I’ll be kind and assume you did actually read the article, and are simply employing some playful irony with this statement.
Five witnesses give accounts that Brown was in a STANDING position when Wilson shot him to death. Some say his hands were up, others not, but they all say he was standing. Only one account, Wilson himself, says Brown was charging him.
You are kind of missing the point - if they rioted in the past, then the fact that they are preparing for riots in the future is not evidence that the prosecution is tanking it.
What evidence do you have that he is deliberately not trying? That he allowed Wilson to testify? That’s not very good evidence -
And since the grand jury is not open to the public, neither you nor anyone else has any idea if the prosecution’s presentation is haphazard or cogent.
Regards,
Shodan
They’re anticpating a non-indictment.
It’s kinda frustrating when you give someone evidence and they keep saying, “where’s the evidence?” As I said, reports are the prosecution is not recommending charges as they would normally do in a grand jury. Now, you can deny, refute, or discount that evidence, but quit saying, “there’s no evidence.” There’s also the fact that they keep postponing the decision and have now pushed it back to the cold of January.
Watch. Come January, there will either be a non-indictment, or an indictment of the most minimal of charges.
…so it’s your opinion that the cops are acting wisely, then?
Wait, he also killed a kid?
They’re acting “wisely” if they want to whitewash Brown’s killing.
You claim that there’s not going to be an indictment.
You claim the police are preparing for riots in the event that there’s no indictment.
If your first statement is true, then isn’t the second just evidence that they’re engaging in a necessary precaution? Or are you saying they shouldn’t make any contingency plans and allow themselves to be caught flat-footed when there’s no indictment and the riots that they haven’t prepared for start? What does that have to do with “whitewashing” anything?
If you want to give the cops credit for planning for the results of their whitewashing, fine. Not sure what that has to do with the discussion at hand.
So you’re saying that the cops should deliberately not prepare for what you believe to be the most likely outcome of a process which they now have no control over?
Fortunately, the Grand Jury will see all those statements in full, along with the forensic evidence and crime scene photos, and be able to decide who’s more credible. An approach I prefer to using a small selection of the evidence to decide someone must be guilty.
Hopefully if you’re ever falsely accused of a crime, people will use my approach rather than yours.
I wasn’t commenting on the “should” or “shouldn’t” of it in any way, shape, or form. If that particular detail is important to you, as I said, fine. It’s not very important to me.
Clearly, YOU’VE already decided who’s more credible, given that your last post recited Wilson’s story without any regard whatsoever to opposing accounts.
Hopefully if you’re ever gunned down unjustly, people will NOT use your approach.
Steophan, if you believe that all applicable criminal charges require “ill intent”, I’m afraid you need to circle back and do more research. I don’t expect you’re an attorney (you’ve indicated you at least don’t reside in the US).
As to other items …
As for the prosecutor deciding to do things differently, keep in mind that he’s under no obligation to do what he’s stated he will do in the event there is no indictment at all, which is extraordinary: seek to release the audio of the grand jury proceeding. Most definitely a CYA move. Any failure to indict will be because of the grand jury (which isn’t dependent on the prosecutor deciding what it may hear/do). Ultimately, it is a jury (grand jury and/or then trial jury) (not all cases are initiated by a GJ) that does the dirty work in terms of letting cops off the hook. Whether a jury decides to do so once again, who knows. Usually, they’re more interested in the good will of cops and any perception that to convict a cop means you’re anti-cop but, in this situation, they may be more concerned about the law and the facts. (If paying attention, we’ve seen too many juries watch a video of several cops beating the shit out of someone and then declaring the cops did not violate the law.)
To be sure, it is quite unusual for the object of the investigation/the accused to be testifying, but this is a fairly new trend in general. (Most defense attorneys would threaten to or actually rather quit than countenance such an act by accused. Not insignificantly, it also doesn’t help their bottom line ($$) if the client’s presence and words convince the grand jury that the prosecutor has it wrong, which evidently happens about half the time … whereas *without *the appearance, as we all know, a ham sandwich will almost always be indicted.
As for as the rules go (noting that prosecutors don’t particularly care about the rules, because prosecutors being disciplined by the relevant authority (ultimately, it’s the state’s supreme court) is about as likely as me flying to the moon) the prosecutor needn’t worry about anything more than the police (ostensibly) need to worry: probable cause. No, they do not need to worry about evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (even in the jurisdictions were this is the performance standard a prosecutor needs to worry about, most prosecutors are too happy not to abide by their oaths to follow the commandments that are rules of professional conduct).
Probable cause is, as you (should) all know, is a pretty easy bar to meet in terms of actual or so-called fact twisting. Even if a prosecutor’s office ostensibly subscribes to ABA standards or their state’s standards meet ABA standards – and many do not even pretend to (again, reality is they ignore what tenets they please) – they MAY take into account for purposes of their win-loss risk assessment as it relates to their career, not justice and concern themselves with whether they have or can acquire or can present (accurate or false) evidence beyond a reasonable doubt before proceeding with a prosecution. Prosecutors have no more integrity than your average human, and a majority aren’t even particularly concerned about the actual innocence or guilt of the accused, or whether they run afoul of any basic commandments of their profession.
Hopefully they will use my approach, and give the shooter the full benefit of the doubt he’s entitled to by law.
A far less serious crime happened to me recently. Stuff was stolen from me, and I’m certain it was by a former housemate. The police investigated, and decided that there was insufficient evidence from just my statement that it was him. Much as it’s annoying, they were right. The seriousness of the (alleged) crime doesn’t reduce the need for proper investigation - which includes accepting that sometimes there simply won’t be enough evidence.
My point? Being sure that someone did the crime isn’t enough even to get the police to arrest them. And rightly so.
“Benefit of the doubt” is not taking the shooter’s word and no one else’s. There are five (at least) independent witnesses who say they saw Wilson shoot Brown when he was in a standing position, NOT charging.
If five independent witnesses saw your housemate steal your stuff and the cops STILL said there wasn’t enough evidence, I’d bet you’d feel a whitewashing was afoot.
IANAL, but is this true? I thought prosecutors had much discretion in deciding what evidence to present to a U.S. grand jury.
Actually that’s true, they usually don’t provide the exculpatory evidence.
In some ways* I hope this does go to trial, even if it’s clear he’s not guilty, just so as all the evidence can be seen by the public - as happened in the George Zimmerman case (probably the most farcial trial I’ve ever seen). Obviously if he is guilty I also hope it goes to trial and he’s convicted.
*In other ways I think it’s unfair and wasteful to try someone who’s not going to be convicted.
Aren’t prosecutors bound to reveal exculpatory evidence? The reason we don’t see it is because if there is such evidence, prosecuting the case would seem silly, or criminal itself.
Yes, probably. A better analogy to the investigation we’re discussing would be if five independent witnesses gave statements to the media saying that the stuff was his, not mine, and people believed that without questioning it.
That said, if five witnesses said they’d seen him take the stuff, but he had very strong evidence that he was in another country (for example), I’d be hard pressed to criticise them for not taking it to trial. If there’s evidence that exculpates someone, that trumps incriminating evidence, even if that incriminating evidence is extremely strong.
Which basically means that, if there’s decent evidence that a reasonable person would have felt in fear of death or serious injury in Wilson’s position, then the shooting was justified, no matter what other evidence there is. That’s where the benefit of the doubt comes in. If the evidence is conflicted, then they’re not guilty.