Nevertheless, it was the Bush Administration which determined that there was nothing to support criminal prosecution and decided to file a civil suit under 11(b), not the Obama Administration.
I don't know if you noticed, ANTPogo, but criminal prosecution wasn't even mentioned in the OP. In fact the first mention of criminal charges in this thread was by you in post #45. So you were off-topic, should you decide to ask mods anything. And besides, I'm not defending the Bush administration's actions here. They should have filed a criminal complaint in my view.
So, again, if you have a problem with that, you should ask the mods to edit the title of this thread to "Are Bush and Mukasey racists?"
I would think that had they filed criminal charges, your side of the political aisle would have been jumping up and down calling Bush and Mukasey racists because they didn't file criminal charges in the Warden case.
The issue here (as indicated in the OP) is why the Obama administration decided to effectively put aside a judgment by a court against the men in the civil case that was filed. I doubt that the Bush adminstration would have done that.
So charges of racism, especially when one of the attorneys on the case says that senior officials in the Obama administration indicated there would be no Voting-Rights complaints filed where the victims were white, are appropriate, presuming Adams is telling the truth.
You asked whether Perez addressed the level of evidence issue.
No, I asked if Perez "detailed" the evidence requirement, after specifically identifying that the case included multiple credible witness statements and video documenting the presence, dress, attitude and location of the NBP members that day. You did not answer that. You just repeated Perez's broader claim that the evidence didn't meet the requirement.
riginally Posted by BeAChooser
From the looks of it, none of those cases actually involved someone standing in front of a polling station in a threatening manner, holding a weapon, voicing racial slurs, and intimidating people into not voting. So I'm not really sure how Perez could make the argument that this case doesn't meet the "evidence" standard set by those cases. Can you explain that more clearly?
And yet, a civil suit was brought and resulted in an injunction, and not settled or thrown out like the other three cases. So, by those standards, if Perez was referring to the difficulty of filing a civil case, it seems that the evidence against Shabazz was strong enough to be the first ever fully successful prosecution in 45 years.
I see you aren't going to even make an attempt to explain how the evidence or situations in those three cases are AT ALL comparable to this one or applicable to this one. And now you seem to be backtracking by suggesting that the evidence here was stronger than those cases and resulted in the first successful prosecution … which is completely counter to Perez's logic for dismissing and reducing (to essentially nothing) the punishment against the men. You need to make up your mind.
So, really, you should be congratulating and cheering Perez and the Obama DOJ for doing something about voter intimidation cases that no other administration had been able to do since the law was passed in 1965!
Perez and the Obama adminstration had nothing to do with that. As you said, the complaint was filed while Bush was in office and the judge found for the prosecution because the defendants never showed up. The involvement of Perez and and Obama's administration only came in to the issue of what punishment to give the men. And the attorneys in the case seem to think they got less than they deserved.
Quote:
And also, I find Perez's reasoning somewhat specious since by that logic we'd only file murder charges if evidence was at the level of all past murder cases which were won. Which is clearly not the case.
That's not really an applicable analogy, mainly because there have been a lot more murder prosecutions.
I fail to see how that has anything to do with it. In fact, there being more murder prosecutions would likely make it easier to set such a guideline for deciding whether to prosecute. In this case Perez seems to be applying past cases that bear no resemblance whatsoever to this case.
But I can guarantee you that if a prosecutor has evidence in a murder case that is only equal to evidence in other murder cases where the accused was found not guilty or the case thrown out of court, then they usually decline to pursue prosecution because they know they likely won't win.
You can guarantee it, huh?
Quote:
You have it wrong. I'm upset because according to Adams (as indicated in the OP), an indication was made by senior officials within the Obama DOJ that no voting-rights cases where the alleged victim was white would be filed.
To him and him alone, with no corroborating evidence.
First there is circumstantial evidence it happened. The facts of the situation might be explained by that occuring. We also know that the Obama adminstration has some pretty radical people in it who have notions that now it is payback time for a variety of injustices.
Second, how do you know there is no corroborating evidence if you haven't bothered to depose all those involved? Perhaps those that are still at the DOJ just fear for their jobs and won't come forward unless forced to by an oath to tell the truth.
Furthermore, (as I posted above) multiple past DOJ employees are coming forward to say Adams is a very credible source, an upstanding guy, and that what he alleges is not out of character with what they observed about the Obama DOJ.
it was against a black defendant with white victims.
I'm glad you agree that this was a case of white victims so it would be explained by what Adams alleges senior DOJ officials (Obama political appointees, by the way) said regarding such victims.
So explain why the Bush Administration, back when this all started, did not pursue more serious punishment?
Again, that's neither here nor there as far as the OP is concerned. But in any case, perhaps they decided they could get an effective penalty against these men without making it a criminal case? Civil penalties can be quite high, too. Furthermore, perhaps they reasoned that in these times of extreme political division , they stood less of a chance of getting a jury conviction in a criminal case than in a civil case, where the requirements for jury agreement aren't has high. Go look at the Simpson case for an example of that.
And note that the penalties sought by the Bush Administration was an injunction against three defendants, only one of whom had a weapon, enjoining them from carrying weapons into any polling place in the US.
This is clearly not true. Perez said that that the "maximum penalty" was "sought and obtained." Well obviously, if the maximum civil penalty is not carrying weapons into any polling place in the US, they didn't obtain it. They ended up only telling one of the guilty men not to have one near Philadelphia voting places for 4 years. So they go to Pittsburgh in 2010.
Furthermore, what evidence do you have that the Bush Administration only asked for an injunction against carrying weapons or that an injunction was the maximum penalty? That's a rather odd claim given that it already was illegal to display a weapon within a certain distance (and this case clearly qualifies) of a polling location. Can you cite the actual complaint against the men or are you just making this up? Because the US criminal code provides for fines and imprisonment of up to one year. Where in the civil code is the maximum penalty defined? Let's see you back up what you claim.
Considering your disdain for the civil injunction thing in voter administration cases in general
Your dishonesty continues. Where have I expressed distain over that? YOU were the one to first to mention criminal charges in this thread, ANTPogo. And as far as I know, I've never suggested there was anything wrong with filing a civil case. Just in the penalty that was given after it was won.
you want to agree with Adams' claims that there's an orchestrated anti-white campaign going on in the DOJ
That's another lie. I've only asked that there be an investigation to see if Adams is telling the truth. I've not agreed he is. In fact, I specifically stated that if he isn't telling the truth, he should be punished. Why are you so afraid of finding out the truth, ANTPogo? Do you have some inside information about this case?
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
You really don't think it matters? Especially if others are put under oath as well? Often time when that is done, inconsistencies with other statements or with physical evidence are found? And then it matters a great deal ... as President Clinton found out. There's a reason they put people under oath, ANTPogo.
No, I'm wondering why it matters to you.
Doesn't the truth matter to you, ANTPogo? I thought it mattered to all of us. Although I've known for some time (since Clinton) that it doesn't matter to many democrats. That's when they showed that they didn't really care about lies under oath.
Again, if you already think he lied under oath, why do you think putting him under oath again will change things?
I would think it obvious that the questions to him would be different from what he previously was asked, and he might not know what the questioner knows to be fact … in which case, he'd have to be very careful about how he answers. Especially if other witnesses are also now being asked questions under oath whose answers might show the veracity of the answers he gives. Especially if documents were located (that he might not even know about) that might show he was lying. Why do you think the Blue Dress could have been so important in the Clinton under oath testimony? Because until Starr told Clinton about it, he didn't know about it, and it could have tripped him up under oath.
Do you think there's, like, a limit to the number of times an official can lie under oath
No, I have no illusions about that since Clinton.
rolleyes
