The REAL Record of the Holder Department of IN-Justice:
Supporting Police Violence in EVERY CASE Before the Supreme Court
April 27, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
As people step in struggle to STOP police murder, a crucial question is: What is the actual record and role of the Department of Justice? And specifically, what is the record and role of Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s departing Attorney General?
Eric Holder is widely touted as an advocate for civil rights. He is the first African-American Attorney General and at times invoked his own experiences experiencing police abuse. But the actual DOJ record under Holder is one of literally supporting every single act of police violence that has come before the U.S. Supreme Court during the Holder regime.
A New York Times article(“Holder’s Team, in Balancing Act, Often Aligns With the Police”, April 22) is revealing. After noting Holder’s public criticism of some of the most highly publicized and exposed police departments (Cleveland, Albuquerque, and Ferguson, Missouri where Holder only spoke out after the people rose up in sustained and determined rebellion after the police murder of Michael Brown), the Times notes: “At the Supreme Court, where the limits of police power are established, Mr. Holder’s Justice Department has supported police officers every time an excessive force case has made its way to arguments.” (Emphasis added).
A few cases in point:
Fifty-six-year-old Teresa Sheehan was sitting in her apartment in a mental health center in 2008, clutching what her lawyers said was a small bread knife. A social worker got into a conflict with Teresa Sheehan after entering her apartment without her consent. He called San Francisco police who forced open her door, blinded her with pepper spray, and shot her five or six times, hitting her in the hip and head. Miraculously she survived. After nearly being murdered by police, authorities brought several criminal charges against Teresa Sheehan—a jury failed to convict her on any of them, and she sued in the SFPD charging they violated the American’s Disability Act (ADA) that supposedly protects mentally ill people who are confronted by police, and illegally entered her apartment.
The case came before the U.S. Supreme Court in March of this year, and Holder’s DOJ argued for the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that the ADA and the Fourth Amendment (that supposedly protects individuals from police breaking into their homes without due process or cause) applied and protected Teresa Sheehan. The DOJ argued that the lower court “applied the wrong standard when it sent to the jury both the ADA claim and the Fourth Amendment claim, because it gave insufficient weight to the safety risks the officers faced...” And in doing so, the DOJ threw its weight behind the endlessly invoked justification for police murder—the “safety risks” police take going out to brutalize, threaten, degrade, and kill people every day. The Supreme Court has not ruled yet in this case.
In May of 2014, Holder’s DOJ intervened in the Supreme Court case considering a lawsuit brought by the daughter of a man killed by West Memphis, Arkansas police. Police say the man was driving recklessly. After they blocked the path of a car, they fired 15 times, killing the unarmed driver and the passenger. There were no federal law enforcement or federal law issues directly at stake in this case, but the Department of “Justice” intervened to argue that “there is some level of reckless driving in response to a police pursuit that authorizes the use of deadly force.”
And in a Supreme Court case coming up soon, the DOJ has sided with Wisconsin jail officials who used a stun gun on a handcuffed inmate.
Again, these examples are not exceptions to the rule, they are the rule—Holder’s DOJ is batting 1000 when it comes to backing police brutality and murder before the Supreme Court. And Supreme Court rulings far-and-away trump whatever “report” the DOJ might issue. Gary Smith, the attorney for the driver murdered by West Memphis police, said, “A report can have an impact on a department for a time... but case law [a Supreme Court ruling] touches every officer in every department in the country.” He pointed out that police departments being criticized in public by the Justice Department can invoke the DOJ’s actual record with “You’re telling the Supreme Court it’s OK.” And the above mentioned Times article quotes the executive director of the Major Cities [Police] Chiefs Association saying of Holder, “He’s supportive of the police.”
So whatever “reports” the DOJ issues, everyone involved gets the real message from the “Justice” Department: A green light for pig brutality.
This is the DOJ’s record under someone who is not only African-American, but routinely referred to as the Attorney General who is the most sympathetic to victims of police abuse in history. And who is now being replaced by someone more acceptable to the Republifascists.
Let’s face reality: There is NO justice from the Department of IN-Justice!
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