Thursday, January 5, 2017

1997 -2017 The New Year Brings the 20th Anniversary of the DOJ Civil Rights Division Steubenville Consent Decree Re Its Police Dept

https://www.justice.gov/crt/united-states-district-court-southern-district-ohioeastern-division-united-states-america


The Steubenville Consent Decree as it was called, was among the original pattern and practice police enforcement actions ever taken in US history under the then new law Public Law 94 and what is now termed 14141 pattern and practice Federal USAG actions....

its critical to any student and serious advocate and/or educator or informed citizen or official to understand the historical context of this new federal authority and grant of oversight of American policing that began in the mid 90's under the Clinton Justice Dept with Janet Reno being the AG at the time.

Steubenville was an unlikely city in many ways to come under such a major original federal enforcement action but given its deep history of such policing issues when combined with its rather troubled past and colorful history, it made sense given the circiumstances on the ground that created the basis for the Special Litigation Unit ...setting their focus on this small southeastern Ohio city on the Ohio River, not far from Pittburgh, Pa...back in the mid 90s when the US attorneys who were working at Justice and its Civil Rights Division were looking for a place to first apply, create and first both determine and accomplish what the both the limits of the law and its sweeping powers were designed to do:  to eradicate bad policing methodologies and to create a new higher federal uniform standard of constitutional plicing for all the nation to uphold, see and enjoy;

 In 1997, it was a little known law and the enformcement action among most cities and journalists and scholars was a complete unknown at the time.   Also unawares and unknown to most everyone in the storied civil rights movement and law schools and judgeships of America, was that there was a complete new legal authority and paradigm that was being both developed and applied by the federal government via the Civil Rights Division Special Litigation units newly minted powers....down, way down, into the locality of American policing among cities and towns, large like Pittsburgh and small like Steubenville.  

Very Very few, in 1994-7, knew that this paradigm shift had occurred.  Few legal observers ever knew about it or even heard of it and particularly not even the nation's Federal Courts or its associates.

But, then, in 1997,  a very few, a limited rarified few, and the privileged advocates of STeubenville, Ohio, all three or four of us, understand what was about to dawn upon the citizens and the authorities of this small town and soon, from there, outward...towards ALL America.   only a local lawyer, and his wife, and a african american city councilman and a handful of others, truly understood what was then happening in terms of this new federal authority breaking down upon the local officials like a virus bug just beginning to take hold inside our national bloodstream of american policing.    Only a few understood its implications and among them, oddly were...those inside the movie industry and a few of those who had walked the walk in the 60's when their lives too were placed routinely in danger...just on behalf of those for whom they were advocating...

But, in 1997, through the efforts of several, not the least a Columbus attorney with a obvious bent for the 60's kind of appearance and advocacy and from a handful of brave citizens and victims of this very seriously affected city on the Ohio, the final signatures were applied to the original consent decree; and it came to pass and the resulting enforcement action and its standards that were developed during this and another original decree in Pittsburgh Pa, were to become the "gold standard" of how to "do" and literally apply this new federal AG authority over such local law enforcement agencies and small to large city departments throughout America.

It is with this new authority, that this nation once again has come face to face with ..lately through and by very graphic and sometimes very complex and disturbing events such as we witnessed in Ferguson and Cleveland with Tamir Rice and in Baltimore and New York and well beyond.

Now, today, over 30 major cities have been investigated under this law and many have or were placed under such "decree's" from New York to Seattle to New Orleans and Cleveland most recently.

Many other places have been provided with certain guidelines based on the developments under this law and many cities are clearly impacted and influenced strongly by its limitations and standards that have been recreated in many places many times over since the mid nineties..when the DOJ and a young lawyer from Steubenville were cautiously approaching the problem of unconstitutional and seriously degraded and brutal police misconduct occurring in the city on the River, known for its steel mills, Dean Martin and football    (and a gal named Judy Jordan in her heyday of the 40'/50's with her ties to the New York mobs directly...)

It is from the tangled downtown streets of this city that the legacy of the nation's FIRST FULLY DOJ "investigated" consent decree developed and originated from....   So, On  the year of its Twentieth Anniversary...the DOJ's efforts and this milestone legal event still 'speaks'...


it still has meaning and it still makes its impact both known and seriously engaged in the most substantial civil rights issue of modern american today...the "unfinished business of the civil rights movement" as Dr. King himself once said, before his death...

modern era problem policing...to put it mildly...was first addressed by the federal government in a wholesale comprehensive definitive approach here.

the Steubenville events, circumstances and those who were the key actors who helped it come about....are older but with us in number today;   they have a story that is yet to be told...

but its meaning is not NOT going speak to us...i believe...

...for a very long time to come, as well...


here is is...my friends, fellow advocates, and judges and yes ...my most ardent enemies and opponents; i give to you, once more....

the milestone civil rights event of our city's legacy that will last ...as long as this city is here...

with Love for the legal system...that my father himself...devoted so much of his life and times to and all those who in good conscience who ever advocated for the highest ideals of our nation and our legal system, in memory of Dominick E Olivito Sr...

it is from him, my amazing father, the most humble yet best legal mind ever known and to my only son, where I fought hard...and tried, along with a few others, once upon a time, ....to give him (even before he was to be born,) a better city, country, and simply a better place...to live, breath and to enjoy his evenings...at home...

with much Love...

i post this post...

richard a olivito