Chris Preston wrote: Mon Jan 19, 2026 11:14 pm
Martin Y wrote: Sun Jan 18, 2026 6:56 pm
Now as far as I understand it, the FBI is an agency of the DOJ so if what he says is true, there is no FBI investigation. So it does look as if there is literally nobody whose job it currently is to investigate this killing.
That is correct. The DOJ says the killing does not need to be investigated. On the other hand the full force of the law needs to be used against a group of protesters who disrupted a church service being led by a pastor who is also an ICE official.
It was always likely to be the case that this will not be litigated until there is a non-MAGA president on the throne. For now Trump has made it a throne, it has become one even after him. The potential exception was if enough MAGA partisans were so shocked by it that Trump had to throw them a scapegoat, but that does not seem to have happened. And maybe even after MAGA no longer has the executive, the likely long-continuing MAGA majority on the supreme court can prevent a case going forward. (As a sidebar, supreme court judges may be at risk of their lives going forward, given that they can remain there even unto death. That is a real indictment of this US politicised approach to their supreme court, and life-long appointments to it.)
In theory, I understand from what I have researched about this, it can be prosecuted once there is a DOJ without this particular partisan status, who can return the case to the state. Trump can't give a pre-emptive pardon for an offence under state law. And there is no statute of limitations on murder prosecutions under state or federal law. But, recognising that there will be retributions just has he has applied retributions, Trump will likely give a pre-emptive pardon anyway, as that will make it go away if Ross can successfully argue it is a federal rather than state matter, which may be where the supreme court might have influence. It would prevent a reconstituted DOJ litigating it at federal level.
Even under state law, it would be a difficult prosecution. Prosecuting deaths caused by security officials is always difficult. There is genuine lack of legal clarity, not only over whether it is federal or state jurisdiction, but also whether an ICE agent benefits from the same limited immunities as police officers under state law, and also what is the extent and applicability of the limited immunities of federal agents going about their business.