When it comes to civil rights violations by law enforcement, Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department is sending mixed messages to advocates, The New York Times reported Monday.
On one hand, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has frequently rebuked and launched investigations into more than 20 local law enforcement agencies, including the police departments in Ferguson, Mo.; Cleveland; Albuquerque, N.M.; Newark, N.J.; New Orleans and Seattle.
Holder has personally identified with racial profiling committed by law enforcement and has repeatedly referred to the DOJ's Civil Rights Division as the department's "crown jewel."
In February, Holder told Politico that one of his final hurrahs as attorney general would be to push a new standard of proof for civil rights offenses that would make the federal government "a better backstop" in discrimination cases like the deaths of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
On the other hand, when it comes to the place where limits on police power are established - the Supreme Court - the Times notes the DOJ "has supported police officers every time an excessive-force case has made its way to arguments."
Such positions make "it harder for people to sue the police and that give officers more discretion about when to fire their guns," according to the Times.
Civil rights lawyers have, to say the least, been frustrated with the DOJ's seemingly hypocritical stance on civil rights.
Manhattan civil rights lawyer Ronald L. Kuby called it "an inherent conflict between the people at the Justice Department trying to stop police abuses and other people at the Justice Department convincing the Supreme Court that police abuses should be excused."
Gary Smith, an Arkansas civil rights lawyer who represented a case where two men were shot and killed by police during a car chase, told the Times that a DOJ investigative report into the misdoings of a police department "can have an impact on a department for a time, but case law touches every officer in every department in the country."
Smith told the newspaper that he believes it's only a matter time before police departments facing civil rights investigations begin calling the DOJ out on its double standards. "You're telling the Supreme Court it's O.K., and you're doing this to us?" Smith said.
It's unlikely that Holder or his predecessor Loretta Lynch could implement major policy changes to the department's approach to police abuse even if they wanted to, the Times said. There would simply be too much opposition from other agencies the DOJ oversees, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The Justice Department will almost always work to protect federal agents first and foremost, William R. Yeomans, an American University law professor who worked in the civil rights division during Bill Clinton's administration, told the Times.
"Obviously that's a problem... The institutional interests in support of law enforcement are very powerful and very real," Yeomans said.
