Appeals court declines to toss McIver case as panel splits on selective prosecution claims

A federal appeals court declined to toss the case against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), even as the panel split over a matter in which she is accused of attacking law enforcement with her forearms in a scuffle with immigration officials.

The ruling on Wednesday from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals comes as McIver has pushed to get the case dismissed on various grounds, including that her visit to the Delaney Hall detention facility was carried out in her role as a legislative official and should be protected by prosecution under the Speech or Debate Clause.

The three-judge panel declined to toss the case on a number of grounds raised by McIver, finding that while her inspection of Delaney Hall was protected under the clause, her intervention in the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) was not.

But one judge dissented, saying McIver’s “plausibly incidental contact” with one of the officers came as she was being impeded from carrying out her legislative duties by touring the controversial detention center.

He also touched on McIver’s claims that the case amounted to a selective prosecution, saying the lawmaker “presented enough [evidence] to obtain discovery on whether this prosecution ‘was intended to prevent [her] exercise of a fundamental........

© The Hill