Hispanic group asks Justice Department to intervene in immigrant beating case
by The Associated Press Sunday May 03, 2009, 1:00 AM
POTTSVILLE, Pa. -- A Hispanic legal advocacy group on Saturday urged the Justice Department to intervene after a jury acquitted two Pennsylvania teenagers of all serious charges against them stemming from the fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant last summer.

Prosecutors called the beating death of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez a hate crime, and they urged the jury in Pennsylvania coal country to punish the two white teenagers for their roles in the attack. Instead, the jury found the teens innocent of all serious charges, a decision that elicited cheers and claps from the defendants' families and friends-and cries of outrage from the victim's.


Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, while Derrick Donchak, 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault late Friday following a trial in which jurors were left to sort out the facts of an epithet-filled brawl that pitted popular football players against Ramirez, who appeared willing to fight.

A representative of Ramirez's family said the jurors got it wrong.

"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."

On Saturday the group's interim president, Henry Solano, called on the Justice Department to "bring justice to the Ramirez family and send a strong message that violence targeting immigrants will not be tolerated." Piekarsky's attorney declined comment on the possibility of federal charges of violating Ramirez's civil rights being brought against the teens.

Prosecutors had cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's growing Hispanic population. They said he was killed by a kick to the head from Piekarsky after he'd been knocked unconscious by another teen.

Jury foreman Eric Macklin said he sympathized with Ramirez's loved ones but that the evidence pointed to an acquittal.

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