Criminal Enforcement
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION’S
FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
Born in Reconstruction and strengthened in the years since, federal criminal civil rights enforcement has been a core Civil Rights Division mission. For decades, the Division has brought prosecutions of police abuse, hate crimes, human trafficking, and reproductive health clinic violence, vindicating rights, holding perpetrators accountable, and reinforcing the rule of law.
CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION'S FOUNDATIONAL APPROACH
Criminal civil rights enforcement at the Department of Justice predates the formal establishment of the Civil Rights Division in 1957. In the years following the Civil War, Congress enacted statutes to address racial violence and intimidation directed at Black people, particularly where state and local authorities failed to act. These laws reflected Congress’s judgment that the federal government must serve as a backstop to ensure accountability when individuals violate people’s basic civil rights through violence or official abuse of power.
Upon its establishment, the Division assumed responsibility for the enforcement of federal criminal civil rights laws. In its earliest years, the Division’s criminal work focused on some of the most notorious acts of racial terror in American history. Decades later, the Division continued to play a role in seeking accountability for historic civil rights crimes, including participating in the federal investigation of Dr. King’s assassination in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Over time, Congress expanded the federal criminal civil rights framework. The Division’s criminal enforcement came to focus primarily on misconduct by law enforcement and other government actors, hate and bias-motivated crimes, interference with access to reproductive health services, and human trafficking.
Criminal Misconduct by Law Enforcement and Government Actors
Holding government actors accountable for criminal civil rights violations has long been a core function of the Civil Rights Division. Over the decades, the Division has been involved in some of the most consequential civil rights prosecutions in the nation’s history—from the convictions of seven individuals involved in the murders of three civil rights workers during Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964, to the federal prosecutions of Los Angeles Police Department officers following the beating of Rodney King in 1991, and the convictions of officers involved in the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.
The Division’s work in this area has addressed willful violations of constitutional rights by federal, state, and local police and correctional officers, including uses of excessive force and racially motivated torture as recently as 2023. The Division has also prosecuted cases involving sexual abuse by government officials, including abuse committed in federal correctional facilities.
This work has been grounded primarily in two Reconstruction-era statutes: 18 U.S.C. § 242 (Section 242), which criminalizes the willful deprivation of constitutional or federal rights by anyone acting under “color of law,” and 18 U.S.C. § 241, commonly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, which makes it a crime to conspire to violate a person’s civil rights.
Because federal law enforcement agencies engage in street-level enforcement less frequently than state and local agencies, prosecutions of federal officers under Section 242 have historically been relatively rare and have most often involved custodial settings, particularly within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. When credible allegations of serious misconduct by federal officers do arise, such matters have traditionally been referred to the Division given its unique expertise and longstanding role in investigating and prosecuting law enforcement misconduct.
Read more about the Division’s policing work.
Hate and Bias-Motivated Crimes
The Civil Rights Division has played a central role in prosecuting hate crimes—acts of violence or threats motivated by bias based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. Congress enacted the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in 2009 to expand federal authority to address bias-motivated violence, close gaps in prior law, and ensure accountability where state or local responses were inadequate. Since then, the Division has brought hate crime prosecutions of profound national significance, including after the 2020 racially motivated killing of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, the 2018 antisemitic mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, and the 2019 murder of Dime Doe, a Black transgender woman from South Carolina.
Human Trafficking
The Civil Rights Division developed deep expertise in prosecuting complex human trafficking cases involving forced labor and sex trafficking through force, fraud, or coercion, including trafficking of children and adults, domestic victims, and individuals exploited through transnational networks. This work expanded following Congress’s enactment of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
Access to Reproductive Healthcare Services
In 1994, Congress enacted the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in response to widespread violence, threats, and physical obstruction targeting reproductive health providers and patients. Since then, the Civil Rights Division has enforced these criminal protections to address violence and intimidation at reproductive health clinics, regardless of viewpoint. Read more about the Division’s reproductive health services work.
Cold Case Investigations
In addition to contemporary prosecutions, the Civil Rights Division has investigated unresolved civil rights cold cases involving racially motivated violence committed before 1980, pursuant to the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. This work has included investigations into historic acts of racial terror, such as the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, reflecting the federal government’s commitment to uncover the truth, formally acknowledge past atrocities, and confront their lasting harms, even where prosecutions are no longer possible.
WHAT’S CHANGED SINCE
JANUARY 20, 2025?
Civil Rights Division political leadership has diminished the scope of criminal civil rights prosecutions and redirected them in troubling ways. Driving out career staff, reducing indictments, curtailing prosecutions protecting access to reproductive health clinics, and pulling back from police misconduct investigations diminish accountability for civil rights violations and erode confidence in the Department’s commitment to the rule of law.
WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE JANUARY 20, 2025?
Diminished Capacity to Pursue Criminal Civil Rights Enforcement
While some criminal civil rights prosecutions continue, actions by Civil Rights Division leadership to push out, transfer, and sideline career attorneys have resulted in a significant loss of personnel dedicated to criminal civil rights enforcement. Based on an analysis of the Department’s press releases, there has been more than a 60% reduction in criminal civil rights indictments and charges from January 20, 2025–January 19, 2026, compared to the previous year. Read more about the Division’s staffing changes.
Retreat From Access to Reproductive Health Clinics Prosecutions and Use of FACE Act for Places of Religious Worship
Within days of taking office in January 2025, President Trump issued full and unconditional presidential pardons to 24 individuals criminally convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act at reproductive health clinics from 2023-2024, while declining to pardon individuals convicted of FACE Act violations at pregnancy centers that counsel against abortions.
While claiming that the Civil Rights Division’s prior FACE Act work did not reflect “the even-handed administration of justice,” the Department issued a new policy in January 2025 that raises significant concerns that the Division will enforce the FACE Act differently based on viewpoint. Specifically, the Division announced that “future abortion-related” FACE Act prosecutions and civil actions would only be pursued in “extraordinary circumstances” or “cases presenting significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage.” At the same time, it vowed to pursue FACE Act enforcement for obstructions at pregnancy crisis centers, a two-tiered approach that favors anti-abortion proponents and raises concerns of viewpoint discrimination in violation of the First Amendment.
As the Division largely abandoned prosecutions focused on access to reproductive healthcare—the primary purpose of the FACE Act—it has aggressively invoked the Act’s provision addressing force, threats, and physical obstruction at places of religious worship. The Division charged protesters in a nonviolent demonstration against immigration enforcement at Cities Church in Minnesota, as well as journalist Don Lemon and his producer, who were reporting on the event, with FACE Act violations.
The Division has historically not prosecuted cases under the religious-worship provision due to concerns about the constitutionality of that provision. Instead, it has relied on statutes such as the 18 U.S.C. § 241 and the Church Arson Prevention Act, which are better suited to addressing this conduct, have been held constitutional by the courts, and provide more robust potential penalties. Read more about the Division’s reproductive health services work.
Retreat from Investigating and Prosecuting Law Enforcement Misconduct
Since January 2025, the Civil Rights Division has signaled a retreat from its traditional role in investigating and prosecuting law enforcement misconduct. This shift is occurring against the backdrop of a vastly expanded federal law enforcement presence in street-level policing.
In January 2026, the Division reportedly declined to investigate fatal shootings by federal officers in Minneapolis of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Bystander video raised questions about the lawfulness of the force used. Although the Department eventually opened an investigation into Pretti’s killing with limited or nonexistent Division involvement, its decision not to pursue an investigation into Good’s death or other problematic incidents raises concerns about independence, credibility, and accountability in cases involving federal law enforcement. Read more about the Pretti investigation.
Even where the Division had already secured indictments or convictions for serious misconduct by state and local law enforcement, it has taken steps to minimize or abandon that work. In one case involving an officer convicted for using excessive force after firing blindly into Breonna Taylor’s home, the Division sought a sentence of just one day—time served. In another, it moved to dismiss the indictment of two Tennessee officers indicted for beating a man then attempting to hide it, shortly before trial without public explanation.
Read more about these cases, below. Visit Red Line’s Policing page to learn more about the Division’s policing work.
Moving the Human Trafficking Unit From the Civil Rights Division to the Department’s Criminal Division
The Department moved the Human Trafficking Unit from the Civil Rights Division to the Criminal Division, a shift that may have implications for how trafficking enforcement is framed and pursued. Congress has long treated human trafficking as a civil rights violation with a strong victim-centered focus, and it remains unclear whether this organizational move signals a departure from that approach or will meaningfully alter enforcement in practice.
Tracking the Changes
Criminal Enforcement Cases Shut Down Since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
United States v. Trevor Kirk
24-cr-00527 (C.D. Cal.), Nos. 25-3607, 25-5125, 25-5200 (9th Cir.)
In a striking example of the administration’s efforts to shield law enforcement officers from accountability, DOJ intervened after a jury convicted Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Trevor Kirk of using excessive force—a felony civil rights violation—working to dismiss its own prosecution and ultimately appealing the court’s rulings when those efforts failed.
In February 2025, a jury convicted Kirk of a felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law for using unreasonable force against a then 58-year-old Black woman he detained outside a grocery store in June 2023. Video footage shows Kirk grabbing the woman by the neck, effectively slamming her to the concrete, kneeling on her, and pepper-spraying her face. He then left her in a closed patrol car without fresh air in the dead of summer. After the incident, he allegedly submitted a factually inaccurate police report. Kirk faced a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
Following DOJ’s successful conviction, and after President Trump took office and appointed Bill Essayli as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, DOJ added prosecutor Robert Keenan to the case.
On May 1, 2025, Keenan filed a rare post-verdict plea agreement seeking to reduce Kirk’s felony conviction to a misdemeanor with a recommended sentence of one year of probation. Members of the trial team refused to sign the agreement, according to the Wall Street Journal. The next day, four prosecutors withdrew from the case, including the chief of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section. Sources confirmed to the LA Times that three of those four ultimately resigned in protest.
Keenan later sought dismissal of Kirk’s felony charge altogether, accusing the government of prosecuting the case in an improper way and presenting “potentially misleading evidence.” The court struck the felony allegations from the indictment, but declined to accept the government’s sentencing recommendation, finding it did “not match the facts of this case.” As the court explained, “[p]olice officers are entrusted with protecting the public, not harming them,“ and Kirk “broke that trust.” The court sentenced Kirk to four months in prison plus a year of supervised release on June 3, 2025.
In another aggressive attempt to prevent jail time for Kirk, on July 29, 2025, Keenan filed a motion to dismiss the entire case and vacate the verdict, later arguing in court that his office had misled the jury and characterizing the force used as “just barely excessive.” The court rejected that motion on August 8, 2025, finding that the government had offered no new evidence and “did not bring this motion to ‘do justice,’” but “to ensure that [its] sentencing position, not the Court’s, takes effect.” The court added that “dismissing proceedings after adverse rulings by the Court seriously undermines the authority of the Court and is definitely against the interests of the public.”
The government appealed.
On March 23, 2026, the Civil Rights Division joined in the effort and filed DOJ’s opening brief (corrected May 13, 2026) in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the case should have been dismissed. Keenan—who had since transferred to the Civil Rights Division as a Senior Counsel and was now serving as an Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General—appears on the brief. DOJ’s brief cites concerns about the “fairness of the trial” and alleged trial and indictment errors, including that the indictment “contained an irrelevant and unfair reference to the victim’s race.”
Given the absence of a party to defend the district court’s ruling, the Ninth Circuit appointed Erwin Chemerinsky to do so. His June 22 brief asserts that courts have discretion to deny motions to dismiss indictments that are contrary to the public interest. That’s the case here, he argues: DOJ moved to nullify the lawfully imposed sentence against Kirk, “not because new evidence emerged, not because the prosecution lacks merit, but because the Executive Branch disagrees with the Judiciary’s sentencing decision.”
Meanwhile, in July 2026, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $3 million payout to settle a civil lawsuit related to the incident.
United States v. Joshua Jaynes & Kyle Meany
22-cr-00085 (W.D. Ky.)
In August 2022, the Civil Rights Division announced it had charged two Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers, former Detective Joshua Jaynes and Sergeant Kyle Meany, for their roles in the death of Breonna Taylor on March 13, 2020. As laid out in the Division’s superseding indictment filed in October 2024, the officers were charged under 18 U.S.C. § 242 for depriving Ms. Taylor of her rights under color of law by knowingly drafting and approving a false warrant affidavit, which was used to obtain the no-knock search warrant that ultimately resulted in her death. The Division invoked two penalty enhancements under § 242 for violations that result in bodily injury or death, which made the charges felonies carrying a potential sentence of ten years or life. Jaynes was also charged under 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 1519 for conspiring to falsify a document and lie to investigators to cover up their involvement, and Meany was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 with lying to a federal investigator. Neither officer was at the scene of the shooting.
On August 20, 2025, a federal judge dismissed the most serious charges against Jaynes and Meany: the felony charges under § 242 for drafting and approving the false warrant affidavit. Though the court was “seriously troubled” by the officers’ alleged falsehoods, it concluded the penalty enhancements for § 242 violations that result in bodily injury or death did not apply to Jaynes and Meany because the legal cause of death was the force used by the officers on the scene. Without the penalty enhancements, the remaining charges under § 242 for drafting and approving the false warrant affidavit were misdemeanors. Both officers continued to face the other remaining charges, including Jaynes’ felony counts for conspiracy and obstruction, which carried a maximum sentence of 25 years, and Meany’s felony charge for obstruction, with a potential sentence of 5 years.
On March 20, 2026, the Division filed a motion to dismiss the remaining charges against Jaynes and Meany. The Division told the court it had “determined that this case should be dismissed in the interest of justice,” but provided no other explanation. The Division later told ABC News that the charges represented “inappropriate, weaponized federal overreach.” The move drew swift criticism from Ms. Taylor’s mother, who said her daughter was “killed because of their lies and negligence, and somebody should be held accountable for that.” She also expressed her “extreme disappointment” in the Department of Justice, saying that the phone call she received informing her that the charges were being dropped “while implying they have helped me” was “utterly disrespectful” and was the first time she had heard from DOJ since the change in administration, adding, “it’s clear they have not served me or Breonna well.”
On March 27, 2026, the judge granted the government’s motion to dismiss and closed the case. This follows the Division’s unsuccessful attempt in June 2025 to seek a sentence of one day for Brett Hankinson, the LMPD officer convicted of using excessive force after he blindly fired ten shots through a covered window into Ms. Taylor’s home. It also follows the Division’s May 2025 withdrawal of the proposed consent decree and retraction of its investigative findings in United States v. Louisville Metro/Jefferson County Government, where the United States found LMPD routinely used excessive force and conducted searches based on invalid warrants after a multi-year investigation.
United States v. Zach Ferguson & Eric Caperton
23-cr-00006 (M.D. Tenn)
On July 25, 2023, the Civil Rights Division announced it had obtained a federal grand jury indictment charging two Lawrence County, Tennessee, law enforcement officers with federal civil rights violations under 18 U.S.C. § 242 and obstruction offenses arising from their alleged beating of a 61-year-old man during an October 2020 arrest and their attempts to hide their alleged misconduct.
On November 10, 2025, without any stated reason, the Division filed a motion to dismiss the case, just before it was set to go to trial.
United States v. Hankinson
22-cr-00084 (W.D. Ky.)
On July 16, 2025, the Civil Rights Division filed a sentencing memorandum seeking a sentence of one day (as time served) for a former Louisville Metro Police Department officer, Brett Hankinson, who was convicted of using excessive force after he blindly fired ten shots through a covered window into Breonna Taylor’s home. Following a two-week trial, a jury found Mr. Hankinson guilty under 18 U.S.C. § 242 of violating Ms. Taylor’s civil rights under color of law.
The sentencing recommendation is a striking departure from the Division’s longstanding efforts to hold officers accountable for willful violations of constitutional rights under 18 U.S.C. § 242.
The judge rejected the Division’s recommendation and sentenced the former officer to 33 months in federal prison.
United States v. Williams
22-cr-00684 (S.D.N.Y.)
On February 22, 2024, a jury convicted Bevelyn Williams of violating the FACE Act. The defendant threatened and used force against staff and patients at a reproductive health clinic in Manhattan on two days in June 2020, including by holding a door closed, crushing a staff member’s hand, and livestreaming herself threatening to “terrorize this place” and act “by any means necessary.” Williams was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
On January 23, 2025, President Trump granted her a full and unconditional pardon.
United States v. Zastrow (Criminal)
23-cr-20100 (E.D. Mich.)
On August 20, 2024, a jury convicted seven defendants of felony conspiracy charges and a FACE Act offense arising out of events in Sterling Heights, Michigan in 2020. Two of those defendants were also convicted of a second FACE Act offense arising out of a blockade of a reproductive health clinic in Saginaw, Michigan in 2021. An eighth defendant pleaded guilty. The defendants blockaded the Sterling Heights reproductive health clinic, preventing a patient from receiving needed care while stalling police and stopping a clinic employee from entering the clinic. In Saginaw, the defendants blockaded the doors to the clinic with their bodies, a doorstop, and a bicycle lock.
On January 23, 2025, President Trump granted all eight defendants a full and unconditional pardon before sentencing.
United States v. Gallagher
22-cr-00327 (M.D. Tenn.)
Between January and April 2024, ten defendants were found guilty of violating the FACE Act. Six of those defendants were also found guilty of federal conspiracy charges. An eleventh defendant pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges. The defendants obstructed a reproductive health clinic on the second floor of a medical building in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, in 2021 by blocking the main clinic door, preventing all patients from accessing the clinic. Local police requested that the defendants leave or move multiple times. After more than two hours, police arrested the defendants. The leader of the blockade was sentenced to 16 months in prison, with others receiving lesser sentences.
On January 23, 2025, President Trump granted all eleven defendants a full and unconditional pardon.
United States v. Handy
22-cr-00096 (D.D.C.)
Between August and November of 2023, three separate trials resulted in convictions of nine defendants on felony conspiracy charges and criminal FACE Act offenses. A tenth defendant pleaded guilty to those offenses. The defendants forcefully entered a reproductive health clinic in Washington, D.C. in 2020, where they blockaded two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes and live-streamed their activities. The defendants also used a physical obstruction to injure, intimidate, and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient in medical distress, who collapsed in pain after she was unable to enter the facility. The defendants’ sentences ranged from 10 to 57 months in prison.
On January 23, 2025, President Trump granted all 10 defendants a full and unconditional pardon.
United States v. Moscinski
22-cr-00485 (E.D.N.Y.)
In January 2023, Christopher Moscinski, who goes by Father Fidelis, was found guilty of violating the FACE Act by shutting down a Hempstead reproductive health clinic when he placed locks and chains on the gated entrance and covered some of them with glue, which prevented anyone from getting through the gate. After the fire and police departments eventually cut through the locks, he lay down in front of the entrance to prevent cars from going through the gate. The court sentenced Moscinski to six months in prison in June 2023.
When President Trump took office in January 2025, he gave Moscinski a full and unconditional pardon.
Criminal Enforcement Cases Pursued Since January 20, 2025
Red Line does not include every Civil Rights Division case. Learn what Red Line tracks.
Mark Houck, Ryan-Marie Houck, and Their Minor Children v. United States et al.
24-cv-02151 (E.D. Pa.), No. 25-1433 (3d. Cir.)
The Department of Justice agreed to pay $1.1 million to an anti-abortion protester to settle his malicious prosecution lawsuit against the United States—a lawsuit that a federal judge had already dismissed with prejudice.
Following a physical altercation with a 72-year-old volunteer clinic escort outside a Philadelphia Planned Parenthood in October 2021, anti-abortion activist Mark Houck was arrested in September 2022, charged by a grand jury with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, and ultimately acquitted by a jury at trial in January 2023.
Houck and his wife then sued the United States, alleging federal agents used excessive force during the arrest and that the Department had engaged in malicious and retaliatory prosecution and abuse of process. The Department of Justice defended against the lawsuit. On March 5, 2025, the court rejected the Houcks’ claims, noting that their complaint “generates considerably more heat than light” and that their “indignation is not a substitute for plausibility.”
Houck appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on March 11, 2025.
In December 2025, before the appeal was resolved or even briefed, the Department of Justice agreed (subject to final internal approval) to pay Houck $1.1 million to settle his claims. Houck withdrew his appeal in February 2026. The settlement was publicly announced on April 9, 2026, by 40 Days for Life, which represented Houck in the litigation.
News of the settlement came just days before the release of a false and misleading report by the Department of Justice’s “Weaponization Working Group,” which spent nearly 900 pages attempting to recast the Division’s prior enforcement of the FACE Act as “weaponization” against anti-abortion activists and attacking civil servants for evenhandedly enforcing the statute passed by Congress to address coordinated blockades and a surge of violence against clinic staff. Houck’s arrest features heavily in the report.
It is highly unusual for the federal government to pay to settle civil claims it has already defeated on the merits, much less for more than $1 million. The settlement has no apparent basis on the merits, and instead appears to serve as a political reward, financed by the public, to an ideologically aligned litigant whose lawsuit a federal court found legally meritless.
The settlement is consistent with the current administration’s broader record of asymmetrical FACE Act enforcement: issuing presidential pardons for 24 defendants convicted of violating the FACE Act at clinics that provide abortions while declining pardons for defendants whose violations took place at crisis pregnancy centers; dismissing all pending civil FACE Act cases; and implementing a two-tiered policy prohibiting prosecutions of FACE Act violations at abortion clinics unless there are “extraordinary circumstances” while simultaneously vowing to prosecute cases involving obstruction or threats at crisis pregnancy centers and places of worship. Together, these actions signal that the Department’s FACE Act enforcement decisions now turn on the viewpoint of the defendant rather than the conduct alleged.
Reported Investigation of Cassidy Hutchinson for Allegedly Lying to Congress
According to New York Times reporting on April 7, 2026, the Civil Rights Division is investigating whether Cassidy Hutchinson—a former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows during the first Trump administration and a key witness before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol—made false statements to Congress in her June 2022 testimony. The investigation follows a March 2026 criminal referral from Republican lawmakers Barry Loudermilk and Jim Jordan to the Department of Justice, which President Trump amplified on social media.
The Department has not publicly announced or confirmed the existence of an investigation. Approving the investigation was reportedly one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s final decisions before being fired by President Trump.
If accurate, involvement of the Civil Rights Division would mark a significant departure from longstanding Department practice. Allegations that a witness made false statements to Congress would ordinarily be investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, likely in conjunction with the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. The staffing of the Public Integrity Section has been severely depleted during the current Trump administration.
The Civil Rights Division does not enforce statutes governing alleged false statements to Congress. Within the Department of Justice, criminal and civil statutes are assigned to specific components based on subject-matter expertise. The Division’s criminal jurisdiction is limited to enforcing federal civil rights laws, including statutes addressing hate crimes, law enforcement misconduct, and access to reproductive healthcare. When prosecuting civil rights offenses, the Division may include additional non-civil rights charges that arise from the same conduct, but it does not independently investigate or prosecute stand-alone violations unrelated to civil rights. Although it is not clear which office within the Division is conducting this investigation, this investigation would add an additional strain on the Criminal Section, which has experienced significant staffing losses along with the entire Division.
Investigation of the Killing of Charlie Kirk
The Civil Rights Division is investigating the September 2025 killing of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and an influential conservative leader credited with playing a critical role in President Trump’s 2024 election. The suspect faces state charges including aggravated murder, with Utah prosecutors seeking the death penalty. The Division is reportedly pursuing a parallel federal investigation of the killing as an anti-Christian hate crime.
The Department of Justice confirmed the Civil Rights Division’s involvement publicly—if obliquely—on March 26, 2026, when a press release announcing the Department’s highest employee performance awards revealed that one of the lawyers being honored, Orlando Sonza, was helping lead the “ongoing federal investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” which it described as “one of the most sensitive and consequential matters currently handled by the Civil Rights Division.” The Department does not typically disclose non-public investigative details in award descriptions and rarely issues awards for incomplete investigatory work.
Sonza’s leadership in a criminal investigation is also notable, as he is a political appointee with no federal prosecution experience. He reportedly earned his law degree in 2022, worked for less than two years as an assistant county prosecutor, and joined the Division after losing his bid to represent Ohio’s First Congressional District in November 2024. Sonza’s role in the investigation raises the question of whether the experienced career prosecutors from the Division’s Criminal Section are playing any role.
NBC News reports that, according to prosecutors familiar with the investigation, the federal case would likely turn on equating hatred of anti-trans views with hatred of Christianity as a religion. One person familiar with the investigation reportedly described the effort as “trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.”
Hate crimes—acts of violence motivated by bias based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender/sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability—can be challenging to prove. Career prosecutors in the Division have played a central role in prosecuting hate crimes, including under the 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. A federal hate crime conviction requires prosecutors to prove the victim was targeted because of a person’s protected characteristic and that bias was not merely incidental to the crime. Based on the publicly available facts, the shooting is widely considered a crime of political violence. To pursue a federal hate crime charge, the Division would need to show, for example, that the shooter targeted Kirk because he is white, male, or Christian.
United States v. Nekima Levy-Armstrong, Don Lemon, et al.
26-cr-00025-8 (multiple dockets) (D. Minn.) and No. 26-1135 (8th Cir.)
In January and early February 2026, federal officials arrested nine individuals in connection with a protest against federal immigration enforcement on January 18, 2026, that occurred inside Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. In late February 2026, the Department of Justice brought charges against and sought the arrest of an additional 30 individuals in connection with the same protest. The Department charged them under 18 U.S.C. § 241 and the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act’s religious worship provision.
This prosecution is remarkable on multiple grounds. It reflects an aggressive and novel use of the FACE Act, unprecedented procedural maneuvers by the federal government, the dissemination of an AI-altered image circulated by the White House, and the alarming criminal charging of two journalists in connection with their reporting, raising concerns regarding freedom of the press. Taken together with the nonviolent nature of the underlying conduct, the case departs sharply from the Division’s historical criminal civil rights practice.
This marks the first criminal prosecution related to the FACE Act’s religious-worship provision. The Division has historically not prosecuted cases under the religious-worship provision due to concerns about its constitutionality. Instead, it has relied on statutes such as the Ku Klux Klan Act and the Church Arson Prevention Act, which are better suited to addressing this conduct, have been held constitutional by the courts, and provide more robust potential penalties.
The case also involved extraordinary procedural steps taken with unusual speed. Within days of publicly announcing a criminal investigation, the government sought arrest warrants for multiple individuals, including a journalist, Don Lemon and his producer. After a magistrate judge denied the warrant applications for Don Lemon and his producer, and several protestors for lack of probable cause, the government immediately sought review by the district’s Chief Judge, and then the Eighth Circuit. That effort prompted two letters from the Chief Judge to the court of appeals stating that “[n]one [of the individuals] committed any acts of violence,” characterizing the appeal as “frivolous,” and emphasizing that “there is absolutely no emergency.” The Eighth Circuit ultimately rejected the government’s attempt to compel the issuance of arrest warrants. Only later did the government seek and obtain criminal indictments through a grand jury.
This investigation highlights two markedly different enforcement approaches to allegedly non-violent protest activity. Department leadership adopted a new policy in January 2025 limiting enforcement of the FACE Act in all “abortion-related” matters to “extraordinary circumstances” or in cases involving “significant aggravating factors, such as death, serious bodily harm, or serious property damage,” yet invoked the Act’s religious-worship provision to pursue criminal charges arising from nonviolent protest activity and news reporting.
Differential enforcement of the same statute based on the viewpoint, status as a journalist, or race of alleged violators implicates core constitutional concerns.
The investigation, arrests, and aggressive court actions arise in the context of widespread protest activity following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during separate encounters with federal agents in Minneapolis in January 2026.
Investigation into a Protest during a January 2026 Speaking Event at a Long Island Synagogue
On February 4, 2026, in a statement to Newsday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon announced that the Civil Rights Division would investigate whether a federal crime was committed during a January 27, 2026, speaking event featuring U.S. Representative Tom Suozzi at a Long Island synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom. Protestors disrupted his speech over his vote on a bill related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement before being escorted out.
The Division did not issue a press release for this investigation and has not indicated which federal laws may have been violated. The announcement of this investigation follows the Division’s expansion of FACE Act enforcement to protests at places of worship. Since January 2025, the Division has charged protestors and journalists under the FACE Act in connection with a protest inside the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, filed a FACE Act suit against protestors who demonstrated outside of the Congregation Ohr Torah synagogue in West Orange, New Jersey, and filed a statement of interest arguing that a protest at the Adas Torah Synagogue in Los Angeles, California could violate the FACE Act.
Investigation of Party For Socialism & Liberation New Jersey (Criminal)
On January 27, 2026, the Civil Rights Division revealed that it was conducting a criminal investigation of a pro-Palestinian protest that took place outside of the Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey. Press reports indicate that the protest occurred during a real estate event encouraging the sale of property in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The revelation came in the Division’s motion to stay a related civil case, United States v. Party For Socialism & Liberation New Jersey et al., pending an “ongoing criminal investigation” arising from “the same underlying conduct involving the defendants.”
In the civil suit filed on September 29, 2025, the Division alleges that the defendants violated the FACE Act by engaging in a coordinated effort to intimidate and disrupt Jewish worship, including by physically assaulting congregants and using loud plastic horns called vuvuzelas. The confrontation escalated into violence, resulting in the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office bringing criminal charges against two synagogue attendees. One of those attendees was later pardoned by Governor Phil Murphy.
Investigation into the Killing of Alex Pretti
On January 24, 2026, federal agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital who was filming federal immigration enforcement with his cell phone. Bystander video raises questions about the lawfulness of the shooting. Statements made by top federal and White House officials about the shooting conflicted with the video, prompting a backlash.
Two days after the shooting, the federal government reportedly acknowledged it would conduct only a limited, administrative, “use of force review” following the shooting, but would not be conducting a more comprehensive criminal investigation under 18 U.S.C. § 242 as would be typical. Four days later, amid public pressure, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the FBI would conduct an investigation and that “to the extent it needs to involve lawyers at the Civil Rights Division, it will involve those.” He added that “I don’t want the takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening.” This approach diverges from decades of Department practice, in which Division prosecutors conduct such investigations jointly with the FBI.
Given the rush to judgment reflected in early official statements, the delay in announcing an investigation, and the limited or nonexistent role of the Division in that investigation, concerns remain about the independence, consistency, and credibility of the federal response to the Alex Pretti shooting. Those concerns are heightened by the fact that the Department failed to open a criminal investigation into the killing of Renee Good by a federal officer just two weeks earlier, even as bystander video raised questions about the lawfulness of the shooting.
Investigation of a November 2025 Protest Outside of the Park East Synagogue in New York City
On November 24, 2025, Assistant Attorney General (AAG) Harmeet Dhillon announced on X that the Civil Rights Division was investigating a protest that took place outside of the Park East Synagogue in New York City on November 19, 2025, during which pro-Palestinian protesters gathered to oppose an event being held inside the synagogue to encourage North American Jews to immigrate to Israel. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) put up barricades to separate the roughly 150-200 protesters and counter-protesters, which according to reports, “were positioned so close to the front doors that attendees struggled to enter.” Following the event, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch apologized for the chaotic scene, acknowledging that officers should have provided clearer access to the synagogue entrance.
In announcing the Division’s investigation, AAG Dhillon wrote that “[m]ultiple federal civil rights and criminal statutes are implicated in these events,” separately posting that “[i]t’s a federal crime to block access to a house of worship in the US.” The Division has not indicated which statutes it believes are implicated in this investigation.
The Division commonly relies upon the Church Arson Prevention Act (18 U.S.C. § 247) to address unlawful obstruction of religious exercise.
Though the Division has not clearly indicated that it is relying upon the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, the investigation follows the Division’s expansion of its FACE Act enforcement to cover protests at places of worship. The Division has historically not prosecuted cases under the FACE Act’s places of worship provision due to concerns about the constitutionality of that provision. Nonetheless, under the current administration, the Division has charged protestors and journalists under the FACE Act in connection with a protest inside the Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, filed a FACE Act suit against protestors who demonstrated outside of the Congregation Ohr Torah synagogue in West Orange, New Jersey, and filed a statement of interest arguing that a protest at the Adas Torah Synagogue in Los Angeles, California could violate the FACE Act.
United States v. Daqua Ritter
No. 24-4576 (4th Cir.)
On October 17, 2024, the Civil Rights Division secured a conviction and a life sentence for a South Carolina man who murdered Dime Doe, a Black transgender woman, shooting her three times because of her gender identity and then trying to cover up the evidence. This was the first guilty verdict in a federal hate crime trial for violence against a transgender person, marking an important milestone in the Division’s work.
On July 25, 2025, after the defendant appealed the conviction, the United States filed a brief supporting affirmance of the conviction but simultaneously rejected the legitimacy of Doe’s transgender identity. The Division dehumanized and disrespected Doe by referring to her as a “biological male” dressing as a woman, using her former name to identify her, and putting her name, Dime, in quotation marks.
CRIMINAL ENFORCEMENT
Born in Reconstruction. Federal civil rights accountability at its core.
EMPLOYMENT
Equal opportunity at work is essential to economic security, dignity, and full civic participation.
POLICING
The Constitution and federal law exist to protect people from abuses of power—including by those sworn to uphold it.
DISABILITY
Federal civil rights laws guarantee people with disabilities equal participation in community life.
VOTING
The right to vote is foundational to democracy and equal participation in civic life.
HOUSING & GOVERNMENT SERVICES
Where people live and access services shapes opportunity.
EDUCATION
Rooted in Brown v. Board of Education, federal civil rights laws guarantee equal access to education.
LGBTQI+
Protections for LGBTQI+ people in work, education, healthcare, and public life grounded in equality and dignity.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE
Protecting access to reproductive healthcare by safeguarding patients, providers, and facilities.