Ramsey county police used the statute to break up an anarchist group called the RNC Welcoming Committee that planned to carry out direct action protests, including roadblocks, to prevent delegates to the Republican national convention from entering the Xcel Center in Minneapolis.
But the ruling left open the possibility that federal prosecutors could use the statute to prosecute state and local officials in bribery and kickback schemes, as federal prosecutors now seem inclined to do with Mr. Bruno.
They maintained there are no laws that prevent adults and even children from riding motorbikes on private property and blasted her in the May issue of American Motorcyclist Magazine, a journal of the nonprofit group, questioning whether she would use the statute "to stop young people from participating in other potentially dangerous recreation".
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For six years, the Home Office had fought compensation claims, using the statute of limitations to avoid payment in a costly legal fight that went all the way to the House of Lords, and even suggesting that one victim was "genetically predisposed" to being abused.
The Justice Department is known to have used the statute at least 50 times since the Sept. 11 attacks, and civil liberties advocates said Monday that the Mayfield case demonstrated the potential for abuse.
Edwin Chemerinsky, a law professor at the University of Southern California, said he spent Monday evening researching the matter and could find no other case in which a police department had been brought to trial using the statute, known as RICO -- the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.
It was an attempt to use the statute book to excuse and legitimise an atrocity that could never withstand the scrutiny of a court".
When the Medomsley victims first sought redress, the Home Office used the statute of limitations to avoid payment.
Not only was the outcome in this health care decision much better than in the last one, so too was the legal reasoning that Chief Justice Roberts used when interpreting the statute to require tax credits nationwide.
