Blumenthal Presses DOJ Official on Legal Barriers to Police Accountability During Second Panel of Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on “Police Use of Force and Community Relations,” U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) pressed U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, Erin Nealy Cox, and Senior Advisor for Human Trafficking Bill Woolf, both representing the Department of Justice, on legal barriers to police accountability.

Blumenthal again raised concerns regarding the criminal statute used to hold law enforcement officers accountable for the use of excessive force: 18 U.S.C § 242. Under current law, prosecutors must prove that a law enforcement officer had the “specific intent” to deprive a person of their constitutional rights. This standard is the highest state of mind requirement that exists in the law. In an exchange with Blumenthal earlier today, former Acting Assistant Attorney General and Head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Vanita Gupta, shared her experience in trying to hold law enforcement officers accused of egregious misconduct accountable under this standard.

During the second panel, Blumenthal continued to share the experiences of Black Connecticut residents, especially regarding their encounters with the police.

“I’m going to share a couple more voices with you that have come to me from Connecticut. I think they reflect the general feeling in the country. One of them is from an attorney and an elected official in Hartford named Don Bell who describes the talk that he was given by his parents. You’ve probably heard about the talk – warning him to avoid any sort of sudden movements, any kind of backtalk to police – and he said in a message to me of all of his experience, ‘The impact is about what you would expect. Just recounting these experiences is traumatic. Even as an attorney, I’m hyper vigilant around police. I maintain a safe distance from police officers I do not know.’”

“Another voice from East Hartford, Awet Tsegai, who again recounts his experiences and says, ‘These experiences are scary, they make me nervous, and I have to be extra careful while I’m driving because forgetting my turn signal or rolling at a stop sign could lead to something more.’”

“I have wondered about these experiences and what the ultimate fear is and it was brought home to me at that rally I was describing earlier in New Haven by a young man named Paul Witherspoon who stopped his car in Hamden, Connecticut and was confronted by a police officer from Hamden and another from Yale University, who opened fire on his car stopped in New Haven. He was 21, he was with a 22-year-old black woman Stephanie Washington who was severely injured. One of those police, Hamden Officer David Eaton, is facing charges of assault and reckless endangerment.”

“So I know you can’t tell me whether David Eaton is under investigation under Section 242, but I know you have testified, Ms. Nealy Cox and Mr. Wolf, that from Fiscal Years 2017 to 2019 the Department of Justice has brought 140 cases charging 198 law enforcement officials for willful violations of civil rights under law and related conduct. How many of them resulted in conviction?” Blumenthal asked.

Department of Justice officials were unable to provide a response regarding how many cases brought under Section 242 resulted in a conviction, how many were declined, and how many were referred.

“I would appreciate that information because this Committee has an obligation to consider what we can do to make federal enforcement more effective as a deterrent and as a punishment. And I said before I don’t know whether you were here – there is nothing like a potential federal felony conviction to concentrate the mind and to make any one, including a police officer and maybe especially a police officer, more mindful of respecting constitutional rights,” Blumenthal said.

The Blumenthal-sponsored Justice in Policing Act would amend 18 U.S.C. Section 242, the federal criminal statute to prosecute police misconduct, from “willfulness” to a “recklessness” standard.

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