Pa. men face 2nd trial in immigrant beating death: One night two summers ago, an illegal immigrant from Mexico brawled with a gang of white teens from Shenandoah, an old mining town in the coal fields of northeastern Pennsylvania.
The fight's outcome is not in dispute: 25-year-old Luis Ramirez wound up dead. The question for a jury is did two former high school football stars commit a federal hate crime.
Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak are charged in connection with the attack - a case brought by the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division after an all-white jury acquitted the defendants of state charges last year.
Jury selection begins Monday at the courthouse in Scranton.
A guilty verdict in the high-profile trial could send Piekarsky, now 18, and Donchak, now 20, to prison for life, as well as soothe the anger felt by Ramirez's supporters after the May 2009 verdict in Schuylkill County Court. Piekarsky was cleared of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation; Donchak beat aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation charges. Both were convicted of simple assault.
A separate indictment charges Shenandoah's former police chief and two officers with sabotaging the investigation into Ramirez's death by altering evidence and lying to the FBI. They are scheduled to go on trial early next year.
