re rodney king trial civil rights violations double jeopardy in apr husc harvard edu spanagel husc harvard edu david spanagel writes recently it s occured to me that i ve never heard of any person ever being tried in federal court for violating someone s civil rights of course there have been cases before the supreme court in which it was decided that someone s civil rights had been violated e g miranda escobedo etc but institutions were de facto the defendants not individuals am i mistaken have there been similar cases against individuals in the past i know it was used several times in the south to prosecute the murders of blacks after all white juries had cleared the accussed furthermore what are the specific charges against the four lapd officers which civil rights or laws are they accused of violating i believe it is a general charge that is no specific right is mentioned what about double jeopardy has there been any concern that a verdict against koon et al might be overturned upon appeal because they re being tried again for the same actions i thought i heard something on the news about this the ss has previously ruled that since the seperate governments were in essence seperate sovereigns then double jeopardy does not apply if this is true then could defendents also be tried under city and county governments this mornings paper said that the aclu has decided to reinstate its opposition to this kind of thing they had earlier suspended their opposition while they examined the king case there might be hope for the aclu after all mob rule isn t any prettier merely because the mob calls itself a government it ain t charity if you are using someone else s money wilson s theory of relativity if you go back far enough we re all related mark wilson atlantaga ncr com
