
One Man Race War: Joseph Paul Franklin, Pt. 5
Weird Little Guys
Prosecutorial careers and political wins
Molly notes how high‑profile civil rights prosecutions advanced careers and public messaging at DOJ.
After Joseph Paul Franklin was arrested in 1980, prosecutors all over the country were waiting their turn to try him for murder. After a federal prosecutor failed to convince a jury that shooting a man just for being black was a civil rights violation, they lost their confidence. But Joseph Paul Franklin was desperate to get out of the federal prison where he was serving his first few life sentences.
Sources:
Mel Ayton, Dark Soul of the South: The Life and Crimes of Racist Killer Joseph Paul Franklin, Potomac Press, Inc., 2011
Thomas Martinez, Brotherhood of Murder: The Shocking Inside Story of The Order. McGraw Hill, 1988
Jessica Mitford, Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business, New York, Vintage Books, 1973
Devins, Neal, "Reagan Redux: Civil Rights Under Bush" (1993). Faculty Publications. 429.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/429
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/06/28/reynolds-nomination-voted-down/115c0520-c848-4c17-a302-209a9a9d5a4a/
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/28/us/senate-committee-rejects-reynolds-for-justice-post.html
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/07/us/us-rights-official-discounts-tension.html
https://www.hcpros.org/case-vault-1
https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/09/us/slayer-faces-trial-in-2-apparently-racial-killings.html
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_v._Lanza
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/dual-sovereignty-doctrine
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7299259/united-states-v-fields/
https://www.washingtonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Utah-AG-Report.pdf
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4403054/mitchell-v-roberts/
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-08-02-mn-747-story.html
https://people.umass.edu/~kastor/ceml_articles/cu_in_us.html
https://freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC3_scans/3.journal.prisons.prisoners.griffin.1993.pdf
https://concrim.asc41.com/wp-content/uploads/j32.pdf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/10/23/murders-of-blacks-baffle-us-officials/f8eefeac-1ca3-48de-85a0-4b9db645b01e/
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/24/us/study-accuses-justice-dept-of-waging-attack-on-civil-rights-laws.html
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/10/marion-prison-lockdown-thomas-silverstein-how-a-1983-murder-created-america-s-terrible-supermax-prison-culture.html
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.


