# Ferguson, MO **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 12, 2014, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354 "2014-08-12T04:51:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 168
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3341 "2014-11-27T23:36:44Z")
“Precedent” meaning “has occurred a few times in a small subset (high profile) of all cases”. And then, only as a political expedient, not in furtherance of the prosecutor’s normal role. So, yeah – pretty damn unusual. And pretty much a shitty cop out. No pun intended. 😉 And **Steophan** , the differences between “not guilty”, “unindicted”, and “innocent” are a matter of legal definition. Maybe **Richard Parker** could explain it to you. Or maybe not, considering the way his last effort to provide legal expertise was received in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3342 "2014-11-28T00:04:15Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > “Precedent” meaning “has occurred a few times in a small subset (high profile) of all cases”. And you know that that precedent occurred only “a few times” exactly how? ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3343 "2014-11-28T06:07:13Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > My satisfaction isn’t the issue. The prosecutor serves his community. It is them he is answerable to. And yes, if he thought there were not sufficient grounds for an indictment, he should have said so, and explained his reasoning – and been prepared to be disbelieved. > > Or he could have sought an indictment (remember that ham sandwich) just so the process could play itself out to the (in his mind) inevitable acquittal in \*a public trial \*where the whole community could watch. Surely, if Wilson’s actions truly were legal and supportable, a public trial with public display of the unbelievable witnesses and the evidence that is so solid as to have convinced so many here, it would convince at least \*some \*members of the community. Why can’t he pick something between these two things and do what he did: present the matter to a grand jury, giving all of the relevant evidence and let the citizens of the community decide whether a trial is warranted? It’s a unique case: a significant portion of the population won’t be happy with a summary dismissal, yet justice requires that a man not have to face arrest and trial under the facts that he has, so we let a grand jury decide. I’m not so sure that we don’t have precedent for this. Didn’t the Boulder DA convene a grand jury to investigate the Ramsay case? It had access to all of the evidence with the prosecutor making no recommendation one way or the other. It’s not the traditional use of a grand jury, but what is wrong with this use? I completely disagree with the “I don’t think he committed a crime but fuckitall let’s try him anyways” use of the state’s power. As far as the supposed erroneous “fleeing felon” jury instruction, it was harmless. As the physical evidence shows that Brown was not fleeing at the time, it simply doesn’t apply. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3344 "2014-11-28T08:27:14Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > Is English your second language? I’m sorry. Let me explain what it means when someone asks “Do you feel that the product of the grand jury was legitimate. …” The word “feel” in that sentence is not actually asking about your emotions or your “feelings”. > > That sentence means “Are you of the opinion that…” or essentially “Do you think…”. > > Now that you are educated and won’t make such an embarrassing misinterpretation, can you answer my question? That is, given that you THINK the ADAs misrepresentation of the law was “very poor”, do you THINK that the result of the grand jury process is legitimate? > > Do you understand the question better now? I understand the question fully. Yes, I think the result of the grand jury process is legitimate, and the misrepresentation, later corrected, of a law that has no bearing on this case is irrelevant. The reason it has no bearing on this case is twofold. Firstly, the law concerns shooting someone in the back whilst effecting an arrest, and there’s never been a claim that Wilson shot Brown in an attempt to arrest him. And secondly, it’s been shown that Wilson did not attempt to shoot Brown in the back. Also given that the law was presented as it appears in the statute books, and the Supreme Court judgement that makes the law no longer valid was also presented, it’s hard to claim that the jury had anything less than complete knowledge of that law. So, even were it relevant, the jury would have had all the information required to make the correct decision. So yes, I’m fully convinced that the Grand Jury’s findings are legitimate. The reason for bringing up the issue with “feelings” is that you, and many others including the “protesters” in Ferguson, are against this judgement solely because you _feel_ it’s wrong, not because there’s anything demonstrably wrong with it. ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3345 "2014-11-28T08:30:12Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > And **Steophan** , the differences between “not guilty”, “unindicted”, and “innocent” are a matter of legal definition. Well yes. The former two are subsets of the last. Someone who’s not guilty has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of their innocence holds. Someone who’s unindicted has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of their innocence holds. Darren Wilson has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of his innocence holds. You are free to claim otherwise, but you’d be legally wrong and, unless you have evidence that proves his guilt, morally wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3346 "2014-11-28T09:01:20Z")
Oh Christ! Ya know what this smells like? It smells like, it smells like … —\> [@](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg) \<— And yeah, turn up the volume, and [url =“[Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit lyrics | LyricsFreak](http://www.lyricsfreak.com/n/nirvana/smells+like+teen+spirit_20101055.html)”]chill. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3347 "2014-11-28T15:46:10Z")
[Quote=Steophan] The reason for bringing up the issue with “feelings” is that you, and many others including the “protesters” in Ferguson, are against this judgement solely because you _feel_ it’s wrong, not because there’s anything demonstrably wrong with it. [/QUOTE] No, it is pretty demonstrably wrong to tell the grand jury that it is okay to shoot someone for running away. That false belief would obviously materially affect their evaluation of whether a law was violated in this situation. That is why you yourself described it as very poor. In this situation, it is your emotional reaction that is clouding your judgment. You must have experienced some cognitive dissonance upon acknowledging how very poor the ADAs action was. To repair this, you’re projecting your affective experience on me. Lord knows you could not find yourself on the same side of this matter as black people or liberals! ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3348 "2014-11-28T16:01:33Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > And you know that that precedent occurred only “a few times” exactly how? A cite offered earlier in this thread claimed a miniscule number of Grand Juries that, when presented with a case by a Federal prosecutor, failed to produce a “true bill”. I’m not going to search the thread for it, but I find that same assertion [here](http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/25/grand-juries-almost-never-fail-to-indict) (it may or may not be the same cite) and it is backed up by the US Department of Justice’s Statistics [here](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs10st.pdf) (PDF! Tables 2.2 and 2.3). Of 193,021 total cases, 15.9% were “declined”. Of all those declined, the total declined because the GJ failed to return a “true bill” was 11. Not 11%. Eleven. Total. So yeah, I’ll stick with my claim that “unusual” is an accurate description of the frequency with which such a thing occurs. Your cite relies upon a single person’s assertion that politically expedient shirking of a prosecutor’s normal role does occur. Even if we accept his word, he makes no claim that it is a common, or an acceptable, event. If you think the frequency greatly exceeds “a few times”, you’ll need more than rhetoric as proof. > [@Steophan](#): > > Well yes. The former two are subsets of the last. Someone who’s not guilty has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of their innocence holds. Someone who’s unindicted has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of their innocence holds. Darren Wilson has not been proven guilty, so the presumption of his innocence holds. > > You are free to claim otherwise, but you’d be legally wrong and, unless you have evidence that proves his guilt, morally wrong. You’re not from around here, are you? So I guess you could be forgiven for failing to recognize that the presumption of innocence is a legal convention intended to prevent punishment by fiat. Its general applicability to all legal residents keeps us from devolving into either lynch mobs or “King’s justice”. Accusations of wrongdoing shall not result in punishment until a legal standard (in criminal law, it’s usually “beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt”) is overcome _in a court of law_. So it is technically correct to say that someone who is implicated or accused of a crime is “presumed innocent”. But it sure isn’t correct to declare that person to actually be innocent. People awaiting trial are “presumed innocent”, but some of them are in point of fact guilty of their own special crimes. They certainly aren’t actually innocent. Nor are the unindicted perpetrators of crimes who have not been identified, captured, or accused by the legal system. There are plenty of people running around who have committed crimes and never been caught. They are unindicted, they would be presumed innocent were accusations made (until and unless a court found differently), but they aren’t innocent. And then there are those who have been accused, maybe charged, perhaps even found “not guilty”, but who did in fact perpetrate the crime. People like, say, a certain famous football player. Acquitted, indeed, but in very many people’s minds, far from innocent. Words have meanings, and those meanings are important. You should strive to learn them. The giant clusterfuck that was the investigation and “prosecution” (I think ironic quotes are justified) of this police-involved shooting leaves many people wondering whether Officer Wilson’s innocence is closer to that football player’s than to a babe in arms. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3349 "2014-11-28T16:04:38Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > A cite offered earlier in this thread claimed a miniscule number of Grand Juries that, when presented with a case by a Federal prosecutor, failed to produce a “true bill”. Ok. Was there a Federal prosecutor involved in this case? > [@](#): > > So yeah, I’ll stick with my claim that “unusual” is an accurate description of the frequency with which such a thing occurs. Why don’t you cite what percentage of Grand Juries (not Federal ones) return a no-bill in a case involving police shooting. You know, so that the cite would be relevant to the case in question. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3350 "2014-11-28T16:16:58Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > No, it is pretty demonstrably wrong to tell the grand jury that it is okay to shoot someone for running away. > **[Grand Jury Wrangled With Confusing Instructions](https://www.stlpr.org/government-politics-issues/2014-11-26/grand-jury-wrangled-with-confusing-instructions)** > > Just before the Darren Wilson grand jury began deliberating, the two prosecutors in the room gave the grand jurors an unusual message: Ignore part of the… But Flanders and other legal experts think that Garner and the jury instruction don’t solve the problem. **Flanders said the prosecutors in the grand jury actually were wrong to say Garner trumps the law. Garner was the constitutional standard for a civil lawsuit. Missouri does not have to criminalize all police action that is unconstitutional. So, Flanders and other lawyers believe the state law still is in effect.** If Wilson had been indicted using the Garner rule against shooting an unarmed fleeing felon, he could have challenged any conviction by relying on the Missouri law that permits an officer to shoot an unarmed suspect. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3351 "2014-11-28T16:18:05Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > A cite offered earlier in this thread claimed a miniscule number of Grand Juries that, when presented with a case by a Federal prosecutor, failed to produce a “true bill”. I’m not going to search the thread for it, but I find that same assertion [here](http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/25/grand-juries-almost-never-fail-to-indict) (it may or may not be the same cite) and it is backed up by the US Department of Justice’s Statistics [here](http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fjs10st.pdf) (PDF! Tables 2.2 and 2.3). Of 193,021 total cases, 15.9% were “declined”. Of all those declined, the total declined because the GJ failed to return a “true bill” was 11. Not 11%. Eleven. Total. As has been explained, the normal situation is that a prosecutor believes that there is probable cause that a crime has been committed, and then presents that evidence to a grand jury. Unless the prosecutor is stretching, the grand jury will come to the same basic conclusion that there is probable cause a crime has been committed and return and indictment. This is not unusual, and how the process should work. The grand jury is a backstop for situations where the state has become a tyranny or has gone coo-coo bananas and is charging people with non-existent evidence. In this case, the prosecutor did not think there was a crime committed. The evidence shows there was no crime committed. Your side seems to be asking the grand jury to ignore their role and send the case to trial without probable cause just to satisfy the blood lust of the rioters in the community. The grand jury is supposed to put an end to those types of things. I am ready to be educated about what I “don’t understand” about the anger of some in the black community. If anyone, black or white, refrains from robbing convenience stores, punching cops in the face, and immediately surrenders when told by a police officer, they are in very little danger of being shot and killed by police. If you do not do the above, then anyone, black or white, is in high danger of being shot by police. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3352 "2014-11-28T16:22:16Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Ok. Was there a Federal prosecutor involved in this case? > Why don’t you cite what percentage of Grand Juries (not Federal ones) return a no-bill in a case involving police shooting. You know, so that the cite would be relevant to the case in question. Unpersuasive rhetoric. Do you believe this is a frequent occurrence at the state or municipal level, or are you ‘just asking questions’? Why don’t you cite anything declaring this clusterfuck to be either common or acceptable, let alone both? ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3353 "2014-11-28T16:22:25Z")
… and some more on the subject: > **[Commentary: The Wilson Case Illustrates Why We Should Change Missouri’s Use...](https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2014-11-26/commentary-the-wilson-case-illustrates-why-we-should-change-missouris-use-of-force-law)** > > In the next few weeks and months, we’ll be arguing and disagreeing over the evidence disclosed in the massive data dump from the Ferguson grand jury… Missouri’s statute as written allows police officers to use deadly force to arrest someone who is guilty, say, only of forging a check. As a matter of a state criminal prosecution of a police officer, this inconsistency doesn’t matter. There is no requirement that state law fit with the standards for a federal civil rights suit against a police officer, which is what Garner was. If the attorneys supervising the grand jury thought that Garner somehow “overrides” the state statute, they were wrong. But that doesn’t mean that the lawyers shouldn’t have given the grand jury their revised statement of the law — whatever exactly it was (I haven’t found it in the files given to us, and we may never see it). The Garner standard is the more sensible standard. In fact, the Missouri pattern jury instructions (the instructions judges have to read if a law enforcement officer’s use of force is at issue at trial) already adopt the Garner standard. till, Missouri law stands unchanged. Of course, it may be that Wilson’s use of deadly force was justified even under the higher, Garner standard. Garner also says that deadly force may be used “if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm.” What we will be debating (and what we should be debating) is whether when Wilson shot Brown, he was shooting at a violent felon or (to quote another passage from Garner) shooting at an “unarmed, nondangerous suspect.” ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3354 "2014-11-28T16:23:35Z")
> [@CannyDan](#): > > The miscarriage of justice here is that there will never be a trial, never be a definitive finding of fact. Even when all the testimony and evidence presented to the GJ is considered, it does not substitute for an actual trial. Enormous numbers of questions remain unanswered, some of which might have been addressed in cross examination, if actual advocates were involved. But the Prosecutor never functioned as an advocate; the only advocate was Wilson defending himself. (I won’t address implications that the Prosecutor’s minions actually obfuscated matters of law and/or evidence. That is a separate, and even more damning action, if true.) So basically your position is that it should have went to trial anyway, just because? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3355 "2014-11-28T16:38:01Z")
> [@](#): > > …You know, so that the cite would be relevant to the case in question. We could examine this particular prosecutor’s record as regards the shooting death of suspects by policemen. You could, for instance, examine his record of strict prosecutorial discipline in the “Jack in the Box” case, as outlined in Newsweek here: > **[Will Justice Be Done in Ferguson?](https://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-prosecutor-robert-p-mccullochs-long-history-siding-police-267357)** > > Deciding whether Michael Brown's killing was lawful depends on a prosecutor with a long history of siding with the police \*\* Ferguson Prosecutor Robert P. McCulloch’s Long History of Siding With the Police\*\* > [@](#): > > …In the car were Earl Murray, a small-time drug dealer, and his friend Ronald Beasley. Waiting for them were a dozen detectives. By the time Murray realized it was a sting, he was surrounded.‘’ Panicked, he put his car into reverse but slammed into a police SUV behind him. Two officers approaching the car from the front opened fire. Twenty-one shots rained down on Murray and Beasley. > > In an ensuing investigation, the local prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, put the case to a grand jury, citizens who receive evidence under the instruction, questioning and watchful eye of the prosecutor to decide whether to press charges. The story presented to the grand jury was that Murray’s car moved toward the two officers, who then fired out of self-defense. The grand jury declined to indict the officers, and McCulloch said he agreed with the decision… The punchline: > [@](#): > > …But a later federal investigation showed that the car had never come at the two officers: Murray never took his car out of reverse… And, of course, the fact that so far as anyone knew or knows, the second man in the car was guilty of felonious sitting, with intent to associate with a not-nice person. Even if the car had been moving in an aggressive and threatening manner, he wasn’t driving it. He is, however, equally dead. > [@](#): > > …An exhaustive St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation found that only three of the 13 detectives who testified had said the car moved forward: the two who unloaded their guns and a third whose testimony was, as McCulloch admitted, “obviously…completely wrong.” McCulloch never introduced independent evidence to help clarify for the grand jury whether Murray’s car moved forward… And finally, this: > [@](#): > > …On the last day of testimony, an investigator in McCulloch’s office read out a list of every interaction Murray and Beasley had had with law enforcement, even arrests that never resulted in charges… . The case cries out for your mad forensic skills. But if it is what it appears to be, the good citizens of Ferguson have ample reason to be dubious about McCulloch’s impartiality. Yes. Indeed. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3356 "2014-11-28T16:42:08Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Would a trial make any difference? The protesters were intent on protesting, and the rioters were determined to riot. A trial would just drag the whole thing out longer, wouldn’t it? Yep. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3357 "2014-11-28T16:58:39Z")
If Mr. McCulloch main motivation was to avoid the consequences of civil unrest, he might well have recused himself. Would that have prevented the unfortunate consequences? I’m guessing not, but that’s guessing. It would have at least offered some assurance to the black citizens of Ferguson that the legal establishment was concerned with justice. Or at least the _appearance_… Of course, if Mr McCulloch’s primary impulse was to assure the legal exoneration of Officer Wilson, he should have done precisely as he did. Worked like a charm in that regard. As far as community relations goes and reassuring the community, at least he did not publicly wipe his butt with a portrait of MLK. ---
**Author:** ![CannyDan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cannydan/32/548_2.png) [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3358 "2014-11-28T17:00:16Z")
**jtgain** , if the prosecutor didn’t believe there was a crime, he didn’t need a Grand Jury. He should have simply declared that his investigation didn’t support charges. He would have had to deal with the resulting flack, but that’s why he gets the big bucks. Putting “all the evidence” in front of a GJ, but not asking them for an indictment – and after giving them false information about an important element of the possible crime (shooting a fleeing suspect) – can only be viewed as a cover-his-ass move. A way to deflect community outrage onto someone other than himself. I hope you are sincere in your willingness to be educated. First, note that your statement “The evidence shows there was no crime committed” is simply incorrect. We cannot know that to be true. Our system has a clearly defined way of deciding whether evidence supports an assertion of criminal action. It’s called a trial. There was no trial here. Grand Juries do not conduct trials. They cannot. Important elements of our legal system are lacking, without which a final determination of evidence cannot be made. That’s why people don’t go to jail whenever a GJ passes a ‘true bill’. There is no judge presiding, to ensure proper application of Law. Would all the ‘evidence’ presented to the GJ have been allowed into a courtroom? Would legal ‘experts’ have been allowed to offer their opinions? Would the ‘finder of fact’ (usually a jury but possibly a judge if the defendant desires) be ‘charged’ properly (meaning had the relevant laws explained and the possible outcomes identified)? (In this case, it seems the GJ was actually given an unconstitutional interpretation of the law governing a highly relevant question, that of shooting a fleeing suspect. Was that the only transgression?) There were no vigorous advocates, doing their best to represent their own sides. Thus there were no pointed cross-examinations, whereby the advocates demonstrate shortcomings in others’ testimony. There were no rebuttal witnesses called to refute others’ testimony or evidence. There were no summary arguments nor rhetoric to offer alternative explanations of events. Again, there was no trial. Thus we cannot know that “The evidence shows there was no crime committed”. We do not know what the result would have been had vigorous advocates presented evidence before an impartial interpreter of the law and a finder of fact made up of citizens from the community. We do know what happened when a prosecutor took political cover and a directionless GJ was left to their own devices. It was a clusterfuck. Maybe Wilson acted within the law that day. I honestly don’t know. My own reading of the smattering of evidence I’ve perused leads me one way, but I’m far from certain. Even if I read every bit of the evidence the GJ saw, I might not know for sure. After all, I, like the GJ, would not have either the legal formalities of a courtroom to guard against misapplications of law, nor the assistance of dueling vigorous advocates to point out for me issues and interpretations I wouldn’t have seen for myself. Sadly, apparently neither I nor the community at large will ever know for certain, all internet bloviations notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3359 "2014-11-28T17:06:57Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > If Mr. McCulloch main motivation was to avoid the consequences of civil unrest, he might well have recused himself. Would that have prevented the unfortunate consequences? I’m guessing not, but that’s guessing. It would have at least offered some assurance to the black citizens of Ferguson that the legal establishment was concerned with justice. Or at least the _appearance_… > > Of course, if Mr McCulloch’s primary impulse was to assure the legal exoneration of Officer Wilson, he should have done precisely as he did. Worked like a charm in that regard. As far as community relations goes and reassuring the community, at least he did not publicly wipe his butt with a portrait of MLK. What is a prosecutor supposed to do when he looks at the evidence and concludes that no crime was committed? Recuse himself? Why would he do that? He has no conflict of interest, and it is his job to make these tough decisions. Should he have a show trial? Put a person he believes committed no crime under arrest, fingerprint him, make him post bond, etc. just to reward people for becoming violent? Then, of course, instead of protest riots there would have been celebratory riots that burned the town to the ground. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354/3360 "2014-11-28T17:07:46Z")
Oddly, Terr selectively omitted this text that immediately precedes his quoted text in his own cite: > [@](#): > > Even though legal experts agree that this subsection of the law has been at odds with the U.S. Constitution for almost three decades, the language is still in state law. In fact, the new criminal code that takes effect in 2017 retains the language. > > That is the language that Flanders, Goldman and Sen.JamilahNasheedwant to change. > > Continuing confusion > > Eventhough the legislature had not changed the law, **the Missouri Supreme Court adopted a new jury instruction that complies with Garner. It does not allow a police officer to claim he was entitled to shoot an unarmed fleeing felon.** Bolding mine. I wonder what motivated this omission? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354.md?page=167) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ferguson-mo/695354.md?page=169)