HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.
![handle is hein.civil/usccvb0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
UNITED STATES 624 Ninth Street, N.W.
COMMISSION ON Washington, D.C. 20425
CIVIL RIGHTS
June 16, 2009
The Honorable Joseph Biden, Jr., President, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Robert C. Byrd, President Pro Tempore, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Harry Reid, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Richard Durbin, Majority Whip, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Jon Kyl, Minority Whip, U.S. Senate
The Honorable Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
The Honorable Jeff Sessions, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
The Honorable Russell Feingold, Chairman, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution
The Honorable Tom Coburn, Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution
Re: S. 909
Dear Mr. President and Distinguished Senators:
We write today to urge you to vote against the proposed Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes
Prevention Act (S. 909) (MSHCPA).1
We believe that MSHCPA will do little good and a great deal of harm. Its most
important effect will be to allow federal authorities to re-prosecute a broad category of
defendants who have already been acquitted by state juries-as in the Rodney King and
Crown Heights cases more than a decade ago.2 Due to the exception for prosecutions by dual
sovereigns, such double prosecutions aretechnically not violations of the Double Jeopardy
Clause of the U.S. Constitution.3 But they are very much a violation of the spirit that drove the
framers of the Bill of Rights, who never dreamed that federal criminal jurisdiction would be
expanded to the point where an astonishing proportion of crimes are now both state and federal
offenses. We regard the broad federalization of crime as a menace to civil liberties. There is no
better place to draw the line on that process than with a bill that purports to protect civil rights.
' The decision to send this letter was arrived at in an opening meeting of the United States Commission on
Civil Rights on May 15, 2009. The vote was 5 to 2 with one member abstaining. All of the signatories to this letter
voted in favor of the motion, except for Vice Chair Thernstrom, who abstained. She has since had the opportunity to
review the letter and approve its content. Commissioners Melendez and Yaki voted against the motion.
2 See Paul G. Cassell, The Rodney King Trials and the Double Jeopardy Clause: Some Observations on
Original Meaning and the ACLU's Schizophrenic Views ofthe Dual Sovereign Doctrine, 41 U.C.L.A. L. REv. 693
(1994).
See United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377 (1922). See also United States v. Avants, 278 F.3d 510, 516
(5 Cir.), cert. denied, 536 U.S. 968 (2002) (under the dual sovereignty doctrine, the federal goverunent may ...
prosecute a defendant after an unsuccessful state prosecution based on the same conduct, even if the elements of the
state and federal offenses are identical); United States v. Farmer, 924 F.2d 647, 650 (7h Cir. 1991) (a double
jeopardy claim based on [a] prior state acquittal of murder is defeated by the 'dual sovereignty' principle).
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.civil/usccvb0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)