"Legal observers say that Bay Area county prosecutors would likely struggle to investigate or prosecute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents if a comparable situation were to occur. Those prosecutors would have a strong obligation to act, given interest by their constituents here in the Bay Area, said Jonathan Simon, a law professor at UC Berkeley. Yet any such local effort would likely run headlong into a growing reality that Trump and his underlings in the homeland security sector are just kind of openly suggesting the law doesn't apply to them."
"I fear that it would not get far, said Simon, of any local prosecution. It says that we're kind of off the rails, when it comes to the idea that the government even when it uses violence is doing so within at least its good faith interpretation of the law, and trying to live within it."
"What I can say definitively is that my office will independently investigate any fatal use of force by law enforcement. That is the right thing to do."
Reaction inside the White House and the president's rapid exoneration of the immigration agent who shot Renee Good alarmed local officials. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen pledged an independent county investigation of any fatal use of force by law enforcement. Legal observers warn that Bay Area county prosecutors would likely struggle to investigate or prosecute U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Public interest and constituent pressure create a strong obligation for local action. Observers express skepticism that a local prosecution would succeed given assertions from homeland security leadership about immunity from the law.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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