Hearing of the House Committee on the Judiciary- Jena 6 and the Role of Federal Intervention in Hate Crimes and Race-Related Violence in Public School
Interview
Hearing of the House Committee on the Judiciary- Jena 6 and the Role of Federal Intervention in Hate Crimes and Race-Related Violence in Public School
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REP. TAMMY BALDWIN (D-WI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you especially for holding this incredibly important, timely hearing on the Jena Six case. I think it would be difficult to overstate my own gratitude to you not only for your leadership generally on civil rights but for your championship earlier this year of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which I'm going to return to in a moment. And I also know that my own constituents in the northern state of Wisconsin are very grateful about this opportunity to continue what has become not only a national dialogue but frankly an international dialogue about the Jena Six case, hate crimes, racial inequality, and race-related violence.
I also want to extend my thanks to the witnesses who have been here today, and I apologize for my belated arrival at this hearing. Sometimes you pinch yourself about what you get to do in this job, and I have been shuttling between a mark-up on mental health parity of enormous importance and negotiations and discussions on employment nondiscrimination -- and so some very weighty matters that are being discussed. But thank you all for being here.
Now, I was privileged to help work on the passage of H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, and I had the opportunity to become intimately familiar with the federal prohibition against hate crimes enacted as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. And as I stated in this very committee during our mark-up of 1592 earlier this year, I believe that hate crimes legislation is important for both substantive and symbolic reasons. The legal protections are essential to our system of ordered justice, but on a symbolic basis, it is just important for Congress to enunciate clearly that hate-based violence will not be tolerated. It is just plain wrong.
We have certainly made great strides as a nation since 1968, and our hate crimes laws serve as a cornerstone for eliminating violence based on irrational fears and hatred. Hate crimes are also among our nation's -- hate crimes laws are among our nation's strongest statement that racially motivated violence is unacceptable and wrong.
Yet these legal protections can truly only be as effective as their implementation. And what troubles me so deeply about the Jena Six case is that our efforts to extend legal protections against violence motivated by hate is an empty effort, both substantively and symbolically, unless the implementation of these laws are swift and effective.
And so I'm just incredibly disappointed in the collective law enforcement reaction to the August 2006 school yard noose-hanging incidents that served as a catalyst for the episodes of racially charged violence in Jena. And I am still unclear as to why two government agencies, the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI, that investigated the noose incident, determined that hate crime prosecutions could not be pursued.
And I'm also unclear why LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters did not pursue hate crimes charges under the Louisiana statute. District Attorney Walters wrote in The New York Times in a piece last month that the nooses broke no law, a statement which directly contradicts Mr. Cohen's written testimony that the Louisiana statute creates a hate crime for any institutional vandalism and criminal trespass motivated by race.
I'm also unclear about how to understand Mr. Walters' decision to pursue second degree attempted murder charges against Michael Bell, one of the six teenagers charged in the case, in light of his finding that the noose incident did not warrant any charges. Was this a singular case of excessive prosecution, or a window into the inequities within our justice system and our juvenile justice system?
Whether in Jena, Louisiana, or in Wisconsin or any other state, violence like this has no place anywhere, but let alone in our schools, and nor does a racially hostile school environment. But as I said, we have hard-won laws aimed at protecting our children against violence motivated by hate. And we have tried as a nation to take a strong stand, both substantively and symbolically, against such inequity.
So are our hate crimes laws effective? I'm getting back to the same sort of big questions that my colleague from New York raised. What can we do to mitigate these injustices in the national criminal justice system, and how do we understand the lack of prosecutions, as well as the excessive prosecutions in Jena and around the country? I know these are big questions, but perhaps just starting with the hate crimes question itself, are they effective; how can we make them stronger?
REP. CONYERS: Well, that's a great question to ask after your time has expired, but let's give it a shot. Let's see if we can quickly move down the table and get some responses.
You know, we're not trying to solve this historic problem in one session. This is going to be something that goes throughout the 110th Congress and my guess is even beyond. So let's go right down the row to Ms. Baldwin's query.
MS. KRIGSTEN: On behalf of the federal government, I can tell you that the hate crimes laws are effective and that they're being used aggressively across the country. We're prosecuting cross burnings; we prosecuted a case in Ohio where individuals put mercury on the front steps of a couple, a biracial couple and their children, with an intent to drive these individuals out of their home. Those perpetrators are now in prison. The Saldanya (sp) case that I mentioned.
We can go through a laundry list of cases in which the Criminal Section of Civil Rights Division, along with the FBI, along with our partners in the local U.S. attorneys offices, have used the tools provided by this Congress very effectively across the nation, and we will continue to do so.
MR. COHEN: Just the one point -- the point I -- thank you.
I think you're absolutely right. There is an inexplicable -- it's inexplicable how Mr. Walters could say that there were no crimes that could have been prosecuted there. There clearly were crimes that could have been prosecuted in the noose-hanging. Again, though, I want to make clear that we weren't -- we are not here to call for the prosecution of noose-hangers. What we're here to call for is a level playing field, an equal justice under the law.
And that's what's not happened in Jena. The prosecutor unfortunately sees race, and when that happens, there are calls for retribution. And, you know, this kind of stuff has to end. Someone has to have enough common sense to say enough is enough. I don't -- I hope people file charges against Mr. Walters and get him removed from office. I hope the people of Jena reject him when he runs again, if he does. But I think your comments were right on the mark.
REV. SHARPTON: I concur with Mr. Cohen and in fact let me make a record, Mr. Chairman, that National Action Network has filed charges with the disciplinary and ethics committee in Louisiana, and they have acknowledged receipt of that.
But I think that Mr. Cohen's statement applies for us, the National Action Network, and I would also in this particular matter speak for Martin Luther King III and Realize the Dream, because we've operated jointly in this. We address this as an even playing field. This is not about prosecute one side and not the other; it's how do you rationalize no prosecution based on juvenile status for the hangman noose, and then prosecute juveniles the same age as adults, for a fight?
And I think that a lot of confusion -- and I think Congressman Weiner addressed this properly -- a lot of the confusion is, one, there was no immediate reaction by the Justice Department to say, "Explain to us how kids the same age, one becomes adult and the other remain juvenile. I mean, explain that." The same age. They all go to the same school, same age. And I think we fabricate this, "Well, did they have anything to do with the noose?" It doesn't matter. It's the same prosecutor.
And I might add for the record that even when they were -- there was a recommendation to expel the kids, that was overturned into a suspension and the district attorney is the general counsel of the school board that overturned the expelling. And even if they were expelled, that's still not the criminal justice system. So I think what we are begging for, Congresswoman Baldwin and Congressman Weiner, is an even playing field, where the Justice Department responds by saying there must be equal protection under the law.
And Congressman Weiner's point that he made very eloquently -- and Mr. Chairman, I will tell his folk at home he spoke very eloquently here today -- is that he's correct. If we can't turn to the federal government, as we have for the last 50 years, then what are we telling young students that marched in Jena, where do they turn? And how do we tell them that we want peace and we want non- violence, if the federal government is saying, "We're going to wait and see what happens." Okay, he's done 10 months; let's see what happens in 13 months. We can't keep telling young people that.
MR. OGLETREE: I'll just briefly say this. I agree with those comments. I think, Congressman Weiner and Congresswoman Baldwin and Congressman Artur Davis, who left, it seems to me that to make this record complete and to really get answers to the questions which you haven't heard today, you have to propound the questions. What authority did the state and federal officials lack to create a fair and equitable criminal justice system and educational system in Jena, and what resources the state and federal government lack to bring future actions.
Taking into account we know you've prosecuted all of these cases. We're talking about this one in this city that everyone's talking about. My sense is that the best way is to propound questions and get answers, and they'll tell you whether the government is satisfied they have all the authority that they need, and don't need any more. And if they say that, I think we've got a very different role for this committee to play in addressing what we've already heard about.
REV. MORAN: Thank you. Mr. Ogletree, I really thank you for elaborating on some of the things the Justice Department has been stating. I think the main initiative now is considering what's going on in Jena, not considering what they've done in past instances in different cities and different states. We have six black boys, young men, who are charged unrighteously, and we're here today to see that a fair judgment is dealt out to them.
Also, I was quiet a few moments ago, but I want to elaborate on what Mr. Washington said about the TV broadcast that he himself was on.
I seen the TV broadcast, and, personally, I took it as though he said that the hangman nooses were not a act of hate. That's the way I received it and that's the way our community received it. And that has a lot to do with the copycat mentality. It has a lot to do with it because if it would have been ruled out not to be a hate crime, there would have been a lot of people who would have been scared to even look at a noose or think about a noose.
But because of the fact that it was ruled out "not a hate crime," and because it was said not to be a hate crime, that has a lot to do with the copycat mentality. And the stupidity of anyone that would hang a noose after hearing that it's not a -- that it's not a hate crime, someone would even be so stupid as to commit a crime, as far as hanging somebody. If we continue to allow people to see that this is not a hate crime, somebody's going to hang somebody. And I wonder whose eyes are we going to be -- who are we going to be putting our eyes on then? And I would think it would be the Justice Department for ruling out nooses not being a hate crime.
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