Another Apology in the Works

[miami_fan]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/13/lynching.apology.ap/index.html

Senate to apologize for not outlawing lynching
Monday, June 13, 2005 Posted: 9:24 AM EDT (1324 GMT)




WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate seldom says it's sorry, although it is now ready to officially express its remorse over the failure to outlaw lynching in the United States.

A resolution that the chamber was likely to take up Monday voices regret for the Senate's unwillingness for years to pass a law stopping a crime that cost the lives of over 4,700 people, mostly blacks, between 1882 and 1968.

Doria Dee Johnson, the great-great granddaughter of a black South Carolina farmer who was killed by a white mob nearly a century ago, was to be on hand for the floor vote.

The Evanston, Illinois, woman has said that her family "lost property and family solidarity that still affects us today" when Anthony Crawford, a wealthy cotton farmer, was killed in 1916 by several hundred residents of Abbeville, South Carolina. Ms. Johnson today is an author and frequent lecturer on the subject of lynchings.

In the past, efforts to pass such legislation fell victim to Senate filibusters despite pleas for its passage by seven presidents, among others, between 1890 and 1952.

The Senate resolution is sponsored by Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, and George Allen, R-Virginia. The bill, likely to be subject to a voice vote, states that nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in the first half of the 20th century but that nothing got through.

The nonbinding measure apologizes for this failure and expresses "most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching."

Landrieu's spokesman, Adam Sharp, said that Johnson was expected to be joined in the Senate by other descendants of victims, including a cousin of Emmett Till, the black teenager killed in Mississippi 50 years ago, reportedly for whistling at a white woman. The FBI earlier this month exhumed Till's body to search for clues to his slaying.

Landrieu called lynching and mob violence were "an American form of terrorism" documented in at least 46 states.

[QuikSand]

There is actually a pretty interesting legal issue behind all this.

Should the federal government step in to prosecute what are otherwise state crimes if, in its judgment, the states are not doing so adequately? The reprehensive nature of the crimes themselves make it distasteful to argue against -- but there is (well, was) actually a valid state's right principle at stake.

[larrymcg421]

If the states were not outlawing lynching, then it definitely violated the 14th Amendment, so yes the government should have stepped in and used their authority under the last section of that Amendment ("appropriate legislation") to pass such a law.

[QuikSand]

It's not that lynching wasn't against the law (it's murder, after all), but as best I understand it the issue was a concern that when there was a lynching, the authorities (prosecutors, police) were not sufficiently motivated to press very hard for a case against the offenders. With public acceptance being fairly high for the process, an elected official in that region might have had to be judicious in prosecuting such crimes, lest he be shown the door at the next election.

It's a little more nuanced that "murder isn't against the law." Now who, exactly, ought to decide whether the local officials are doing their job properly?

Again -- I'm not exactly pro-lynching, and I don't claim to be well informed enough to cast a firm opinion. My point is just that there's a bona fide legal issue here, surprisingly enough.

[gstelmack]

It's a little more nuanced that "murder isn't against the law." Now who, exactly, ought to decide whether the local officials are doing their job properly?
Well, if it's local (city or county), our State Bureau of Investigation is supposed to step in. And if it's state level (including the SBI being corrupt and not doing THEIR job to investigate), that's where the FBI comes in, isn't it?

[larrymcg421]

I understand the distinction you're talking about, but I still think it's a constitutional violation for the states to ignore lynching. The federal government has to step in in cases like this, and they can use their 14th Amendment authority to do so.

[kcchief19]

It's not that lynching wasn't against the law (it's murder, after all), but as best I understand it the issue was a concern that when there was a lynching, the authorities (prosecutors, police) were not sufficiently motivated to press very hard for a case against the offenders. With public acceptance being fairly high for the process, an elected official in that region might have had to be judicious in prosecuting such crimes, lest he be shown the door at the next election.

It's a little more nuanced that "murder isn't against the law." Now who, exactly, ought to decide whether the local officials are doing their job properly?

Again -- I'm not exactly pro-lynching, and I don't claim to be well informed enough to cast a firm opinion. My point is just that there's a bona fide legal issue here, surprisingly enough. Would federal prosecution of mobsters be an apt comparison? Many RICO laws originated as ways for the federal government to prosecute alleged mobsters, in part due to the fact that local officials often refused to prosecute mob killings and other crimes because they didn't want to end up in a river attached to cinder blocks.

Obviously the difference is that these laws were intended to criminalize separate acts aside from murder that may have been easier to prove. I suppose the same could be said of a lynching law, although the intent would appear to make a federal crime out of an act that otherwise would have been a state matter, which is a slight distinction.

[st.cronin]

Would federal prosecution of mobsters be an apt comparison? Many RICO laws originated as ways for the federal government to prosecute alleged mobsters, in part due to the fact that local officials often refused to prosecute mob killings and other crimes because they didn't want to end up in a river attached to cinder blocks.

Obviously the difference is that these laws were intended to criminalize separate acts aside from murder that may have been easier to prove. I suppose the same could be said of a lynching law, although the intent would appear to make a federal crime out of an act that otherwise would have been a state matter, which is a slight distinction.

I suspect the RICO laws would actually apply to lynching. On the other hand, as effective as the RICO laws are, I think as written they are really, really bad law.

[judicial clerk]

QS is right in that a typical lynching would break numerous laws including laws against assault, battery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, and/or homicide. These are areas of the law that state governments should legislate, not the federal government. (Although I am sure that the federal gov't could argue that lynchings effect interstate commerce.)

[Surtt]

Isn't "violation of their civil rights" the federal catch all for prosecuting when the local government can't or won't press a murder case?

[QuikSand]

(Although I am sure that the federal gov't could argue that lynchings effect interstate commerce.)

Appropriately snarky aside there.

[QuikSand]

Isn't "violation of their civil rights" the federal catch all for prosecuting when the local government can't or won't press a murder case?

I'm now well beyond any expertise I may have on this, but part of the question is context -- recall that the proposed federal anti-lynching laws were mostly in the 1920s and 1930s -- long before we had federal prosecutions of civil rights laws.

But in concept, the same argument applies -- whether it's a function of anti-racketeering laws, civil rights protections, hate crime legislation, or anti-lynching laws, should the federal government be in the business of prosecuting crimes that are, essentially, against the laws of the states themselves? I think you can argue the "con" here without necessarily condoning the activities being targeted.