Till the End of Time

Here we go again.

Starting in 2004, and concluding earlier this year, the FBI reopened the Emmett Till case, in the supposed hopes that they could charge somebody with something.  To reiterate comments I made on this very blog on March 16, 2006, the FBI and the Justice Department are full of lawyers, and any American lawyer worth his salt has heard of the concept of ex post facto laws and the Constitutional problem with them.  Therefore, FBI/Justice started this investigation knowing full well what its conclusions would be, so actual prosecution was knowingly not a motive — racial pandering was the motive.

With that having been completed, the Ghosts of Civil Rights Past are back again.  The U.S. Senate is pondering a bill, called The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, (realizing that Emmett Till’s case was solved, albeit by means of the killers selling their story to a magazine), that would, according to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger:

…create a cold-cases unit in the Justice Department to prosecute unpunished slayings from the civil rights era…(and)…enable federal authorities to pursue killings from before 1970.

Now, a majority of U.S. Senators are lawyers, and know full well that ex post facto laws are unconstitutional, and that even statue of limitation extensions are subject to ex post facto restrictions (i.e. if the cops believe you pulled an armed robbery in 1995, and the SOL of armed robbery is 10 years, and in 2006, the legislators pass an extension of the SOL on armed robbery from 10 to 20 years, you can’t be charged with the armed robbery, even though the statute itself criminalizing armed robbery existed in 1995 just as well as it did in 2006).  If this Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is not just an empty gesture, then whatever “meat” may be found in it is unconstitutional.

Why, then, would the lawyers/Senators pass a bill they know full well is unconstitutional?  Election year, racial pandering.  ‘Nuff said.

Oh, and, by the way, Missouri voter, take a look at that article and see who the main sponsor of the Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act is in the Senate.  I’ll give you two hints:  His first name starts with “Jim,” and his last name starts with “Talent.”