I had to look it up and I just learned this stuff. Well, I knew the venue had to be where a defendant was but not much more than than.
There is an interesting article in the Forward speculating on applying 18 U.S.C. § 245 (federally protected activities), as it was somewhat similarly charged in the Lemrick Nelson case:
It seems to me the article is mistaken in one significant way, in that the confrontation did not occur on the streets of Sanford. I don’t know if Martin walking through the gated community could be considered a federally protected activity
But what do I know? Do you (or any lawyers interested) think it can be argued to apply to this case?
Just for the record, I don’t think the DOJ will go forward with any charges at all.
I think the bigger issue is proving racial motivation. The article seems to take it as a foregone conclusion, but there’s no actual evidence.
Maybe so, but when I first read the article, I thought about O’Mara’s closing statements, where he practically concedes the racial profiling to justify Zimmerman’s suspicion of Martin. In addition to calling that last witness who testified about the home invasion - what was the relevance of her testimony, other than to highlight the fact that a young black male had perpetrated the crime?
It would be easier to try to prove the racial motivation for profiling Martin (setting the chain of events in motion) than as a motive for ultimately killing him, and if I’m reading it correctly, that is all they would need to prove to make their case under this statute (assuming the federally protected activity criteria applies at all).
The kind of racial profiling where you walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved?
No, the facts are not that clear. We have no conclusive evidence whatsoever on who started the confrontation. We know that Zimmerman was watching Martin and relaying information about Martin to a dispatcher, and that later he was out of his car following Martin’s trail. I don’t believe either of those activities would qualify as “hindering” of anyone’s activities under Federal code. After that, we have no evidence whatsoever about what happened. We have Zimmerman’s side of the story, and nothing compelling to rebut it. That puts the Federal prosecutors in the same position the State ones were. Zimmerman with a passably plausible story about his actions that dismisses the claims against him, and the prosecutors with no evidence or witness statements able to show any real weakness in his story.
The simple truth is, there is a reason the DOJ was obviously not wanting to get involved in this back when it happened. Their professional prosecutors knew they had no hope of conviction. There is a reason probably a half dozen former federal prosecutors (and even at least one current one who spoke to the press anonymously) have said the DOJ does not have a winnable case here, and some of those prosecutors who have spoken such were actually in the civil rights criminal division in their DOJ careers. Probably one of the biggest part of their jobs was looking at cases and deciding if they were winnable or not, and they’re all saying this isn’t a winnable case.
In fact I think a pretty reasonable person in Florida, the State’s Attorney normally responsible for the Sanford area, declined to charge Zimmerman initially because he said he did not believe the State could prove manslaughter. Tag in the Governor, who gets a bulldog prosecutor widely believed to regularly engage in prosecutorial misconduct and who has a history of overcharging and basically persecuting people as a prosecutor, and sure enough she not only charges Zimmerman (without a grand jury) but charges him with 2nd Degree Murder. That’s a classic example of a bad prosecutor put in a position to be a bad prosecutor by the Governor, doing something she shouldn’t have done. I think a U.S. Attorney, who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, would probably not have the same concerns about local Florida politics as the Governor and the elected State’s Attorney that was given the case when the Governor stepped in.
ACLU comes to its senses and reverses its original (very stupid, IMO) stance, now telling DOJ that it is very much against any kind of Zimmerman prosecution using federal civil rights or hate crimes laws:
Original stupidity: Next Steps in Honoring Trayvon Martin: It's Time for Systemic Reform | ACLU
This case reminds us that it is imperative that the Department of Justice thoroughly examine whether the Martin shooting was a federal civil rights violation or hate crime. We call on Attorney General Eric Holder to release strengthened guidance on the use of race in federal law enforcement.
New Position: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_letter_to_ag_holder_re_gzimmerman_case.pdf
We are writing to clearly state the ACLU’s position on whether or not the Department of Justice (DOJ) should consider bringing federal civil rights or hate crimes charges as a result of the state court acquittal in the George Zimmerman case.
Even though the Supreme Court permits a federal prosecution following a state prosecution, the ACLU believes the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution protects someone from being prosecuted in another court for charges arising from the same transaction. A jury found Zimmerman not guilty, and that should be the end of the criminal case.
I agree with the ACLU in this instance. Not enough evidence to go forward in any case, and it would distract from the criminal justice system inequities we should be focused on.
I’d still like to know though, if walking in a gated community could be argued as a federally protected activity. When Janet Reno first charged in the Nelson case, there were doubts if walking on a city street could be argued; I’m wondering if it could be expanded even further in future cases.
The Matthew Shephard law removed a lot of the “federally protected activity” requirement, but it retained the requirement that the crime be primarily motivated by the victim’s race, color, national origin, sexual orientation, etc.
In the Nelson case, the accused killer had yelled, “Kill the Jew!” before stabbing a man dressed in black in the manner of an Orthodox Jew, who was in fact an Orthodox Jew, shortly after a Jewish driver was in a traffic accident that killed two African-American children. The accused was in fact part of an angry mb that formed after the accident and announced their intention to get Jews, and went to a Jewish neighborhood to that end.
In short, the Nelson case was loaded with sufficient evidence to support a religious/racial motive for the slaying.
No. Even if Zimmerman were to say, “I initially suspended Martin because he was black,” that is not sufficient. Federal law requires that racial animus be the motive for the murder. Zimmerman’s initial suspicion is not the same as a motive for murder.
And of course, we don’t even have evidence of that much: Zimmerman does NOT say his reason for initial suspicion was racial.
Maybe I’m confused about the Nelson case, but if you recall, Nelson was not convicted for Rosenbaum’s murder, he was convicted for violating his civil rights by impeding his protected activity of walking the streets of Brooklyn (by stabbing him, but still, short of murder).
No question there was ample evidence of bias in the Nelson case, and nothing solid in the Zimmerman case, but the point of the Forward article was that the older statute (as illustrated by Nelson) allowed for a bias motive in “setting off a chain of events” as sufficient for a civil rights violation conviction (the jury didn’t convict for murder because the hospital was found to be at fault for letting Rosenbaum bleed to death).
I’m trying to understand if the older statute could be charged in future, in cases where it might be easier to prove racial motivation for initiating a confrontation, rather than for the murder itself (say, a case similar to Zimmerman, except with ample evidence of racial animus as the initiating motivation to confront, but not necessarily the motive for the subsequent murder).
Oh, and if it could be charged as such, if the federally protected activity requirement would still apply.
Or maybe the Forward article is just off base.
I think you’re confused about the Nelson case, at least a bit. There was no “chain of events.” While it’s true that the “protected activity” was walking down the street, the evidence was direct and clear that the efforts to stop Rosenbaum from walking down the street happened because Rosenbaum was Jewish. That “chain” is one link long.
Here, there isn’t evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict Zimmerman of even targeting Martin to follow because of his race – Zimmerman doesn’t say it was, and no other evidence directly supports it. Sure, it’s possible, maybe even likely, but where’s the “beyond a reasonable doubt” evidence necessary to convict?
So are they no longer advocating regulatory reform? Because that’s what they were doing in the blog post.
They were, yes, but they also were suggesting – or at least, not disclaiming – a federal prosecution.
Sure, but it seems a bit unreasonable for them to do that in a blog post 10 minutes after the state prosecution ended.
Just checking back on this claim. I know it’s only been a couple weeks, but frankly I’m pretty confident about the lack of a federal criminal prosecution. As I was two weeks ago, in fact.
I strongly suspect we’ll never hear from the DOJ about this again.
Well, we don’t see deltasigma around much anymore, so I suppose he’ll not be commenting on this:
(I know that farther along in the thread, he “conceded” the point – but his concession, he made clear, was only because according to him he had no time to spend looking up the details he’d need to respond, and NOT because his position was flawed.)
I assume that, in light of this announcement, he now concedes the point on the merits.
Just as a point of info, AFAIU, Zimmerman also cannot be sued for this in a civil action: