The DA's office has its own investigation section.
Maybe so, but ...... I think the prosecutor in the M Brown concluded that he would not be able to get a conviction because:
(1) the eyewitnesses contradicted each other and even worse their testimony contradicted the autopsy reports. A defense lawyer would have made mincemeat out of these "eyewitnesses.
(2) Since the eyewitnesses are discredited, the prosecutor would have to rely on physical evidence such as the autopsy report. The physical evidence is consistent with the officer's report. The prosecutor would not have been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer's story is not the truth and so the jury would likely acquit. Remember in a criminal trial the prosecutor has the absolute burden of proving his or her case beyond a reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors often do not prosecute cases because they feel that the evidence is not sufficient to get a conviction.
I have been a juror in two criminal cases since I moved to San Fran in 1981. In both cases the jury acquitted because we felt that the prosecutor's case was not strong enough even tho many of the jurors thought that the defendant had likely committed the crime.
Les
I don't want to keep going over this as we are getting anyplace. If the victims families in the Brown and Garner feel they have a case, they should sue in civil. In a criminal trial ALL 12 jurors must vote guilty. In a civil case only 9 of 12 must find for the plaintiff.
Les,
I believe I already posted here the link to the Lawrence O'Donnell clip about prosecutorial misconduct in the Mike Brown case. Did you watch that clip? If not, it's worth checking out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MlEhoCIFwc
Besides the issue O'Donnell mentions about an assistant prosecutor giving jurors the text of the *wrong law*, a Missouri statute repealed years previously that said it was legal for cops to shoot people who are running away, there's also the fact -- I don't recall whether he mentions this or I read it elsewhere -- that officer Darren Wilson was allowed to testify directly to the grand jury. That is apparently very unusual, and likely contributed to their failure to indict him. Very rarely do grand juries fail to indict people that prosecutors ask them to indict. But perhaps the prosecutors in this case really didn't want an indictment. In another comment in this thread, you wrote:
"I am saying that it is not reasonable to expect that a prosecutor who depends on the police department to provide evidence to convict rapists etc to aggressively pursue prosecuting a member of the police department. The police make an arrest and gather evidence and the prosecutor prosecutes. The police and the prosecutor a not independent agencies; they are links in chain."
I mostly agree -- while it might be *reasonable* to expect prosecutors to behave professionally and hold police officers accountable to the law like everyone else they prosecute, the evidence suggests that it is not *realistic* to expect this. There should be special prosecutors to prosecute police officers accused of crimes, because the regular prosecutors are typically in bed with the cops and cannot be relied upon to honestly carry out their duties when it comes to bringing charges against them.
Then there is this from an op-ed piece in a recent issue of the Bay Area Reporter, in which Victoria Brownworth is discussing officer Wilson's softball interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos (former Clinton administration official):
"Why was there no context from Stephanopoulos about witness accounts or conflicting coroner's reports or the fact that the coroner 'ran out of batteries' for his camera and thus there are no photos of Brown's injuries, unlike in any other case in Ferguson history? And doesn't the coroner have a cell phone like everyone else in America? And how long would it have taken to send someone out to get batteries? Surely the coroner would have known this case would be important and those photos would be important and those photos would be vital to any subsequent legal wrangle?" [Bay Area Reporter (December 4-10, 2014, p. 34)]
Finally, an editorial in that same issue of the B.A.R. reveals this further material:
"The (grand jury) documents revealed numerous irregularities in police procedure, and it's clear that Wilson, who has since resigned from the Ferguson Police Department, mishandled evidence after the shooting by, among other things, placing his gun in an evidence bag himself and washing blood off his hands. According to the testimony, Wilson also returned to the police station unescorted, a highly unorthodox move. The transcripts showed that officers who interviewed Wilson did not tape the proceeding, another unusual decision." [Bay Area Reporter (December 4-10, 2014, p. 4)]
What emerges here is a picture in which Darren Wilson himself, some of his fellow officers, the coroner, and the assistant prosecutor all acted highly improperly in the wake of the Mike Brown shooting. Someone being shot and killed by a police officer is not a run-of-the-mill incident even for people in those jobs. These government agents/officials should have been *especially* vigilant about following proper procedures in such a case, but it seems that just the opposite happened. It was criminally negligent at best, and I think that assumption would be giving their conduct more credit than it deserves.
Do you believe all the procedural violations noted above were just honest mistakes? I certainly don't, and from your comment about prosecutors and police I doubt you believe that either. I suspect they all deliberately violated procedures in order to help Wilson escape justice. In light of this, I think the indictment against him should be brought back before a different grand jury whose members are informed of all of these "discrepancies", this time without allowing him to testify in his defense, since that is not normally a privilege granted to non-police indictees.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))
Starchild:
Well this is certainly interesting, but......if Lawrence O'Donnell is correct in his analysis, why is he the only talking about this? The grand jury proceedings have been public for quite some time now. These alleged errors by the prosecutor seem rather damning. Surely if O'Donnell's analysis is correct, other people should have been commenting on this. Have they? If not, why not?
Come to think of it, why would the prosecutor's office have made public a proceeding that is supposedly so glaringly flawed. Is it because other legal experts do not agree with O'Donnell's statements?
I remember seeing an interview on Charlie Rose with Michael Brown's parents and their attorney (I believe a man named Crump). They gave their reasons for disagreeing with the grand jury decision. Amazingly no one said anything about any of these errors!
Perhaps you are leaping to conclusions too fast. I will however keep an eye out to see if anyone else picks up on this. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Les
Les,
I believe I already posted here the link to the Lawrence O'Donnell clip about prosecutorial misconduct in the Mike Brown case. Did you watch that clip? If not, it's worth checking out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MlEhoCIFwc
Besides the issue O'Donnell mentions about an assistant prosecutor giving jurors the text of the *wrong law*, a Missouri statute repealed years previously that said it was legal for cops to shoot people who are running away, there's also the fact -- I don't recall whether he mentions this or I read it elsewhere -- that officer Darren Wilson was allowed to testify directly to the grand jury. That is apparently very unusual, and likely contributed to their failure to indict him. Very rarely do grand juries fail to indict people that prosecutors ask them to indict. But perhaps the prosecutors in this case really didn't want an indictment. In another comment in this thread, you wrote:
"I am saying that it is not reasonable to expect that a prosecutor who depends on the police department to provide evidence to convict rapists etc to aggressively pursue prosecuting a member of the police department. The police make an arrest and gather evidence and the prosecutor prosecutes. The police and the prosecutor a not independent agencies; they are links in chain."
I mostly agree -- while it might be *reasonable* to expect prosecutors to behave professionally and hold police officers accountable to the law like everyone else they prosecute, the evidence suggests that it is not *realistic* to expect this. There should be special prosecutors to prosecute police officers accused of crimes, because the regular prosecutors are typically in bed with the cops and cannot be relied upon to honestly carry out their duties when it comes to bringing charges against them.
Then there is this from an op-ed piece in a recent issue of the Bay Area Reporter, in which Victoria Brownworth is discussing officer Wilson's softball interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos (former Clinton administration official):
"Why was there no context from Stephanopoulos about witness accounts or conflicting coroner's reports or the fact that the coroner 'ran out of batteries' for his camera and thus there are no photos of Brown's injuries, unlike in any other case in Ferguson history? And doesn't the coroner have a cell phone like everyone else in America? And how long would it have taken to send someone out to get batteries? Surely the coroner would have known this case would be important and those photos would be important and those photos would be vital to any subsequent legal wrangle?" [Bay Area Reporter (December 4-10, 2014, p. 34)]
Finally, an editorial in that same issue of the B.A.R. reveals this further material:
"The (grand jury) documents revealed numerous irregularities in police procedure, and it's clear that Wilson, who has since resigned from the Ferguson Police Department, mishandled evidence after the shooting by, among other things, placing his gun in an evidence bag himself and washing blood off his hands. According to the testimony, Wilson also returned to the police station unescorted, a highly unorthodox move. The transcripts showed that officers who interviewed Wilson did not tape the proceeding, another unusual decision." [Bay Area Reporter (December 4-10, 2014, p. 4)]
What emerges here is a picture in which Darren Wilson himself, some of his fellow officers, the coroner, and the assistant prosecutor all acted highly improperly in the wake of the Mike Brown shooting. Someone being shot and killed by a police officer is not a run-of-the-mill incident even for people in those jobs. These government agents/officials should have been *especially* vigilant about following proper procedures in such a case, but it seems that just the opposite happened. It was criminally negligent at best, and I think that assumption would be giving their conduct more credit than it deserves.
Do you believe all the procedural violations noted above were just honest mistakes? I certainly don't, and from your comment about prosecutors and police I doubt you believe that either. I suspect they all deliberately violated procedures in order to help Wilson escape justice. In light of this, I think the indictment against him should be brought back before a different grand jury whose members are informed of all of these "discrepancies", this time without allowing him to testify in his defense, since that is not normally a privilege granted to non-police indictees.
Love & Liberty,
((( starchild )))