Yesterday, the Division announced the opening of a novel joint investigation of the University of Montana (under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972), and the City of Missoula Police Department and the Office of the Missoula County Attorney (under the police misconduct provision of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the antidiscrimination provision of the 1968 Safe Streets Act). The investigation will assess whether the University and the local authorities violated the Constitution or civil rights laws by failing to protect women against sexual assaults.
In announcing the investigation, AAG Perez said that “[i]n the past three years, there have been at least 80 reported rapes in Missoula. At least 11 sexual assaults involving University students are alleged to have occurred in the past 18 months.” This investigation seeks to vindicate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws in its core, original sense — the guarantee that state and local law enforcement will protect all citizens equally against private depradations.
. . . [W]hat breaks new ground is not the investigation of the University — that’s standard fare for Title IX investigations — but the broader investigation of the local Missoula police and prosecutor’s office. This is the first Division law enforcement investigation of which I am aware in which the discriminatory failure to protect a class of victims of crime has been the main focus, and in which the Division has targeted prosecutors as well as police.
This is, as I said, an effort to vindicate the equal protection of the laws in its core, original sense. Discriminatory failure to investigate and prosecute crimes has been a major problem for victims of sexual assault and violence against women (something the Supreme Court acknowledged, then disregarded, in United States v. Morrison). And, as Randy Kennedy’s work highlights, it has been a major problem for racial minorities who are victims of crime as well.
And DOJ is basically the only entity that can challenge these sorts of systemic patterns of discrimination in court. Discrimination is likely to be impossible to prove in any individual case. . . [I]n Missoula, any individual victim is likely to be unable to show that the police or proseuctors responded less vigorously to her crime because of her gender rather than because of the individual facts. . . .Source of Post and Full Article
So DOJ is likely the only entity that can bring these sorts of claims into court. I still wouldn’t underplay the difficulties of proof here. But the Civil Rights Division’s efforts to attack the problems of . . . failure to protect crime victims are incredibly important."
http://volokh.com/2012/05/02/does-the-equal-protection-clause-require-local-police-to-investigate-and-prosecute-sexual-assault-crimes/
Folks Remember there is no Equal Protection in Montana. It is Pay to Play and the Justice System is VERY Broken. The City of Missoula and the University of Montana ignore victims, ignore claims of stalkers and violate the rights over Montanans over and over. In Montana Rape is a Way of Life and Seems to Be Flat out LEGAL.
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