FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RIPS DOJ FOR MISCONDUCT IN POLICE PROSECUTION

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POSTED ON AUGUST 22, 2015 BY PAUL MIRENGOFF IN CRIME, HOLDER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT,POLICING

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RIPS DOJ FOR MISCONDUCT IN POLICE PROSECUTION

In the anarchy following Hurricane Katrina, a group of heavily armed New Orleans police officers was dispatched in response to an emergency call reporting shots being fired at police. Arriving amid chaos, police officers shot and killed two unarmed men, one of them developmentally disabled, and wounded four other unarmed civilians.

 

All of the victims were Black. Four of the seven officers eventually charged are Black or Hispanic. The other three are White.

 

After Louisiana prosecutors botched the case against the seven officers, producing a mistrial, the Holder Justice Department took over and obtained convictions. However, the Justice Department engaged in conduct so egregiously unethical that the district court overturned the convictions. And this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed that ruling in stinging opinion condemning the DOJ prosecutors.