Law Criminalized Police Abuse

More than two out of three civil rights cases sent to federal prosecutors fall under the Ku Klux Klan Act, passed after the Civil War. That law makes it a crime for agents of the government to use their legal authority to intentionally violate a person’s rights and increases potential penalties if an agent hurts or kills that person in the process. The law says, in part:

“Whoever, under color of any law, . . . willfully subjects any person . . . to the deprivation of any rights . . . protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States . . . shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”

It provides that “if bodily injury results from the acts committed,” the penalty increases to as much as 10 years in prison, plus a fine.

It adds that “if death results from the acts committed . . . or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill,” the maximum penalty is life in prison or execution.