USC 249) applies to anyone but the govt would have to prove essentially that Zimmerman unjustifiably shot Martin because Martin was black, not just that it was part of the motivation or an ancillary factor but pretty much the reason. If the FL prosecutors couldn’t prove Zimmerman acted illegally without any requirement to also prove that relatively narrow motive, how is a federal prosecutor going to do it with that additional requirement? And the DoJ already released a report in July 2012 (compiled by the FBI), a matter of public record, saying they’d found no evidence it was a racially motivated crime.
So yeah, the DoJ is going to say they are ‘still investigating’ and when things cool down and there’s a busy news day otherwise they’ll quietly release a statement that the investigation is over and no civil rights charges will be brought.
But what will a civil case accomplish? Make Zimmerman declare bankuptcy? If he is fool enough to try to exploit this episode with some kind of ghost-written book dealthen go after whatever he makes. Barring that it is a fair amount of squeeze for hardly any juice.
It was a case where there was a racially motivated set of killings, a white local jury acquitted the defendants, so the Feds filed a civil-rights charge. I don’t think they’ve resorted to that in decades, but they did it several times in the 1960s. Hence, “takes you back.” And don’t try to tell me “racially motivated” does not apply here.
More like..its what civil rights leaders need
I think you’re agreeing with me. But your opening line sounds like you’re not. Hmmm.
I don’t think they’ll end up filing charges.
I suppose winning it would make Martin’s parents feel better even if they get no money out of it.
Of course not. Obama doesn’t want to be saddled with a failure.
Nor will he want to deal with the accusations of racism.
It’s a terrible idea and will be quietly dropped in a week or two.
If there’s any stupidity he’s used to by now it’s that.
I’ve seen stupider.
It somewhat surprised me, though, that a civil-rights case could be made, even hypothetically, against a private citizen. If Zimmerman had been a law-enforcement officer (and I’m pretty sure neighborhood watch doesn’t count), okay, since he’d be abusing some kind of governmental authority…
The Civil Rights Act made it a crime to prevent a citizen from exercising his civil rights by threat of force, even by private citizens (Congress can legislate broadly in such matters under the 14th Amendment.) Any prosecution would have to tie the killing with a protected activity (like voting or using a public facility) which seems unlikely.