[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 207 (Wednesday, December 1, 2021)]
[House]
[Pages H6851-H6857]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        CRIMINAL JUSTICE ISSUES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2021, the Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. 
Jackson Lee) for 30 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, let me take this opportunity to do 
one or two things. First, I acknowledge my colleague, Congresswoman 
Slotkin and her district, to offer to her and the people of Michigan my 
deepest concern and sympathy for the loss of those precious children.
  No parent should ever expect to send their child to school and there 
would be a loss of life. Murdered. And for too long we have had a roll 
call of children being murdered. Students at Columbine High School, 
those college students at Virginia Tech, high school students at 
Parkland, high school students at Santa Fe, and of course, in 
Connecticut, little babies. It brought a President to tears.
  Tonight, my message is sometimes the Federal Government has to step 
in.
  For example, as it relates to this tragedy of gun violence, we are 
long overdue for dealing with the appropriate reaction. Many of us have 
discussed legislation that I had, some 20-plus years ago in Texas, that 
sometimes--although I am a champion of parents, I am one--I want to see 
parents front and center in their children's education, PTO meetings, I 
know where to go to get action parents.
  When a little one--and I will say a little one--gets a gun from a 
parent that bought the gun a few days ago and winds up taking the lives 
of three precious little ones and others now fighting for their lives 
in hospitals, I would make the argument that something has to be done. 
Something has to be done and the Federal Government needs to step in in 
a tragedy like this.
  We will all be working with our colleagues to do better. Before I 
start this theme that I have, as a member of the Judiciary Committee 
now for two decades, I have seen the success stories of making things 
better. I remember the joy of the reauthorization of the Voting Rights 
Act in 2007 and 2008 when we went as a bipartisan Congress--98 votes in 
the United States Senate and 400 plus in the House, and the bill was 
signed by George W. Bush. The Voting Rights bill, the one that is now 
being held hostage.
  That is something that the Federal Government does better--voting 
rights. That is what I want to talk about tonight, what we need to do 
better.
  Just a moment, before I do that, let me deviate just for a moment and 
let me do it because I am pained. I am hurt. This has not been directed 
at me, but a sister Congresswoman.

                              {time}  1900

  This has not been directed at me, but a sister Congresswoman. And 
when I say sister Congresswoman, I am looking at the landscape of women 
because it has not been easy for women, Madam Speaker, to get to the 
United States Congress. We have not been here long in large numbers. We 
have been one or two. We can go back to the 1800s and beyond to know 
that women did come into the United States Congress but very few--
certainly women of color, very few.
  Then might I add something else, Madam Speaker, the wonderfulness of 
the multiculturalism of faith, the different faiths that are in this 
place. It is finally a recognition of America as the unusual 
experiment, different languages and different cultures under one flag 
that you sit directly in front of, Madam Speaker, the United States of 
America. And then as I stand here right above your head, Madam Speaker, 
it says, In God We Trust.
  So whatever way you craft your faith, our Constitution says that you 
are recognized and welcome under the First Amendment, freedom of 
religion and freedom of access. That is one of the reasons that, 
although imperfect, America has been able to go into faraway places and 
find connection because they have citizens who are connected to those 
places.
  Then why would we have the trash of discourse?
  Why would we disgrace our positions and the oath we take by 
suggesting that a person of a different faith, who wears her own faith, 
a hijab, is a terrorist?
  Madam Speaker, there were times when I first began to wear braids 
that I was looked at askance. I, frankly, believe there are 
opportunities that I did not get because I wore braids. But it does not 
in any way even equal to being called a terrorist or black heart, to be 
made light of, to have a faith made light of, to not understand that 
the words in this hallowed ground, this most powerful lawmaking body in 
the world, is heard around the world.
  As we speak today, someone is wondering what Americans are saying. 
The easy way to do it is to tune in, as we may not think, to the floor 
of the House; or the aftermath the words of a Member of Congress or a 
Member of the United States Senate or the President carry great weight, 
make a lot of noise, and are listened to. And the billions of Muslims 
around the world should not be denigrated for tomfoolery.
  But what about, as I have been told, our own Member, Ilhan Omar, 
receiving deaths because of someone's ugly words?
  It is time for the Federal Government to step in. Lives can be lost. 
Or we used to have that old phrase, sticks and stones can break my 
bones, but words will never hurt me. And that is the context of 
yesteryear when the words were, in essence, light.
  But, Madam Speaker, when you begin to play with the minds of those 
who came on January 6, we just heard testimony that said: I came 
because the former President called me to come.
  Then who is safe when we say words?
  This is not chatter. It is vile, and it can hurt people.
  Can it hurt the innocent Muslim woman on a street in America, or 
Muslim man, or Muslim family, or Muslim child going to school because 
it has a megaphone?
  Can it endanger our colleagues no matter who they are?
  It is appropriate for the action of this House or the time for the 
Federal Government to step in.
  I offer my concern, love, and affection for my colleagues and my 
sister Congresswomen. But I cannot and we should not tolerate dastardly 
language and non-humorous insults and threats to people's lives.
  How dare you?
  As I said, I want to talk about the idea of when the Federal 
Government should come into action.
  Madam Speaker, let me ask you how much time do I have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Texas has 20 minutes 
remaining.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, the Federal Government is an umbrella 
on a rainy day. So the context of my remarks today will be about 
criminal justice issues and the unequal results that have come about 
through State laws.
  Let me say that the juries have spoken in two important cases. As a 
trained lawyer I will say it again: The jury has spoken. But it does 
not mean

[[Page H6852]]

that I have to accept in one instance the ultimate decision based upon 
the context of that trial and all of the trappings: The judge, the 
prosecutors, the defense, and the law.
  So let me begin very briefly.
  What is self-defense?
  It is a legal justification for the otherwise illegal use of force. 
You have killed someone in most instances. In the instance of self-
defense that results in a death, although an unlawful killing did 
occur, it is considered a justified killing.
  Do you know how many lives are lost, particularly people of color, by 
being defined as a justified killing?
  To succeed on self-defense grounds, an unprovoked attack, the killer 
was not the aggressor, the killer reasonably believed that they were in 
imminent danger, the use of force was reasonable. This duty also 
requires the individual claiming self-defense to retreat prior to using 
deadly force.
  In the wake of Kyle Rittenhouse's behavior, two men are dead, and 
they have families. Joseph Rosenbaum, 36; Anthony Huber, 26. Their 
families are hurting. And then one was drastically injured; Gaige 
Grosskreutz was drastically injured. And yet we find the self-defense 
law was used for the alleged interpretation of justifiable homicide.
  Shameful. The law needs to be reviewed.
  Someone said: Was he not even guilty of a traffic ticket?
  Could you frame the case, Madam Speaker, in a young person who left 
their home and secured an AK-47?
  The representation is that I came to protect.
  Then why wasn't the question asked to the young man: Did you not land 
in the midst of protests?

  Did you not head directly to where the police were?
  Or did you surround yourself where protesters under the First 
Amendment had a right in this instance to be angry and agitated but 
nonviolent?
  They were unarmed.
  So if your reasoning was to go to protect, then go to the protectors. 
That was not the case. This was a false narrative ill-conceived. And 
although 17 or 18, he had the wherewithal and should have been held 
accountable for not going to where he said he was going to go.
  The prosecutor in the Ahmaud Arbery case had it right. You can't come 
to provoke and then declare self-defense. That is what happened in the 
Rittenhouse case. Tragedy of the killing--of the shooting of Jacob 
Blake; those there were agitated, some might say rightly so. Some were 
there to do other things.
  But the real issue was: Did they deserve to die?
  Was this gentleman anywhere near police?
  No. He came to provoke and then claimed self-defense. I believe there 
should be a Federal review of self-defense laws across America, and I 
will share with you why: Because Anthony Huber is dead, because Joseph 
Rosenbaum is dead, and because Gaige is severely injured.
  But yet this is supposed to be the picture of someone who only came 
to help. He didn't get to the party of police that were down the street 
technically. He didn't make a beeline--as some of our parents would 
say, make a beeline for home. He didn't make a beeline to get to right 
where the police were and get instructions from the police. He was in 
the midst of those who rightfully could be protesting with some dispute 
as to what they might have been doing, but that was the charge of law 
enforcement. To my knowledge, that night law enforcement did not kill 
anyone, and ultimately the protesters left the area.
  Self-defense laws across America need to be reviewed because too many 
people are dying under this false premise that everybody can use self-
defense.
  What about the castle doctrine?
  That is an expansion of self-defense both statutory and common law, 
in which removes the duty to retreat for self-defense on individuals 
inside their home. This principle has been codified and expanded by the 
majority of State legislatures in a variety of ways. However, the 
boyfriend of Breonna Taylor who was defending her and the home was 
arrested, an African American.
  These laws need to be reviewed. They are State laws, but they are 
unequally applied. Enough is enough.
  Stand your ground laws. Stand your ground laws are an extension of 
the castle doctrine to areas outside of an individual's home such that 
there is no duty to retreat for self-defense. The name is derived from 
statutory language found in several States.
  This results in the imbalance, if you will, of justice. Racial 
disparities are much larger as White on Black homicides have 
justifiable findings; 33 percentage points more often than Black on 
White homicides. So as Whites--as the father and son thought that they 
could kill Ahmaud Arbery, they were hoping for the odds that they would 
be found not guilty because they killed a Black man and they claimed 
self-defense.
  Stand your ground laws appear to exacerbate those differences as 
cases overall are significantly more likely to be ruled justified in 
stand your ground States than non-stand your ground States. We will 
talk about one of the most notorious cases.
  With respect to race controlling for all other attributes, the odds a 
White-on-Black homicide is found justified in 281 percent greater than 
the odds of a White-on-White homicide is found justified. So if you 
happen to be White and kill a Black person, 281 percent of the time you 
are innocent. You are innocent. By contrast, a Black-on-White homicide 
has barely half the odds of being ruled justifiable relative to White 
on White homicides.
  Let me be very clear. I want all lives to be saved. I want Black 
lives to be noticed and known and matter. I want to make sure that the 
justice system is fair. Justice should have no color. The scales of 
justice, Lady Justice, that is what the Judiciary Committee has been 
advocating and working for the decades that I have had the privilege of 
serving.
  Statistically Black-on-Black homicides have the same odds of being 
ruled justifiable as White-on-White. White men are more likely to 
successfully invoke the use of stand your ground laws for their defense 
after shooting than Black Americans or women, especially Black women.
  Nationally the likelihood of a homicide being ruled justified is 281 
percent greater than when the defendant is White and the victim is 
Black.
  Need for Federal intervention and review. In contrast, the likelihood 
of a homicide being ruled justified when the defendant is Black and the 
victim is White is 49 percent lower compared to cases where both the 
defendant and victim are White.
  In 68 percent, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, of 
successful stand your ground law claims in Florida, the person was 
unarmed.
  Let me quickly move to these cases.

                              {time}  1915

  As I do so, let me add to my discussion, and that is the citizen's 
arrest, the citizen's arrest law that was used by the defendants in the 
Ahmaud Arbery case.
  And let me offer my sympathy to those killed by Mr. Rittenhouse and 
to the family of Mr. Arbery. Let me give sympathy to the families of 
Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber because their loved ones are dead.
  But in this case of, one has always said, a praying mother, a praying 
family, the citizen's arrest law cited in Arbery's case dates back to 
the Civil War. This case that was used, as the prosecutor indicated, 
was a Civil War-era State law to justify the killing.
  Since 1863, Georgia has allowed its residents to arrest one another 
if they witnessed a crime and the police were not around. Similar laws 
have existed in nearly every State.
  The citizen's arrest laws in Georgia in 1863 were utilized on the 
pretense of getting freed slaves. They were free. But by their color, 
there were those who said: You are not free. I am arresting you. You 
are violating the law. You escaped.
  How horrible to have this kind of bounty.
  I include in the Record an article from The New York Times, ``The 
Citizen's Arrest Law Cited in Arbery's Killing Dates Back to the Civil 
War.''

                  [From New York Times, May 13, 2020]

 The Citizen's Arrest Law Cited in Arbery's Killing Dates Back to the 
                               Civil War

       After Ahmaud Arbery was shot dead by two white men on a 
     quiet residential road in

[[Page H6853]]

     coastal Georgia, a prosecutor cited a Civil War era state law 
     to justify the killing.
       The same law was invoked last year in suburban Atlanta 
     after a white woman chased down a black man who left the 
     scene of a car accident and killed him after starting a 
     confrontation.
       Since 1863, Georgia has allowed its residents to arrest one 
     another--if they have witnessed a crime and the police are 
     not around. Similar laws exist in nearly every state, and 
     have been raised in courtrooms over the decades to account 
     for actions in a range of criminal cases, including assaults 
     and murders.
       But after Mr. Arbery's death, a growing chorus of critics 
     are calling for the laws to be repealed. They say the laws 
     are outdated, relics of the Wild West, and are ripe for abuse 
     by untrained civilians in an age in which 911 is widely 
     available and police response times are generally within 
     minutes.
       Like ``stand your ground'' and ``castle doctrine'' laws 
     that allow people to use force to protect themselves or their 
     homes--as in the case of a neighborhood watch volunteer in 
     Florida who shot to death Trayvon Martin in 2012--citizen's 
     arrest statutes have generated considerable controversy and 
     cries of racism.
       ``Namely, a member of the public doesn't know--and likely 
     cannot understand--the nuances of citizen's arrest, 
     particularly when it comes to the use of deadly force,'' Ira 
     P. Robbins, a law professor at American University who wrote 
     an academic paper on the issue, wrote in an email.
       ``That's why it is so dangerous for people to take the law 
     into their own hands.''
       Citizen's arrest laws date back to medieval times. Absent 
     an organized police force, in the late 1200s, King Edward I 
     needed help fighting crime. The legal concept carried over to 
     the United States, when in the country's modern infancy, it 
     could take days for a law enforcement agent to travel to a 
     crime scene.
       The use of the law, while not altogether common, is 
     generally less problematic in its more frequent use by 
     shopkeepers detaining shoplifting suspects, for example, or 
     by trained security guards and police officers operating 
     outside their jurisdiction, Mr. Robbins wrote.
       Supporters of the law point to instances in which people 
     who are committing crimes are thwarted and then held until 
     the police arrive, such as muggers or shoplifters. They are 
     relied upon by crime watch groups like the Guardian Angels to 
     anti-immigrant patrols on the U.S.-Mexico border.
       Still, Dana Mulhauser, a former civil rights lawyer at the 
     Department of Justice who now runs the conviction integrity 
     unit in St. Louis County, said citizen's arrest laws had 
     outlived themselves.
       ``These laws were created in a different time,'' she said. 
     ``We are not in a time where we are lacking in police 
     responsiveness in this country. You are asking for situations 
     that cause trouble.''
       In the case in suburban Atlanta, Hannah R. Payne, 22, is 
     awaiting trial on murder charges for the shooting death of 
     Kenneth E. Herring, a 62-year-old mechanic who left the scene 
     of a fender bender last May. Ms. Payne, who was not involved 
     in the crash, chased Mr. Herring in her Jeep.
       Witnesses told police in Clayton County, Ga., that Ms. 
     Payne blocked Mr. Herring's truck, approached the open 
     driver's-side window of his vehicle and punched him with her 
     left hand as she pointed a 9-millimeter firearm with her 
     right.
       A 911 dispatcher told her to stand down, but the police 
     said the call recorded Ms. Payne's demands: ``Get out of the 
     car,'' she yelled, using a vulgarity. A single shot was 
     fired, and Mr. Herring stepped out of the truck and died.
       Ms. Payne, described by her lawyer as an ``all-American 
     girl'' who ``thought she was helping out,'' is now facing a 
     long prison term for a killing that shares eerie similarities 
     to the shooting death of Mr. Arbery, who was killed in 
     February after a father and son told the authorities they 
     thought he was the suspect of a rash of recent break-ins in 
     their neighborhood.
       ``When I saw that Arbery case, I thought, `Here we go 
     again,' '' Mr. Herring's widow, Christine Herring, said in an 
     interview.
       To Ms. Herring, people like the young woman who killed her 
     husband feel empowered by the law to handle criminal matters 
     on their own.
       A Georgia prosecutor, George E. Barnhill, cited the state's 
     citizen's arrest law as the reason Gregory McMichael, 64, and 
     his son, Travis McMichael, 34, should not be held responsible 
     for Mr. Arbery's death.
       In a letter to the Glynn County Police Department, Mr. 
     Barnhill, who eventually recused himself from the case, wrote 
     that the men were in ``hot pursuit'' of Mr. Arbery, and that 
     they had ``solid first hand probable cause'' that he was a 
     ``burglary suspect.''
       There is no evidence that Mr. Arbery had committed a 
     burglary, and he was not armed when he was chased down.
       The McMichaels were arrested last week and charged with 
     aggravated assault and murder, more than two months after the 
     shooting death and after a different prosecutor asked the 
     Georgia Bureau of Investigation for assistance.
       According to Mr. Robbins' research, some states do not 
     allow citizen's arrest of misdemeanors unless the misdemeanor 
     involves a ``breach of the peace.'' Others only allow 
     citizens to make the arrest if they witnessed the crime 
     themselves. The laws vary across the country regarding the 
     level of probable cause that is required, and how long a 
     person is allowed to detain someone.
       In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, an arrest is 
     allowed if a citizen personally witnesses a felony. 
     California allows a citizen's arrest of a misdemeanor even if 
     the person did not directly witness it.
       Statutes also differ on how certain the citizen has to be 
     that the crime was committed, Mr. Robbins wrote. In Arkansas, 
     the citizen can be ``reasonably sure,'' but in New York, if 
     the felony was not actually committed, someone who wrongly 
     takes a person into custody can wind up liable for false 
     arrest.
       In Gary, Ind., last fall, a city councilman who apprehended 
     a teenager he believed had stolen his car days earlier was 
     charged with kidnapping.
       ``It can get messy,'' said Ronald L. Carlson, a law 
     professor at the University of Georgia. ``A citizen who is 
     being arrested is much less inclined to be cooperative if 
     it's not somebody with a blue uniform on.''
       In Georgia, the law states that a private person may arrest 
     someone if a crime is committed in his presence or ``within 
     his immediate knowledge.''
       But if it is a felony, the citizen can stop someone from 
     escaping if the citizen has ``reasonable and probable grounds 
     of suspicion.''
       The current Georgia law is about a decade old, but versions 
     of a nearly identical statute have existed in the state since 
     1863.
       In the Clayton County case, leaving the scene of an 
     accident with no injuries is a misdemeanor, so Georgia law 
     would not have authorized Ms. Payne to chase down Mr. 
     Herring.
       Further, Mr. Herring initially stopped at the accident 
     scene, but he apparently was having a diabetic episode and 
     got back in his car and left, his wife said, so it was 
     unclear whether he would have been charged with any crime at 
     all.
       Ms. Payne and her lawyer, Matt Tucker, did not respond to 
     requests for comment.
       At her bond hearing last year, Mr. Tucker said his client 
     was ``not a menace to society as people want to portray 
     her.''
       ``She's a young individual that got on the phone with 911 
     and thought she was helping out,'' the Clayton News Daily 
     quoted him saying. ``At her age, she learned a very valuable 
     lesson.''
       In the killing of Mr. Arbery, someone called 911 beforehand 
     to say that a man was inside a house under construction. If 
     that man was Mr. Arbery, and he was there without permission 
     but stole nothing, then he could have been charged with 
     trespassing, a misdemeanor, said Lawrence J. Zimmerman, the 
     president of the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense 
     Lawyers. That means, Mr. Zimmerman said, the men who went 
     after him would not have been authorized to give chase.
       Force can only be used to prevent a violent felony, Mr. 
     Zimmerman said, adding, ``What is not lawful is, you can't 
     detain somebody and then use force.''
       But a person making a citizen's arrest who is then attacked 
     could try to claim self-defense, he said, as the McMichaels 
     have claimed--although it would not necessarily be 
     successful.
       On Tuesday, Georgia lawmakers said they would move forward 
     with proposals to strip that protection from state law.
       ``The citizen's arrest has to be abolished in this state,'' 
     State Representative James Beverly, a Democrat, said at a 
     news conference in Brunswick on Tuesday. ``We can't have this 
     happen again in this country and certainly not in the state 
     of Georgia.''
       Ms. Herring said she would love to see the law abolished. 
     ``The law is protecting them for some reason,'' she said of 
     those who had cited it as a defense. And of the woman accused 
     of killing her husband, she added, ``What gives her the 
     right? Let me tell you, she is not the police.''

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. So the citizen's arrest laws should be very clear. 
The defendants were wrong. The case resulted in a conviction because 
the case says that you have to witness the crime, and they did not.
  I include in the Record an article titled ``Ahmaud Arbery and the 
case for getting rid of citizen's arrests.''

                     [From the Vox, Nov. 10, 2021]

    Ahmaud Arbery and the Case for Getting Rid of Citizen's Arrests

       Nearly two years after Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black 
     man, was shot and killed in a suburban Georgia town while 
     jogging, the three white suspects accused of the slaying--
     Greg McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and their neighbor, 
     William ``Roddie'' Bryan--are now on trial. They face charges 
     on a total of nine counts, including malice murder, felony 
     murder, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment.
       Arbery's killing in February 2020 ignited national outrage. 
     When a video Bryan recorded from his vehicle while following 
     Arbery went viral online, viewers called it an unequivocal 
     lynching. The graphic footage shows the McMichaels, both 
     carrying guns, pursuing Arbery in a truck after he ran down 
     their street in the mostly white Satilla Shores neighborhood 
     near Brunswick. Following a short chase, the men corner 
     Arbery, and a confrontation between Arbery and Travis 
     McMichael ensues. During the struggle, Arbery is shot three 
     times, twice in the chest, after which he slumps to the 
     ground. It took 74 days after Arbery's death for the men to 
     be arrested and charged.
       Defense attorneys will likely argue that the men's actions 
     were protected by Georgia's citizen's arrest law, which at 
     the time

[[Page H6854]]

     allowed a person to detain someone whom they believe just 
     committed a crime. The attorneys may claim the men acted in 
     self-defense while attempting to carry out a legitimate 
     citizen's arrest of Arbery, whom they suspected of burglary.
       Georgia's outdated and dangerous citizen's arrest law--one 
     that was created in an era of slavery and emboldened citizens 
     to act on their worst biases--has since been repealed. The 
     law was replaced with a bill that limits who can detain 
     citizens and when (business owners and workers who witness 
     someone shoplifting or dining and dashing, for example.) But 
     most states still have a version of these laws on the books, 
     and as long as they endure, advocates say they could 
     ultimately have tragic consequences.


          Citizen's arrest laws are ubiquitous, with old roots

       Georgia's citizen's arrest statute had its origins in the 
     Civil War era. Passed in 1863, when slavery was still 
     considered legal by Southerners despite the Emancipation 
     Proclamation, the law stated that a private person could 
     ``arrest an offender if the offense is committed in his 
     presence or within his immediate knowledge.''
       ``It was a slave-catching law for slaves that attempted to 
     flee,'' Joe Margulies, an attorney and professor of law and 
     government at Cornell Law School, told Vox. ``It gave 
     citizens the power to grab them. [The law] derives from a 
     racist past.''
       Every state has some version of a citizen's arrest law, 
     though they vary based on the type of crime and whether the 
     citizen must witness the crime directly or just be aware that 
     it happened. In many states, the laws are unclear about how 
     long a citizen is permitted to detain someone, how much 
     probable cause is necessary, and how much force can be used, 
     said Ira P. Robbins, professor of law and justice at American 
     University and the author of an article on citizen's arrest 
     laws for the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Many 
     of the laws also don't specify what it means to carry out a 
     citizen's arrest or to detain someone while making one.
       The laws, according to Robbins, date back to medieval 
     England, where citizens helped the king maintain order by 
     enforcing the laws. The common law doctrine of citizen's 
     arrest was further developed in the early 19th century, and 
     such statutes have remained on the books even as states laid 
     out more modern systems of law enforcement.
       In Alabama, for example, a private person can make a 
     citizen's arrest ``where a felony has committed''--even if 
     they didn't witness it--and when they have ``reasonable cause 
     to believe that the person arrested committed it.'' The law 
     specifies that the arrest can be made ``on any day and at any 
     time,'' outlines the steps that must be taken for a legal 
     arrest, and gives citizens permission to break open doors or 
     windows to capture the alleged offender.
       California allows citizen's arrests if the citizen 
     witnesses a perpetrator committing a misdemeanor, or when a 
     felony ``has been in fact committed, and he has reasonable 
     cause for believing the person arrested to have committed 
     it,'' according to the state's penal code.
       In New York, a citizen can arrest another person if they 
     believe the suspect committed a felony such as murder, first-
     degree manslaughter, or rape. It also lays out the 
     circumstances where deadly physical force may be justified: 
     when the citizen believes it is necessary to defend 
     themselves or a third person against physical force in the 
     course of the crime. (They may not if they know that they 
     ``may avoid the necessity of so doing by retreating.'')
       ``I thought that the uproar over Arbery's murder would lead 
     other states to revisit their statues, but there has not been 
     much [movement],'' Margulies said. ``It certainly has not 
     prompted a wholesale reexamination of citizen's arrest 
     laws.''


                Citizen's arrests can go horribly wrong

       Arbery's killing isn't the first involving Georgia's 
     citizen's arrest law. In 2019, Kenneth Herring, a 62-year-old 
     Black man, was killed by Hannah Payne, a 21-year-old white 
     woman, after he left the scene of a car crash because he was 
     experiencing a diabetic emergency. Payne pursued Herring in 
     her vehicle and ordered him out of his car. It's unclear what 
     happened immediately after that, but Payne shot and killed 
     him. She was indicted on charges of felony murder and malice 
     murder, among others, and is still awaiting trial. Critics 
     say she racially profiled Herring.
       ``Given what we know about implicit and explicit bias, 
     allowing people to chase after someone and seize them based 
     on what they believe was a felony is a recipe for some 
     predictable number of cases just like this,'' Margulies said. 
     ``With the automatic association between blackness and crime, 
     seeing a Black man run by or drive away will lead to some 
     predictable number of cases of folks concluding he's 
     committing a felony. That's the real problem.''
       In 2012, neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, a 
     mixed-race Hispanic man, fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon 
     Martin in Florida after calling 911 and reporting ``a 
     suspicious person''; the police dispatcher instructed him not 
     to approach Martin. Zimmerman, who was later acquitted of 
     second-degree manslaughter, said he acted in self-defense.
       ``When you look at these cases, it's about people trying to 
     protect an area--not protecting it from a crime, but 
     protecting it from certain types of people,'' Rashawn Ray, a 
     sociology professor at the University of Maryland and a 
     senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Vox.
       Citizen's arrest laws can also go wrong in other ways--as 
     in 2014, when a man in Virginia burst into a lecture hall at 
     George Mason University Law School carrying handcuffs, pepper 
     spray, and a Taser-like device in order to execute a 
     citizen's arrest of a professor whom he said had controlled 
     his mind and sexually harassed him. In May 2020, a 22-year-
     old man in Arizona was shot and killed after he witnessed a 
     hit-and-run and chased five people who ran from the scene in 
     an attempt to detain them.
       But in cases with a racial element, the laws are part of 
     the pernicious way that ``place, space, and race'' intersect, 
     Ray said.
       Also factoring into the Arbery trial are Georgia's open 
     carry law (which makes it legal to openly carry firearms in 
     the state with the proper permits) and ``stand your ground'' 
     law (which allows for the use of deadly force if a person 
     reasonably believes it is necessary to prevent death or 
     severe bodily injury).
       ``We will likely hear from the defense attorneys a series 
     of dog whistles about protecting people in that particular 
     community from people who look like Ahmaud Arbery,'' Ray 
     said. ``With laws like the castle doctrine, people will 
     probably believe that good Samaritans have a right to also 
     defend their neighbors' property and that the McMichaels were 
     coming to the defense of others. The defense will try to 
     indicate to jurors that [a burglary] could have happened to 
     them.''
       The trial judge will instruct the jury on the citizen's 
     arrest law as it existed at the time of the killing, though 
     Georgia has since repealed and replaced the law.
       The protests surrounding Arbery's death--which preceded 
     those for Breanna Taylor and George Floyd, arguably setting 
     the stage for what was to come in the summer of 2020--and the 
     nearly two years that have elapsed since then have not 
     inspired a large movement to rethink citizen's arrest laws.
       After the video of Arbery's killing went viral, South 
     Carolina state Rep. Justin Bamberg introduced legislation to 
     repeal the state's 1866 citizen's arrest law. Bamberg said on 
     Twitter that the law was no longer necessary in America's 
     police state.
       In an effort to honor Arbery, New York lawmakers moved to 
     revise the language in the state's citizen's arrest statute, 
     calling the law a ``dangerous and historically abused 
     practice'' that has been ``used by racists to advance their 
     bigoted goals.'' The bill never advanced.
       No matter the verdict, the Arbery trial could draw more 
     attention to the anachronistic rules of citizen's arrest 
     laws.
       ``All of these citizen's arrest cases with a racial element 
     are on the same continuum,'' said Ray, of the University of 
     Maryland and Brookings Institution. ``They end up in the 
     exact same way. They end up with someone being killed.''

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me quickly say that we have the castle law, the 
stand your ground self-defense, and citizen's arrest. I believe all of 
these should be put into the mix of review, and there should be Federal 
law that governs how these State laws are done. Someone is going to 
argue the 10th Amendment and States' rights, but if you have these 
numbers of inequity in killing and justifiable homicides, and race is a 
factor, it needs to stop.
  I know Trayvon Martin's mother and father. They have worked without 
ceasing. This is the saddest and most horrific and heinous results of 
stand your ground self-defense. This young man was just walking with 
Skittles, walking with an iced tea.
  I heard the description of a young man being confronted by a grownup 
and fearing for his life, tumbling to the ground with the grownup and 
was shot point-blank. The grownup was acquitted because of the stand 
your ground self-defense.
  The Federal Government needs to intervene. Ahmaud Arbery, with a 
praying mother, Georgia law requires the witnessing of a crime. I see a 
man running for his life, a man of dignity running for his life. But 
yet, it took three prosecutors to get to the point of acknowledging the 
human dignity, the humanity of this young man.
  We have yet to get justice for this mother's child that is Trayvon 
Martin and many others who have fallen unnoticed under the arm of stand 
your ground self-defense, citizen's arrest, and the castle law.
  I think we should be very clear. I am not looking to take away the 
rights of homeowners legitimately protecting themselves or self-defense 
when there is no other option. But we have allowed gun violence to take 
hold of the psyche and the behavior of America.
  As the Giffords Law Center said, there was a 32 percent increase in 
rates of firearm homicide, a 24 percent increase in rates of homicide 
overall, and a 45 percent increase in firearm homicides among 
adolescents. With the extreme amount of gun violence, we need to 
determine whether or not every

[[Page H6855]]

State self-defense law should be defined specifically, and there should 
be a requirement of retreating where you can.
  We should determine that if there are States with citizen's arrest, 
that the onus is on the individual seeing the crime to call official 
law enforcement. We hope those law enforcement are trained to not take 
action into their own hands, to not allow your judgment to supersede 
those who are trained and wear the uniform.
  The castle law, stand your ground, when you have other options than 
to shoot point-blank and to kill people, and if you are a 17-year-old 
with an AR-15 and you can go into court, and there is not one aspect of 
your behavior that is illegal, then there needs to be a Federal review 
of the State law.
  There was nothing to attribute to this individual that they had 
broken the law coming across State lines, that they provoked the 
incident. Yet, they were able to use, unfortunately, the stand your 
ground self-defense law. Gun violence continues to be a disease in this 
country.
  I would just like to, for a moment, talk more about the citizen's 
arrest. For example, the Georgia citizen's arrest law that was at issue 
in the Arbery trial was codified in section 17-4-60, Grounds for 
arrest: ``A private person may arrest an offender if the offense is 
committed in his presence or within his immediate knowledge. If the 
offense is a felony and the offender is escaping or attempting to 
escape . . . `'
  None of that occurred with Mr. Arbery. It wasn't in their knowledge. 
They didn't see it. The offense wasn't a felony. It might have been 
trespass if it even existed. The defendant was not escaping or 
attempting to escape. He was on a Sunday jog, which you, as a free 
person in the United States, should be allowed to do.
  ``A private person may arrest him upon reasonable and probable 
grounds of suspicion,'' codified from the Civil War in order for 
citizens to really illegally detain runaway slaves. Other Southern 
States enacted similar laws for similar reasons during this period, 
nothing but a figment or an action of Jim Crow laws. It is time for the 
Federal Government to step in.
  I question, with so many guns in America, whether it is safe to 
continue a relic like citizen's arrest. There are 18,000 police 
departments in the United States of America with the right kind of 
training. There is no reason why any individual could not retreat to 
call law enforcement or to call law enforcement appropriately.
  Tonight, I came to honor those whose lives were lost and there was no 
response, none whatsoever. Trayvon Martin becomes singularly that 
symbol, even Tamir Rice or Breonna Taylor or maybe even Eric Garner.
  These cases must be addressed, and I look forward to addressing these 
for the Nation and working to secure hearings and witnesses on how 
wrong these laws are, how unequal they are, how scattered they are, and 
how undefined they are.
  As I close, we must recognize the value of our constitutional 
principles and that little book that is the Bill of Rights that 
guarantees us the freedom of access, due process, the right to vote, a 
constitutional presence in this Nation. These laws under a criminal 
unjust system have to be changed.
  America needs to know that the killing of individuals with no 
adjusting and accountability is unacceptable. I am on the floor this 
evening to indicate that enough is enough and that we must proceed with 
the review of laws that can kill without accountability. In the names 
of those and the loved ones who suffer because they are gone, I commit 
myself to addressing with my colleagues the injustices that exist 
today. No more. No more. I am grateful for Ahmaud Arbery, but no more 
will we stand for this inequity.
  Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary, 
and the author of several key legislative provisions, of H.R. 1280, the 
George Floyd Justice In Policing Act of 2021, I am pleased to anchor 
this Special Order on the importance and urgent need for reforms in the 
criminal justice system to several legal or judicial doctrines that 
that disproportionately, adversely, and unfairly affect black persons, 
particularly black males aged 18-35.
  Specifically, the legal and judicial doctrines I will discuss this 
evening are: (1) self-defense; (2) stand-your-ground laws; and (3) laws 
empowering private citizens to make arrests.
  Let me say at the outset, Madam Speaker, any questions that there 
continues to exist today racial double-standards, disparities, and 
systemic racism in policing and the administration of justice were 
conclusively laid to rest by what social scientists would regard as a 
``natural experiment'' that took place in Washington, D.C. beginning in 
the summer and culminating with the January 6, 2021 insurrection and 
siege of the U.S. Capitol by Trump seditionists incited by the 45th 
President of the United States.
  Mass protests and political rallies that took place in Washington 
D.C. started May 29, 2020, four days after George Floyd died in 
Minnesota, after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for 
more than'' eight minutes.
  By the millions, Americans took to the streets in protest to affirm 
that no longer will the people of this country tolerate or acquiesce in 
horrible policing practices that include excessive and unnecessary uses 
of lethal force that has diminished community trust of policing 
practices across the country and has angered and terrified communities 
of color who are overwhelmingly and disproportionately its innocent 
victims.
  Within days of the demonstrations, U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr 
announced that multiple law enforcement agencies, including the 
National Guard, Secret Service and Federal Bureau of Investigation, 
would ``flood the zone'' in D.C.
  Thousands of law enforcement officials, armed with tear gas, rubber 
bullets and firearms were deployed to protect the city.
  Hundreds of people were arrested, D.C. police records show.
  More than 300 were arrested on June 1, 2020, the day Attorney General 
Barr ordered law enforcement to forcefully clear peaceful protesters 
from a perimeter near the White House, making room for President Trump 
to pose for cameras while waving a Bible in front of St. John's 
Episcopal Church.
  It was the largest number of arrests recorded for any day during the 
summer of events.
  Across the nation, law enforcement made an estimated 14,000 arrests 
in 49 U.S. cities during anti-racism protests in the summer of 2020, 
according to the Washington Post.
  Following the November 3, 2020 election of Joe Biden and running mate 
Kamala Harris, large groups of Trump supporters held rallies in the 
city, where they clashed with counter-protesters.
  Police made 20 arrests during the so-called Million MAGA March on 
November 14, 2020, an event in which Trump-supporters, including white 
nationalists, far-right extremist groups, and conservative politicians 
gathered in D.C. to protest the election results.
  And, incredibly, only 61 arrests were made of rioters, who were 
overwhelming white and who used violence, that stormed the Capitol on 
January 6, an attack that claimed the lives of at least six persons, 
injured hundreds of others, caused horrific damage to property and 
national treasures, and inflicted emotional scars that will not heal 
for generations.
  But most of these arrests are related to charges involving curfew 
violations--D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser announced a 6 p.m. curfew, though 
mobs had broken into the Capitol hours earlier, around 1:30 p.m.
  There were only four non-curfew-related arrests, compared to 40 non-
curfew-related arrests during Black Lives Matter protests on June 1, 
2020.
  Madam Speaker, the horrifying killing of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 
by a Minneapolis police office shocked and awakened the moral 
consciousness of the nation.
  Untold millions saw the terrifying last 8:46 of life drained from a 
black man, George Floyd, taking his last breaths face down in the 
street with his neck under the knee of a police officer who, along with 
his three cohorts, was indifferent to his cries for help and pleas that 
he ``can't breathe.''
  The civil disobedience witnessed nightly in the streets of America in 
response to the killing of George Floyd were also in memory of 
countless acts of the inequality and cruelty visited upon young African 
American men and women no longer with us in body but forever with us in 
memory.
  Beloved souls like Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky; Stephon 
Clark in Sacramento, California; Eric Garner and Sean Bell in New York 
City; Sandra Bland in Waller County, Texas; Jordan Baker in Houston, 
Texas; 12-year old Tamir Rice in Cleveland; and Michael Brown in 
Ferguson, Missouri.
  They remember as well the senseless killings of Ahmaud Arbery and 
Trayvon Martin by self-appointed vigilantes.
  And the continuing need for their activism was reflected in the 
outrageous and senseless slaughter of Rayshard Brooks, who was simply 
sleeping in his car at a local Wendy's restaurant, by a uniformed 
officer of the Atlanta Police Department.
  It was reflected again on August 23, 2020, when a Kenosha Police 
Department officer

[[Page H6856]]

shot Jacob S. Blake, a 29-year-old black man, in the back seven times--
yes, seven--as he attempted to enter his SUV where three of his young 
sons were in the back seat.
  Indeed, the history goes back much further, past Amidon Diallo in New 
York City, past the Central Park Five, past Emmitt Till, past the 
racist abuse of law enforcement power during the struggle for civil 
rights and equal treatment.
  Madam Speaker, the times we are in demand that action be taken and 
that is precisely what my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, 
on the Judiciary Committee, and Congressional Democrats did in 
introducing and steering to passage in the House of H.R. 1280, the 
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
  I support this bold legislation not just as a senior member of the 
House Judiciary Committee who also served on the House Working Group on 
Police Strategies, but also a mother of a young African American male 
who knows the anxiety that African American mothers feel until they can 
hug their sons and daughters who return home safely, and on behalf of 
all those relatives and friends who grieve over the loss a loved one 
whose life and future was wrongly and cruelly interrupted or ended by 
mistreatment at the hands of the police.
  The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 is designed to 
destroy the pillars of systemic racism in policing practices that has 
victimized communities of color, and especially African Americans for 
decades, is overdue, too long overdue.
  This legislation puts the Congress of the United States goes on 
record against racial profiling in policing and against the excessive, 
unjustified, and discriminatory use of lethal and force by law 
enforcement officers against persons of color.
  The legislation means no longer will employment of practices that 
encourage systemic mistreatment of persons because of their race be 
ignored or tolerated.
  When the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is finally signed into 
law, the government of the United States will be declaring firmly, 
forcefully, and unequivocally that Black Lives Matter.
  It is true all lives matter, they always have.
  But that Black lives matter too, and in so many other areas of civic 
life, this nation has not always lived up to its promise but that the 
promise is worthy of fulfilling.
  In general, self-defense is a legal justification for the otherwise 
illegal use of force.
  In the instance of self-defense that results in a death, although an 
unlawful killing did occur, it is considered a justified killing.
  Typically, to succeed on self-defense grounds requires: (1) an 
unprovoked attack (i.e. the killer was not the aggressor), (2) the 
killer reasonably believed that they were in imminent danger of death 
or serious bodily injury, and (3) the use of force was reasonable to 
the perceived threat.
  Additionally, self-defense laws traditionally place a duty to retreat 
on the killer, requiring retreat prior to using deadly force, but only 
if retreat is reasonably possible and will not place the individual in 
continued danger.
  The ``castle doctrine'' is an expansion of self-defense laws--both 
statutory and at common law--in which removes the duty to retreat for 
self-defense on individuals inside their own home.
  This principle has been codified and expanded by the majority of 
state legislatures in a variety of ways, including through so-called 
``stand-your-ground laws.''
  Stand-your-ground laws are an extension of the Castle Doctrine to 
areas outside of an individual's home such that there is no duty to 
retreat for self-defense justification.
  The name is derived from statutory language found in several of state 
laws that states that an individual may ``stand his or her ground.''
  Laws in at least 25 states do not require the retreat from an 
attacker in any place in which one is lawfully present: Alabama, 
Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, 
Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New 
Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, 
South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
  Additionally, seven states have expanded castle doctrine to motor 
vehicles or the workplace: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Nebraska, 
North Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
  Stand-your-ground laws came under national scrutiny during the trial 
of George Zimmerman, who was acquitted in the 2012 shooting death of 
Trayvon Martin.
  In that case, Martin, 17, was walking home after buying Skittles from 
a nearby convenience store.
  At the time, Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer who called 
police after spotting Martin.
  Despite being told by the 911 operator to remain in his car until 
officers arrived, Zimmerman instead confronted Martin.
  It remains unclear whether a fight ensued, who was the aggressor and 
whether Zimmerman had injuries consistent with his claims of being 
beaten up by Martin.
  Zimmerman was the sole survivor; Martin, who was unarmed, died from a 
gunshot wound.
  Florida's stand-your-ground law is codified in Florida Code 776.012 
(2): A person is justified in using or threatening to use deadly force 
if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such 
force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to 
himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of 
a forcible felony. A person who uses or threatens to use deadly force 
in accordance with this subsection does not have a duty to retreat and 
has the right to stand his or her ground if the person using or 
threatening to use the deadly force is not engaged in a criminal 
activity and is in a place where he or she has a right to be.
  According to the Urban Institute Report, the rate of justifiable 
homicides is almost six times higher in case with attributes that match 
the Trayvon Martin case.
  Racial disparities are much larger, as white-on-black homicides have 
justifiable findings 33 percentage points more often than black-on-
white homicides.
  Stand Your Ground laws appear to exacerbate those differences, as 
cases overall are significantly more likely to be ruled justified in 
SYG states than in non-SYG states.
  With respect to race, controlling for all other case attributes, the 
odds a white-on-black homicide is found justified is 281 percent 
greater than the odds a white-on-white homicide is found justified.
  By contrast, a black-on-white homicide has barely half the odds of 
being ruled justifiable relative to white-on-white homicides
  Statistically, black-on-black homicides have the same odds of ( being 
ruled justifiable as white-on-white homicides.
  White men are more likely to successfully invoke the use of stand 
your ground laws for their defense after a shooting than Black 
Americans or women, especially Black women.
  Nationally, the likelihood of a homicide being ruled justified is 281 
percent greater when the defendant is white and the victim is Black 
when compared to cases where both the defendant and victim are white.
  In contrast, the likelihood of a homicide being ruled justified when 
the defendant is Black and the victim white is 49 percent lower 
compared to cases where both the defendant and victim are white
  States with stand your ground laws specifically are linked to a 65 
percent increase in the odds of a homicide being ruled justified, 
driven primarily by cases where the defendant is white.
   When a white person shoots a Black person in a stand your ground 
state, the odds that the homicide will be ruled justified increase by 
seven percentage points.
  According to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, in 68 percent of 
successful stand your ground law claims in Florida, the person killed 
was unarmed.
  One study of cases in which stand your ground was used as a defense 
in Florida from 2005 through 2012 found that in 79 percent of the cases 
where such claims succeeded, the defendant could have retreated to 
avoid the confrontation.
  States have deemed justified killings of victims who were facing 
away, retreating or even lying on the ground when they were shot.
  One in three stand your ground defendants in Florida had a documented 
history of illegally carrying a gun or threatening others with a gun.
  In nearly a third of Florida's stand your ground self-defense claims, 
the defendant initiated the conflict.
  A number of studies examining homicide and violent crime rates 
consistently show that the passage of stand your ground laws increase 
homicides and gun injuries.
  One study analyzed ten years (2000-2010) of FBI data in 21 states 
that passed stand your ground laws during the study period.
  The authors found that there was no evidence that these laws reduce 
burglary, robbery, or aggravated assault.
  On the contrary, this study found that the passage of stand your 
ground laws was linked to an 8 percent increase in the number of 
homicides, translating to an additional 600 homicides annually across 
states that adopted such laws.
  A subsequent paper that examined vital statistics reported by the CDC 
found a similar increase of 7.5 percent in the overall firearm homicide 
rate as a result of stand your ground laws.
  This study also found that stand your ground laws increase emergency 
room visits for nonfatal firearm injuries using data from State 
Emergency Department Databases.
  Finally, according to Gifford's Law Center, lead to:
  A 32 percent increase in rates of firearm homicide and a 24 percent 
increase in rates of homicide overall;
  A 45 percent increase in firearm homicides among adolescents.

[[Page H6857]]

  The law of citizen's arrest dates to 13th century England--a time 
when modern-day cops would be unrecognizable.
  The practice immigrated to the American colonies and quickly became a 
convenient legal pretext for the persecution of the enslaved 
population.
  Today, killings under citizen arrest speak to a key social 
psychological concept: subjective uncertainty, which states that when 
there is minimal information, people rely on stereotypes to 
discriminate.
  The nation saw this clearly in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, whose only 
crime was being Black at the wrong place and wrong time, that 
discrimination resulted in homicide.
  Beginning in the mid-1600s, enforcing the subjugation of Black 
Americans was a public responsibility: volunteer militias gave way to 
formal slave patrols, which wielded citizen's arrest statutes to 
brazenly and legally intimidate the Black population.
  In the British colonies and the new United States, citizen's arrest 
melded with efforts to prevent slave escapes with the formation of 
slave patrols and fugitive slave ads that offered bounties for the 
return of freedom-seekers who, if caught, were frequently brutally 
punished.
  Fugitive slave vigilantism was even incorporated into the United 
States Constitution with the agreement that all states would return 
captured slaves to bondage.
  Following the passage of the 13th Amendment and the creation of the 
Ku Klux Klan, armed white vigilantes, under the cover of citizen's 
arrest laws, were able to terrorize Black Americans into a new form of 
subservience.
  Through the 19th and 20th centuries, some state courts explicitly 
codified citizen's arrests laws; other states still rely on common law 
precedents. These pro-vigilante laws are in 49 of America's 50 states 
in one form or another.
  Some might argue that the intent of citizen's arrests can be 
separated from its racist applications, but such a separation is 
impossible when the letter of the law is actively racist.
  Georgia's laws were formally codified in 1861 by Thomas Cobb, a 
lawyer and slaveholder.
  In the original code, African Americans were assumed to be enslaved 
unless they could prove free status.
  Georgia's Citizen's Arrest statues were first entered into the Law 
Code of Georgia in 1863.
  In 1863, Georgia law enforcement was in serious disarray--
confederates were deserting, the Union army was preparing to invade the 
state, and enslaved people were fleeing plantations to join Union 
forces.
  With its criminal justice system in a state of collapse, the 1863 
code revision empowered white Georgians to replace law enforcement and 
slave patrols to keep the enslaved Black population under control. 
After the Civil War, citizen's arrest supported Ku Klux Klan violence 
against Black Georgians.
  On January 22, 1912, four African Americans in Hamilton--three men 
and a woman--were citizen's arrested and lynched, accused of killing a 
white planter who was sexually abusing Black girls and women.
  On July 25, 1946, two African American couples were dragged from 
their car at Moore's Ford in Walton County and shot about sixty times 
by a mob of white men making a ``citizen's arrest.''
  No one was ever charged with their murders.
  Every African American parent, and every African America child, knows 
all too well `The Talk' and the importance of abiding by the rules for 
surviving interactions with the police and vigilantees.
  As I have stated many times, direct action is vitally important but 
to be effective it must be accompanied by political, legislative, and 
governmental action, which is necessary because the strength and 
foundation of democratic government rests upon the consent and 
confidence of the governed.
  Effective enforcement of the law and administration of justice 
requires the confidence of the community that the law will be enforced 
impartially and that all persons are treated equally without regard to 
race or ethnicity or religion or national origin.
  As the great jurist Judge Learned Hand said: ``If we are to keep our 
democracy, there must be one commandment: thou shalt not ration 
justice.''
  Equal justice is the proud promise America makes to all persons; the 
George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021 will help make that 
promise a lived reality for African Americans, who have not ever known 
it to be true in the area of community-police relations.
  And when Black Lives Matter, then and only then can it truthfully be 
said that all lives matter.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________