Joe Arpaio

'Nothing Changes': How Sheriff Joe Arpaio Went To Battle Against Civil Rights Laywers Back In 1997

Nick R. Martin | May 11, 2012, 5:49AM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks with media during a news conference announcing the opening of Tent City II in Phoenix, Tuesday, May 9,1995.

Joe Arpaio has been here before. At another time, during another Democratic administration, the tough talking Arizona sheriff was hit with a federal civil rights lawsuit designed to end the abusive practices of his agency.

It was 1997 when the sheriff, then 65, took to a press conference in Phoenix to react to news that the U.S. Justice Department was suing him for what it alleged was a longstanding mistreatment of inmates in his jails.

According to news reports from the time, he promised he would not back down. Everything was going to stay the same. "Nothing changes," he said.

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Joe Arpaio

As Feds Sue Arpaio, Criminal Investigation Still Looms

Nick R. Martin | May 10, 2012, 6:52PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio talks about the sign he unveiled at ''Tent City'' in the Maricopa County Jail system announcing the number of inmates who have ''served'' time there.

At a big news conference in downtown Phoenix on Thursday, the Justice Department's top civil rights lawyer described Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office as an agency out of control.

"At its core, this is an abuse of power case," assistant attorney general Thomas Perez said while announcing a massive civil rights lawsuit against the Arizona lawman.

But despite the tough talk, the reality is that little in the sheriff's office is likely to change anytime soon because, as Perez acknowledged, the lawsuit could take years to resolve.

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Joe Arpaio

Justice Department Sues Sheriff Joe Arpaio Over Alleged Latino Abuse

Ryan J. Reilly | May 10, 2012, 12:22PM

Updated: 12:45PM

The Justice Department finally filed suit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his Maricopa County Sheriff's Office on Thursday, accusing the Arizona official of engaging "in a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County."

Federal authorities allege that Arpaio and his office have unconstitutionally and unlawfully targeted Latinos during traffic stops and during crime suppression operations. DOJ alleges that MCSO unlawfully detained Latino drivers and passengers and conducted unconstitutional searches and seizures in addition to illegally targeting Latino workers during worksite raids.

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Joe Arpaio

Justice Department To Sue Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio Over Civil Rights Abuses

Ryan J. Reilly | April 11, 2012, 11:35PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with Cold Case Posse lead investigator Michael Zullo by his side.

The Justice Department has given up on settling with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and is planning to sue the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for systematic civil rights abuses of Hispanic residents, a DOJ official indicated in a terse letter to Arpaio's lawyer on Wednesday.

"It is clear that DOJ's concerted effort to attain voluntary compliance by your client has failed," Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin of DOJ's Civil Rights Division wrote in a letter to Arpaio lawyer Joseph Popolizio obtained by TPM.

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Joe Arpaio

Arpaio: Feds Want To 'Control Everything I Do' (VIDEO)

Ryan J. Reilly | April 4, 2012, 3:50PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- who previously claimed he was cooperating with the Justice Department in an attempt to settle allegations that he violated the civil rights of Latinos in his jurisdiction -- told Fox News on Wednesday that he'll "be glad to meet them in court."

DOJ cut off negotiations with Arpaio Tuesday saying he had refused to let an independent monitor be a part of any settlement agreement.

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Joe Arpaio

DOJ Cuts Off Negotiations With Sheriff Joe Arpaio In Civil Rights Probe

Ryan J. Reilly | April 3, 2012, 4:33PM

Updated: April 4, 4:45PM

The Justice Department Civil Rights Division has cut off negotiations with Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County Sheriff's Office over their refusal to consider an independent monitor to prevent future violations of civil rights. DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin said in a letter to Arpaio's lawyer that a monitor would be a non-negotiable component of any settlement.

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Voter Identification

Texas Tries To Keep Voter ID Debate Secret

Ryan J. Reilly | April 2, 2012, 11:20AM

The state of Texas wants the discussions their Republican legislators had about passing a voter ID law to stay secret.

Texas, which sued the federal government in an attempt to have their voter ID law approved, said in a court filing last month that "communications between members of the state legislature, communications between state legislators and their staff, and communications between state legislators and their constituents" should be protected by legislative privilege. The state also tried to prevent officials with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division from deposing legislators who supported the voter ID legislation known as SB 14.

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Florida

DOJ: Florida Voting Restrictions May Discriminate Intentionally

Ryan J. Reilly | March 20, 2012, 2:30PM

Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL)

New Florida laws that place harsh restrictions on third-party voter registration groups and limit the early voting period may have been passed with a discriminatory intent, lawyers with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division suggested in a court filing on Tuesday.

DOJ told the court that the federal government's position was that Florida "has not met its burden of proof" in demonstrating that "the proposed voting changes neither have the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group." It singled out the provisions of Florida's new voting law that place restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, shorten the early voting period and make voters who move to a different county cast provisional ballots.

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Paul Clement

Why South Carolina's Voter ID Suit Could Be Bound For The Supreme Court

Ryan J. Reilly | February 8, 2012, 6:05AM

Paul Clement is the former Solicitor General of the United States and the guy conservatives go to when there's a Supreme Court case on the line.

So it's not surprising that it was Clement's signature that ended up on the complaint filed on behalf of the state of South Carolina this week, in a suit against Attorney General Eric Holder over DOJ's decision to block the state's voter ID law because of the disparate impact the state's numbers show it will have on minority voters.

It's a suit that supporters hope will not only enshrine South Carolina's voter ID requirement as the unquestioned law of the state, but that will also do away with federal restrictions placed on states like South Carolina because of their clear history of racial discrimination.

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Joe Arpaio

DOJ Is Sorry If Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Feelings Were Hurt When They Disclosed His Civil Rights Abuses

Ryan J. Reilly | January 5, 2012, 6:28PM

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio

You know how when you're trying to avoid apologizing to someone who's upset you throw in a qualifier like "sorry you're upset" or "sorry you feel that way"? That's the type of classic non-apology that a Justice Department official gave to officials representing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio who were perturbed by the DOJ's press conference announcing the findings of an investigation into wide-spread civil rights abuses in Arpaio's office.

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South Carolina

BREAKING: Justice Department Blocks South Carolina's Voter ID Law

Ryan J. Reilly | December 23, 2011, 4:03PM

Updated: Dec. 23, 2011, 5:28PM

The U.S. Department of Justice will block the voter ID provisions of an election law passed in South Carolina earlier this year because the state's own statistics demonstrated that the photo identification requirement would have a much greater impact on non-white residents, DOJ said in a letter to the state on Friday.

The decision places the federal government squarely in opposition to the types of voter ID requirements that have swept through mostly Republican-controlled state legislatures.

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Joe Arpaio

Arpaio Critics: Want Reform? Sheriff Joe Has To Go

Ryan J. Reilly and Jillian Rayfield | December 15, 2011, 5:12PM

The findings in DOJ's investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office didn't surprise many local longtime critics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, many of whom said Thursday that his departure would be the only way to put a stop to his office's deep-seated bias.

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Eric Holder

Obama Administration Backs Bill Combating Voter Intimidation, Deception

Ryan J. Reilly | December 13, 2011, 6:05PM

United States Attorney General Eric Holder

The Obama administration is signaling support for a forthcoming Senate bill that would impose tough criminal and civil penalties on individuals who make and distribute campaign literature with false information intended to deceive voters and suppress turnout.

Attorney General Eric Holder will announce in a major speech on voting rights in Texas on Tuesday night that Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) will introduce the bill on Wednesday. The bill will be "narrowly tailored" to respect provisions of the First Amendment, according to Cardin's office. It will apply to "only a small category of false communications that occur during the last 90 days before an election, such as literature listing the wrong date or time for the election, giving inaccurate information about voter eligibility, or promoting false endorsements of candidates." A nearly identical bill was introduced by Schumer and then-Sen. Barack Obama back in 2007 but never passed.

In his speech at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library And Museum in Austin, Holder will call for election systems "that are free from fraud, discrimination, and partisan influence" and will say that protecting the right to vote and combating discrimination "must be viewed, not only as a legal issue - but as a moral imperative." Holder's speech also offers a challenge:

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Utah

Obama Justice Department Sues Utah Over Immigration Law

Ryan J. Reilly | November 22, 2011, 5:40PM

Updated: Nov. 22, 6:10PM

Add Utah to the list of states the federal government has sued over their controversial immigration laws.

In a suit filed in federal court in Utah late Tuesday, Justice Department officials argue that the government "has preeminent authority to regulate immigration matters."

"Utah's adoption of its own immigration policy disrupts the federal government's ability both to administer and enforce the federal immigration laws including as set forth in the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), and to establish and pursue federal policies and priorities pertaining to, inter alia, the identification, apprehension, detention and removal of aliens unlawfully in the United States," the suit claims.

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Alabama

DOJ To Alabama AG: You Can't Tell Schools Not To Give Us Enrollment Data

Ryan J. Reilly | November 4, 2011, 2:03PM

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange (R)

Yes, Alabama school districts, you do have to turn over your enrollment data to the Justice Department.

Earlier this week, DOJ wrote a number of school districts requesting enrollment data as part of their investigation into whether Alabama's harsh immigration law is forcing students out of school, in violation of federal law.

But Republican Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange questioned DOJ's authority to request the data and interim school superintendent Larry Craven told schools to hold off on turning over any data until the disagreement was settled.

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DOJ Civil Rights Division

Feds To Alabama: No, You Can't Discriminate Against School Kids

Ryan J. Reilly | November 1, 2011, 12:40PM

The Justice Department sent a letter to school districts in Alabama on Tuesday reminding them that they can't deny a child access to public education due to his or her immigration status.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez's letter comes after he expressed concern that Alabama's anti-illegal immigration law was keeping children out of school because their parents are scared about the impact of the law. A federal judge has blocked portions of the harsh anti-illegal immigration measure.

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South Carolina

DOJ Files Suit Against South Carolina Immigration Law, Says Others Could Come Soon

Ryan J. Reilly | October 31, 2011, 5:10PM

The Justice Department filed suit on Monday to block South Carolina's immigration law, saying that the law interfered with the federal government's supremacy on the issue of immigration.

South Carolina's statute, enacted on June 27, criminalizes the presence of an illegal immigrant in the state. DOJ's complaint says that the Constitution and federal law "do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country." South Carolina's law, DOJ officials claimed, "clearly conflicts with the policies and priorities adopted by the federal government and therefore cannot stand."

"Pushing undocumented immigrants out of one state to another is simply not a solution to our immigration problems," DOJ Assistant Attorney General Tony West said in a press call on Monday. "We believe South Carolina's law... crosses the constitutional line."

West mentioned that DOJ has had discussions with the Attorney Generals of Utah, Georgia and Indiana about their immigration laws.

"The United States will decide whether and when the bring lawsuits challenging particular state laws," West said.

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Rick Perry

Feds: Rick Perry-Signed Texas Redistricting Plan Reduces Voting Power Of 479,704 Hispanics

Ryan J. Reilly | October 26, 2011, 6:00AM

Texas Governor and Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R)

There is "ample circumstantial evidence" that the congressional and state representative redistricting maps signed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry had not only the effect but the intent of limiting the voting power of Hispanic voters, Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing late Tuesday.

DOJ is seeking to block the maps, filing to deny Texas' request for summary judgement in a case involving allegations that state officials tried to limit the voter power of Hispanic voters in violation of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.

Federal lawyers contended in the newest filing that there is "ample circumstantial evidence of a discriminatory purpose with regard to both the State House and Congressional plans" and that in the new maps nearly half a million fewer Hispanics would live in districts where they would have the ability to elect a candidate of their choosing.

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DOJ

Arab-American Leader Not Happy, But 'Optimistic' After Meeting With FBI On Anti-Muslim Training

Ryan J. Reilly | October 24, 2011, 10:15AM

An Arab-American leader who met with law enforcement officials earlier this month is optimistic that the FBI is taking the problem of anti-Muslim training materials seriously.

Abed Ayoub of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee attended a meeting that the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division hosted with other law enforcement officials on Oct. 14. The meeting was mentioned in a letter the Justice Department sent to Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, who were concerned about federal funds flowing to local and state anti-Muslim terrorism training. Ayoub said that anti-Muslim training materials used by law enforcement were a major topic of discussion.

"I can't speak officially for the FBI, but what I can say is that I think they do understand the significance of what happend, they do understand the importance of getting this resolved and the impact on many members of the community," Ayoub told TPM. "They do understand that this needs to be resolved. I do have a sense that they understand the importance of this matter."

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Joe Lieberman

DOJ To Senators: Don't Blame Us For The Anti-Muslim Training We Funded

Ryan J. Reilly | October 21, 2011, 6:00AM

The Justice Department has a message for the Senators worried that federal funds are flowing to anti-Muslim training programs: no worries, we've got this thing.

TPM obtained a copy of a letter DOJ sent to Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins nearly six months after the lawmakers first asked for answers about biased counterterrorism training sessions being funded by taxpayers.

Basically there are two ways that federal dollars from the Justice Department could potentially fund biased training. First, there's DOJ's State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training (SLATT) program, which officials say they've got a pretty good handle on.

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Department of Justice

Advocates Give Government 'Mixed Review' On Combatting Post-9/11 Backlash

Ryan J. Reilly | October 19, 2011, 1:05PM

Discrimination and hatred against Muslim and Sikh-Americans continues to be a legacy of the September 11 attack, even ten years on, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said Wednesday.

"We must reject any suggestion that every Muslim is a terrorist or that every terrorist is a Muslim," Cole said. "As we have seen time and again -- from Oklahoma City to the recent attacks in Oslo, Norway -- no religion or ethnicity has a monopoly on terror."

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Alabama

Appeals Court Partially Blocks Enforcement Of Alabama Immigration Law

Ryan J. Reilly | October 14, 2011, 1:45PM

Immigration bill protest at the state Capitol in Atlanta, Georgia, March 2011.

Updated: Oct. 14, 2:35PM

A federal appeals court on Friday blocked parts of a controversial Alabama immigration law.

The provisions that were enjoined -- section 10 and section 28 -- make it a crime for illegal immigrants to not have proper documentation and also make Alabama schools track the immigration status of their students.

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Thomas Perez

DOJ Official Worried About 'Vigilante Enforcement' Of Alabama's Harsh Immigration Law

Ryan J. Reilly | October 14, 2011, 12:10PM

Update, Oct. 14, 2:27PM: An appeals court has blocked certain provisions of the law.

It's "very clear" that Alabama's new anti-illegal immigration law is keeping children who are U.S. citizens out of school because their parents are scared about its impact, Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez told reporters Friday.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama Joyce Vance also said that federal officials were "hearing some concerns about vigilante enforcement of the law by private citizens."

"I don't want to overstate, we have heard folks expressing concern that this will take place" but haven't heard any actual reports of such incidents, Vance said. "I never like to be behind crime, I'd like to be in front of it."

"We always maintain awareness and alertness of potential hate crimes, so you know when we say 'vigilanteism' that really means the same thing as the traditional work that we do ensuring that the hate crimes laws in this country are fully enforced," Vance said.

Perez said that they were reviewing some "very troubling data" from schools regarding absentee and dropout data since the law went into effect. He also said there were getting reports of increases in bullying in the wake of the law.

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Barack Obama

What The Justice Department Can Actually Do About Voter ID Laws

Ryan J. Reilly | October 5, 2011, 5:45AM

President Barack Obama last week told a radio audience that he's made sure the Justice Department is reviewing restrictive voting laws passed across the country. But as a practical matter, DOJ's reach is limited.

Sure, federal officials with DOJ's Civil Rights Division are reviewing voter ID laws passed in South Carolina and Texas because both states have a history of discrimination and are covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. DOJ told South Carolina in August that they need more info before making a decision and in September told Texas they have more questions.

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Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley's South Carolina To Give Rides To 22 Voters To Get Photo IDs

Ryan J. Reilly | September 27, 2011, 4:15PM

Nikki Haley

Arguing last month that the voter ID law she signed into law in May wasn't discriminatory, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley offered to give voters free rides to obtain their photo ID from the DMV. 22 people took her up on it.

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DOJ

DOJ Has More Questions On Rick Perry's Voter ID Law

Ryan J. Reilly | September 23, 2011, 5:55PM

Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry during the Lincoln Day Dinner hosted by the Black Hawk County Republican Party in Waterloo, Iowa on August 14, 2011.

Updated: Sept. 23, 2011, 6:54PM

The Justice Department hasn't yet precleared a voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). In a Friday letter officials wrote that they need to know more about how the state would alert voters to the changes to the law.

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Justice Department

DOJ: Rick Perry's Texas Redistricting Plan Purposefully Discriminated Against Minorities

Ryan J. Reilly | September 23, 2011, 5:40PM

The Justice Department said late Friday that based on their preliminary investigation, a congressional redistricting map signed into law by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appears to have been "adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to Congress."

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Voting Rights Act

Judge Upholds Constitutionality Of Section Five Of Voting Rights Act

Ryan J. Reilly | September 21, 2011, 10:30AM

Image From VIPDesignUSA / Shutterstock

Updated: Sept. 21, 2011 1:03PM

A federal judge nominated by President George W. Bush has upheld the constitutionality of a part of the Voting Rights Act that requires certain parts of the country to have their election laws precleared by the federal government to prevent unlawful discrimination, shooting down a challenge from Shelby County, Alabama.

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Rick Perry

What DOJ Tossing Texas' Redistricting Plan Means For Rick Perry

Ryan J. Reilly | September 20, 2011, 6:30AM

As if Rick Perry needed another reason to dislike the federal government.

The Justice Department's decision to oppose the redistricting plan Perry signed as Governor of Texas is raising questions over whether he and state Republicans tried to dilute the voter power of Latinos by gerrymandering them into particular districts.

DOJ's opening serve sets the scene for a major court battle over how the lines will be drawn in the Lone Star state. Federal attorneys are expected to offer more details of their objections in a filing Tuesday and in federal court in D.C. on Wednesday.

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Rick Perry

DOJ: Rick Perry's Texas Congressional Redistricting Map Violates Voting Rights Act

Ryan J. Reilly | September 19, 2011, 2:57PM

Texas Governor and Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R)

Updated: September 19, 2011, 4:27PM

The Justice Department said Monday that Texas' state House and congressional redistricting plans didn't comply with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), indicating they thought the maps approved by Gov. Rick Perry (R) gave too little voting power to the growing Latino population in the state.

Officials with DOJ's Civil Rights Division said the proposed redistricting plan for the State Board of Education (SBOE) and the state Senate complied with the Voting Rights Act, but indicated they had concerns with the state House plan and the plan for congressional redistricting.

The federal government "[denied] that the proposed Congressional plan, as compared with the benchmark, maintains or increases the ability of minority voters to elect their candidate of choice in each district protected by Section 5," DOJ lawyers write in a filing. "Defendants deny that the proposed Congressional plan complies with Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act."

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Rick Perry

Coalition: Perry's Voter ID Law Intentionally Discriminates Against Minorities

Ryan J. Reilly | September 13, 2011, 5:15PM

Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX)

A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.

Groups in the coalition want DOJ's Civil Rights Division to oppose preclearance of Texas's photo voter identification law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. The Advancement Project, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian American Justice Center, Southwest Workers Union, a statewide Hispanic organization and Demos say the state failed to prove that the law was enacted for a nondiscriminatory purpose and that it will have no discriminatory effect on minorities.

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voter intimidation

Justice Department Sends Poll Watchers Into County Where White Voters Were Intimidated

Ryan J. Reilly | August 22, 2011, 2:00PM

Attorney General Eric Holder

Attorney General Eric Holder is sending poll watchers into a Mississippi county where white voters were previously found to have been intimidated by a Democratic official who is African-American.

The Justice Department announced Monday they were sending poll watchers to monitor runoff elections in Mississippi's Noxubee County, as well as in Bolivar, Tunica and Wilkinson counties to ensure their compliance with the Voting Rights Act of 1965. DOJ also monitored the first primary election in Noxubee County earlier this month.

The 2005 Noxubee case was the first ever so-called "reverse" discrimination voter intimidation case in the history of the Voting Rights Act. Ike Brown, the chairman of Noxubee County's Democratic Executive Committee in Mississippi, was found to have been trying to limit the participation of white voters in local elections.

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Voting Rights Act

In E-mails, Texas GOPers Worried Feds Would Say Redistricting Map Diluted Hispanic Voting Power

Ryan J. Reilly | August 16, 2011, 11:20AM

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

Civil rights groups are worried that Republicans running redistricting in Texas are breaking the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting Hispanic voting strength. So too, apparently, were the Republicans themselves.

Emails recently released by a federal judge in the course of a lawsuit over the redistricting map drawn by Texas Republicans show those involved in the redistricting process were worried that DOJ or a federal court wouldn't approve their plan. As they worked on the plan in the spring and early summer, at least one GOPer expressed concerns that the feds would say they didn't do enough to strengthen the voting power of Hispanic residents of the state even though the population of Hispanic residents ballooned over 90 percent between the 2000 and 2010 censuses.

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voter fraud

Voting Groups To Feds: Don't Let Florida's Restrictive Voting Law Go Through

Ryan J. Reilly | July 15, 2011, 3:07PM

A woman voting

A group of voting rights organizations are asking the Justice Department not to clear a Florida law which places restrictions on third-party voter registration efforts and shortens the early voting period.

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Voter Data

Feds: Louisiana Not Providing Voter Registration Forms At Public Assistance Offices

Ryan J. Reilly | July 13, 2011, 6:00AM

Federal officials are suing the state of Louisiana for failing to provide voter registration forms at public assistance and disability services agencies. The Justice Department said that the state is in violation of section seven of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

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New Black Panthers

DOJ Ethics Office: No Evidence That Politics, Race Influenced New Black Panther Party Case

Ryan J. Reilly | March 29, 2011, 6:05PM

Members of the New Black Panthers Party outside a polling place in Philadelphia, PA during the 2008 elections.

The Obama Justice Department did not improperly let politics or the race of the defendants affect the handling of a high-profile civil voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party, a probe by DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) concluded after an extensive investigation.

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Henry E. Bailey

Feds: Cincinnati Landlord Kicked Out Tenants Who Wouldn't Perform Sex Acts

Ryan J. Reilly | February 1, 2011, 8:30AM

Cincinnati landlord Henry E. Bailey currently owns 22 apartments in three separate buildings in Ohio. And since at least 2008, the federal government says he's been sneaking into the apartments of his female residents without their permission, groping them without their consent, offering reduced rent and maintenance repairs in exchange for sexual favors and refusing to make repairs for or offer rent discounts to those who refused.

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Defense of Marriage Act

Justice Department Defends The Defense Of Marriage Act

Ryan J. Reilly | January 13, 2011, 10:05PM

The Justice Department on Thursday filed a motion justifying the Defense of Marriage Act in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, appealing a federal judge's decision that the part of DOMA which defines marriage as between a man and a woman is unconstitutional.

But the appeal makes clear that the Obama administration doesn't support DOMA, and that the Justice Department was simply following tradition in defending even those laws the executive branch disagrees with.

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New Black Panthers

DOJ Action In Philly Bullying Case At Odds With Right-Wing Meme

Ryan J. Reilly | December 16, 2010, 8:45AM

Fueling conservative outrage over the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther Party case is the suggestion that the Obama administration refuses to pursue civil rights charges if the defendants are African-American. DOJ officials have said their decision not to pursue charges against some of the defendants originally named in a voter intimidation case filed in the final days of the Bush administration was based on the merits of the case and not the skin color of the defendants.

Now here's the latest indication that no such policy exists: DOJ's Civil Rights Division announced Wednesday they'd reached a settlement agreement with Philadelphia's school district to protect Asian students at a South Philly high school from harassment by bullies who the students say are predominately African-American.

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Hate Crimes

Swastika-Branding Case Leads To First Charges Under Shepard Hate Crimes Law

Rachel Slajda | December 2, 2010, 10:44AM

William Hatch, Jesse Sanford, and Paul Beebe

A case in which three men allegedly kidnapped a mentally disabled Navajo man and branded him with a coat hanger shaped into a swastika has prompted the first-ever charges under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Tom Perez, the head of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, this week called the crime "a devastatingly persistent reminder that bigotry and hate continue."

According to prosecutors, the three men in their early 20s, all of whom worked at a McDonald's in Farmington, N.M., lured a 22-year-old man, whose name has not been released, into an apartment. While there, they allegedly drew on him, using permanent marker, a pentagram, an ejaculating penis, "white power" and "KKK." They allegedly shaved his head, leaving only the shape of a swastika.

Then, according to prosecutors, they bent a coat hanger into the shape of half a swastika and pressed it into his arm twice, branding him. They took cell phone of the act, allegedly, as well as video of the victim -- whose family says he has the mind of a 12-year-old as a result of being born with fetal alcohol syndrome-- "consenting" to the branding.

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