Rendell urges fed charges

Source: The Pottsville (PA) Republican-Herald

Gov. Ed Rendell is weighing in on the trial involving the fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah last summer.

In a Friday letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Rendell urged the Justice Department to pursue civil rights charges against Brandon J. Piekarsky, 17, of Shenandoah Heights, and Derrick M. Donchack, 19, of Shenandoah. Their five-day trial ended May 1.

“This senseless and cowardly attack appears to have been a hate crime as racial slurs were hurled against Mr. (Luis) Ramirez throughout the fatal assault,” Rendell says in the letter.

Piekarsky and Donchack were cleared of the most serious charges — including ethnic intimidation — in connection with the death of Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala. They await sentencing on simple assault and alcohol-related charges.


Read more: http://www.republicanherald.com/articles/2009/05/30/news/local_news/pr_republican.20090530.a.pg1.pr30rendell_s1.2564304_top3.txt

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Shenandoah, PA, is my home town (borough in PA), and those of us who left there a long time ago still have a great deal of affection for the place, so we were horrified when the prosecutor (a Republican) put on such a bad case the jury could do nothing except find these young thugs guilty of simple assault.

One of these kids is a grand-nephew of a guy who's been one of my best friends since kindergarten. He told me that these boys - football players - were loaded up with steroids, and my friend thinks drinking and "'roid rage" contributed to this awful crime. Not to mention plain old bigotry.

Good for Rendell..............

The only form of hate-crime law that I support is one which would have allowed a higher court to take jurisdiction if there was good cause to believe that the defendants would not be properly prosecuted or punished. Taking another shot at them at another level doesn't look like justice from here, it looks like a system in which a trial by peers is only acceptable if you approve of the outcome.

A person can offend two sovereigns, and hence, redress may be found in another court. It's the same level - trial - but a different jurisdiction.

This action has absolutely nothing to do with 'hate crime laws.'

From here, it still sounds like "We don't like the outcome here, so we want to see if we can bring the feds in for a second shot at these guys."

Can you honestly say that what you want to happen isn't a retrial of these guys for the act of killing the deceased and that your desire to see this happen isn't politically motivated?

I watched the trial very closely, via a video feed from the courthouse, and I saw the transcripts daily. The prosecutor did a horrible job, an absolutely terrible job with this case. It was shameful. Even the jurors, interviewed afterwards, said they were sorry that all they could do was to bring the guilty verdicts that they did, but the judge's instructions were binding.

So, when something heinous happens, and the people initially charged with attending to it bungle the job, it is a time-honored tradition to turn to the other sovereign who was offended. There, if they are indicted, they will be brought up on having violated completely different laws - as you know, there is no federal law against murder (with certain exceptions), so they would be charged with depriving the dead man of his civil rights.

Politically motivated? What on earth do my politics have to do with it? I'm best friends with a relative of one of the defendants. Why would I want him hurt any more?

You're trying to find something where nothing exists............................

of his civil rights.

It's the traditional Federal statute used when a murder is involved. It carries penalties comparable to those in many states for murder.............

I keep looking for an article which explains what EXACTLY they would be charged with, ie WHICH civil rights they would be charged with depriving the victim of. All I keep seeing is the generic demand that they be charged. They were already acquitted of ethnic intimidation, so I don't see that one coming back.

Do you know what they specific charges would be?

That's the wording of the statute. That IS the specific charge.

The killing deprived him of ALL of his civil rights. Death has a way of doing that.

I don't think "ethnic intimidation" is a federal charge. I do know that the civil rights deprivation charge is a vast and mighty one.

If you look it up, and NOT on wikipedia, you'l perhaps understand it better.........................

I don't like such a broad charge. It's smacks of the old Soviet charge of "hooliganism".

Anyway, we'll see what happens.

before becoming justifiably suspicious.

You don't like the broadness of a charge that is comparable to murder? I don't get that at all.

You haven't understood anything I've tried to explain here, I see.

Well, I did my best...................