HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
U.S. Law:

Criminal Prosecution
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Under federal law, police officers may be prosecuted criminally under Reconstruction-era (1871) civil rights statutes. A police officer using excessive force is violating civil rights if he or she "under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States...."0 A conspiracy charge may also be filed "if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same...."1 Violations of the civil rightsstatutes carry penalties of fines and imprisonment and, in the most serious cases, life imprisonment or the death penalty.

In practice, as described above, local criminal prosecution of officers who commit human rights violations is rare. Local prosecutors are loath to pursue cases against police officers with whom they normally work to prosecute criminal suspects. Although it varies from community to community, many citizens are unwilling to find officers guilty of criminal behavior except in the most extreme cases.

In the case of federal criminal civil rights prosecutions, less than 1 percent of the complaints referred to the Justice Department alleging civil rights violations by law enforcement officials lead to the filing of indictments by federal prosecutors. Reasons for the extremely low rate of prosecution include the Justice Department's passive role in pursuing cases clearly within its mandate, a very high threshold for proving cases (requiring a "specific intent" by the offending officer to deprive an individual of his or her rights) and under-staffing of the Justice Department division responsible for fulfilling this essential function, demonstrating the low priority assigned to prosecuting officers accused of committing abuses.



0 18 U.S.C. §242. Until 1988, an abuse by a federal official acting alone, absent a conspiracy, was only a misdemeanor, no matter how serious the injury to the victim. In 1994's omnibus crime bill, civil rights violations became capital crimes.

1 18 U.S.C. §241. The 1994 omnibus crime bill made conspiracy charges a capital offense.

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© June 1998
Human Rights Watch