UPDATE

On November 18, 2005, after a three week trial, a Memphis jury held Colonel Nicolas Carranza, the former Vice-Minister of Defense for El Salvador, liable for crimes against humanity, torture and extrajudicial killing. Carranza was ordered to pay $6 million in damages. The verdict represents the first time that a U.S. jury in a contested case has found a commander liable for crimes against humanity.

Carranza appealed the verdict and oral arguments were held on October 28, 2008 before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio. On March 17, 2009 the Sixth Circuit upheld the jury verdict. CJA continues its efforts to collect the judgment against Carranza.

Background

The year 1980 in El Salvador was marked by rampant human rights abuses. The Security Forces - working as or with plain-clothed death squads - carried out forced disappearance, sexual violence, torture and murder against civilians. Experts estimate that 10,000 to 12,000 unarmed civilians were killed in 1980 alone.

Colonel Nicolas Carranza, a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Memphis, was Vice-Minister of Defense of El Salvador from late 1979 to early 1981. In that position, he exercised command and control over the three units of the Security Forces - the National Guard, National Police and Treasury Police - that were responsible for widespread attacks on civilians. Despite being removed from his position as Vice-Minister due to U.S. pressure over his human rights record, Colonel Carranza was later brought back in 1983 as head of the brutal Treasury Police. After being forced out of the Treasury Police, Carranza immigrated to the United States in 1985. He became a U.S. citizen in 1991. In 1984, the New York Times reported that Colonel Carranza had been a paid informant for the CIA.

The case against Col. Carranza was brought by five courageous clients—survivors of the abuses committed under Carranza’s watch:

Erlinda Franco is the widow of Manuel Franco, one of six pro-democracy opposition leaders of the Frente Democrático Revolucionario (Democratic Revolutionary Front, or FDR) who were abducted from a Jesuit school in San Salvador on November 27, 1980 by members of the Security Forces. They were later found murdered, and their bodies showed obvious signs of torture. The assassinations were among the most gruesome and shocking incidents carried out by the Security Forces during 1980, and led directly to the commencement of the full-scale civil war. The United Nations Commission on the Truth for El Salvador found that the FDR murders “outraged national and international public opinion and closed the door to any possibility of a negotiated solution to the political crisis at the end of 1980.”

Ana Patricia Chavez is the daughter of Humberto and Guillermina Chavez, who were members of the teachers union ANDES 21 de Junio. They were murdered in cold blood by plainclothes gunmen in July 1980 in the family’s home in Ahuachapan, El Salvador. Ana Patricia was forced to watch the beating of her mother and listen to the shots that took her life. Ana Patricia now lives in California.

Francisco Calderon was a worker at a cigarette factory in September 1980 when, late one night, uniformed members of the National Police knocked on his door. As he opened the door, plainclothes gunmen grabbed him and forced him to the floor. Francisco’s father, Paco Calderon, a school principal and member of ANDES 21 de Junio, came to the door and told the men to let his son go. The men then tried to carry away Paco Calderon, and when they were unable to do so, they shot him directly in front of his son. Francisco now lives in California.

Cecilia Santos was a student at the National University and employee of the Salvadoran Ministry of Education when she was arrested in a shopping center in San Salvador in September 1980. Cecilia was held in the National Police headquarters for eight days and tortured repeatedly. She was never given adequate legal representation or a fair hearing, and remained in prison for three years. She fled to the U.S. in 1983 after being released under a general amnesty. Cecilia now lives in New York, where she is the director of the Centro Salvadoreño, an organization that encourages socioeconomic and cultural progress among Latino immigrant communities.

Daniel Alvarado was an engineering student in San Salvador in 1983. He was abducted by five men dressed in civilian clothes while he was watching a soccer game at a friend’s house. He was taken to the headquarters of the Treasury Police, where he was tortured severely. In order to stop the torture, Daniel confessed to being involved in the assassination of U.S. military advisor Albert Schaufelberger. After a polygraph examination, U.S. officials correctly concluded that Daniel was not responsible in any way for the assassination and that he had only admitted to the killing in order to stop the torture.

Chavez v. Carranza

Filing & Pre-Trial Motions

On December 10th, 2003, Chavez v. Carranza was filed jointly by CJA and the Tennessee law firm of Bass, Berry & Sims. The complaint was amended in February 2004 to add the claims of Daniel Alvarado. Brought under the ATS and TVPA, the suit charges Carranza with liability for torture, extrajudicial killing and crimes against humanity under the doctrine of command responsibility, which holds that a military commander is legally responsible for human rights abuses by his subordinates when the commander knew or should have known that the abuses were taking place and failed to prevent the abuses or punish those responsible.

On September 30, 2004, Judge Jon McCalla of the U.S. District Court in Memphis denied Carranza’s motion to dismiss the case.

Trial & Verdict

The case went to trial and on November 18, 2005. The jury found Carranza liable for torture, extrajudicial killing and crimes against humanity. Specifically, the jury found Carranza liable for abuses suffered by four of the five plaintiffs, but could not reach a verdict on the claim of the fifth plaintiff, Ana Patricia Chavez.

The verdict represents the first time that a U.S. jury in a contested case has found a commander liable for crimes against humanity. This means that the violations at issue were not isolated acts, but rather part of a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population of El Salvador. The jurors awarded each of the four plaintiffs $500,000 in compensatory damages for a total of $2 million. The jury also award each of the four plaintiffs $1 million in punitive damages, totaling $4 million. The entire verdict against Carranza was $6 million.

The trial was marked by several important revelations. Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White testified that Colonel Carranza was a paid informant for the CIA while he was Vice-Minister of Defense and a member of the High Command in 1980. At that time White asked the CIA station chief in El Salvador to remove Carranza from the CIA payroll because of his deplorable human rights record but no action was ever taken. Carranza admitted on the witness stand that he had been receiving money from the U.S. government since 1965.

Ambassador White also testified on the roles of defendant Carranza and General José García, defendant in another CJA case Romagoza Arce v. Garcia. Refuting the defense’s claim that Carranza was merely an administrative aide to Minister of Defense Garcia, Ambassador White described Col. Carranza as the “operational commander” of the Salvadoran military and security forces, while Gen. García served as the “public relations man.” He observed that the two were “inseparable."

Appeal

Carranza appealed the 2005 verdict. After many delays by the defendant, the briefing for the appeal was finally completed on June 25, 2008. In an unusual development, on March 28, 2008 the Government of El Salvador filed an amicus brief in support of the defendant's argument that the judgment should be voided because he is entitled to amnesty under El Salvador's 1993 Amnesty Law. This represented the first time that a government intervened at this level, on behalf of a defendant, in one of CJA's cases. In response, a broad coalition of international law experts filed an amicus brief arguing that the 1993 Amnesty Law under Salvadoran law is illegal under constitutional and international law.

Oral arguments were held on October 28, 2008 before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio. In their 10-minute argument, the Government of El Salvador claimed that the U.S government’s endorsement of the 1992 Peace Accords amounted to a recognition of the extraterritorial impact of the Salvadoran Amnesty Law. However, the Court questioned how U.S. support for the 1992 Peace Accord could possibly be construed as an endorsement of the 1993 Amnesty Law without an explicit statement to that effect from the State Department:

“It seems to me that we have this irony of the country of El Salvador coming to a Federal Court in the United States, representing what the Department of State’s position is on the extraterritorial effect of the Salvadoran Amnesty law, when the official policy of the United States Government is absolutely silent in this record. It’s not here.” - 6th Circuit Court (via audio recording)

Appellate Decision

On March 17, 2009, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the 2005 jury verdict. Notably, the Circuit Court denied Carranza’s argument that the District Court failed to grant comity to the 1993 Salvadoran Amnesty Law. Without addressing the legality of the Salvadoran Amnesty Law - which has been criticized by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights as a violation of international law - the 6th Circuit held that the Amnesty Law cannot be interpreted as having extraterritorial effect and thus cannot possibly shield Carranza from civil liability in the U.S.

CJA and pro bono co-counsel Bass, Berry & Sims continue to pursue collection of the judgment against Carranza. Thus far, we have successfully garnished one of Carranza's bank accounts.