Another federal district court judge has questioned the propriety of a settlement hastily proposed by the Biden administration’s Justice Department in a case it had filed against the Louisville Police Department. The government had accused the department of a pattern of using excessive force, targeting black people, and stopping people without cause, yet it refuses to show the judge the evidence needed to back up its claims.
The Kentucky judge, Benjamin Beaton, was obviously extremely annoyed by the DOJ’s refusal to answer basic questions about the Dec. 12, 2024, consent decree or to offer evidence that would allow the judge to determine, as required by precedent, whether the proposed consent decree is “fair, adequate, and reasonable” and “consistent with the public interest.”
In fact, Beaton compared the DOJ’s refusal with Bartleby the Scrivener, the…
