Double jeopardy

Religion | The ACLU sues the government and soaks the taxpayers, mainline denominations target companies doing business with Israel, and other religion news | Edward E. Plowman

Under a quirk in the 1976 federal civil-rights law, plaintiffs who bring an even partly successful civil-rights suit may have the defendant pay all legal fees for both parties. But defendants who win aren’t permitted to recover legal costs from plaintiffs. The arrangement has helped attorneys for plaintiffs to cash in and force many defendants into out-of-court settlements. And when the government loses a case, it’s the taxpayers who cough it up.

In one of the latest cases, a Wall Street Journal column by American Enterprise Institute writer Christopher Levenick described how the American Civil Liberties Union has pocketed $63,000 so far, and the meter may still be running. The case involves a prospector and his friends who decided in 1934 to honor their fallen comrades in World War I. They mounted a small cross made of iron pipe and stuck it on a hill called Sunset Rock in the Mojave Desert near the California-Nevada state line. Private groups continued to maintain the memorial over the years.