Law Professor Rachel Moran spoke to KARE 11 about former state Sen. Justin Eichorn, who filed to dismiss the federal charges against him for allegedly soliciting a minor for prostitution.
From the story:
In court documents filed Friday, Eichorn moved to dismiss the charges based on what his lawyers called “vindictive and selective prosecution.”
“They’re both pretty rare," said University of St. Thomas School of Law Associate Professor Rachel Moran. “It’s very hard to win on these types of cases because it’s the defendant’s burden to show the prosecution is impermissible for one of these reasons and that’s just a hard burden to meet."
Moran said vindictive prosecution is punishing someone because they exercised their constitutional right in some way. She said selective prosecution is when you are prosecuting someone based on a forbidden reason like their race, gender, religion, or some other unfair and arbitrary classification the person falls into.
