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The only evidence the alleged "independent" Grand Jury saw was that presented by the Prosecuter Bob McCulloch correct?
No judge, no evidence submitted on behalf of Michael Brown.
No cross examination of evidence submitted by McCulloch.
And doesn't this Grand Jury work day in and day out with the police department?
Didn't McCulloch work to acquit the officer?
A jury trial would have been much more transparent and thorough.
What am I missing here?
This smells.
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egduj
(805 posts)msanthrope
(37,549 posts)
Spazito
(50,338 posts)a defense attorney with sole control of what evidence would come in, what witnesses to call, in order to convict the victim, Michael Brown.
what we heard was defense attorney McCulloch's closing statement. No way this was going to an actual trial. I'm sure he was annoyed that he even had to prepare for a grand jury.
cheyanne
(733 posts)"Had the prosecution desired an indictment against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, the presentment would have taken an hour, maybe two, and there would have been a true bill by close of business the next day, well before Michael Brown had been laid to rest. The grand jury isn’t the venue to present “all the evidence.” That’s what trials are for. The grand jury serves a very limited function, to determine whether sufficient evidence exists so that there is probable cause to proceed to trial."
This is from Simple Justice blog of Scott Greenberg. It's at http://blog.simplejustice.us/2014/11/25/the-ferguson-lie/#more-22871.
He presents McColloch as trying to pawn off on the grand jury the decision that he as prosecutor should make. Please read whole article for the details.
Here is another lawyer blog at http://herculesandtheumpire.com/ that asks lawyers to comment on whether they would have indicted Wilson. Many interesting views. One that seems common to most prosecutors is that it is a two-step process to indict. First, the grand jury determines if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. At this point the prosecutor has to decide if there is sufficient evidence to win a conviction.
In other words he evaluates the "evidence" to see if it is strong enough to convince a jury. This evaluation could involve the veracity of differing witnesses, the ambiguity of the physical evidence. True, if he believes that he does have a strong case to go to trial, he may try to influence them. But he has to take into account that while he feels someone is guilty and the evidence is not strong, he cannot in good faith, prosecute knowing that the person is "legally" guilty. (I hope I haven't screwed up the argument too much in retelling.)
It seems that McColloch gamed the system.
SHRED
(28,136 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)Learned something new today.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)No ability to require expert witnesses to "qualify" their expertise.
And I believe it was attorney Lisa Bloom today on MSNBC who said that somewhere in Officer Wilson's transcripted testimony before the grand jury that D.A. McCulloch asked him if there was anything more he wanted to say. In other words, he was allowed an open-ended opportunity to say anything he wanted to say to justify his actions, carrying out his own defense as if he was presenting his own case at trial. And apparently Wilson used that very opportunity to talk about how scared he was of Brown and to present as sympathetic an image as possible to the grand jurors. That is truly unheard of. The grand jury proceeding is not intended to allow a defendant to present his case. Instead it's where the prosecutor presents only his side of the case to see if there is any evidence of substance to establish probable cause to bring criminal charges and go to trial. If a defendant wants to present his side of the case, he gets that chance at a fair trial
unblock
(52,227 posts)institutional corruption. prosecutors are always reluctant to try police because they work closely with the police every day, they need cooperation and testimony from the police for a great deal of their work.
that's the best interpretation i can think of, as there's no direct racial component.
worse interpretations include that he threw the fight at least in part for direct racial reasons; or indirectly, for political reasons, not wanting to alienate voters who are racist in turn.
Igel
(35,309 posts)Think of it as having a jury look over the evidence to see if there's enough to bring charges.
It's also a way of having the prosecutor avoid having to make that judgment on his own, a stratagem chosen when there's either a huge political downside to any decision or the . (This isn't a federal case.) He threw the judgment to the people, as represented by the jury, tossed the evidence at them, and let them go.
The way it usually works is that the prosecutor would submit the evidence he thinks is sufficient for a conviction--perhaps all, perhaps part. Then the jury decides if the evidence is strong enough to bring charges. Yes, that way the jury is completely manipulated. But it's still a CYA strategy at the state level: If the prosecutor's best case, unchallenged, doesn't yield a bill of indictment then really, he should just pack it in. That makes the GJ a tool for the prosecution. I rather prefer them looking over everything--that way they're not manipulated and it's harder to use the legal system to procure a kind of vigilante justice, trying somebody that the prosecutor is pretty sure will walk for the sole purpose of humiliating, bankrupting, or otherwise disrupting the accused's life.
The best the GJ could have done in this case was return a verdict of "indict," with the charge(s) they wanted the defendant charged with. Then there would have been a trial (unless the judge threw out the indictment, also a possibility).