As a thought experiment, do you think that there was anything that the prosecutor could have done that wouldn’t have been considered “shady”? Had he not called only those witnesses who testified that it wasn’t self-defense, not shown any evidence that contradicted those witnesses, and gotten an indictment, don’t you think that could be considered “shady”, also? And if he simply refused to seek the indictment based on his discretion, wouldn’t that be “shady” also. There was no way this case could have been handled that wouldn’t have someone saying it was “shady”.
No, that would be normal practice for a prosecutor. His job is to show probable cause to indict, yet he seemed to present both sides of the case. He could have just charged the cop, he could have just shown the evidence for prosecution. Both of these would be on solid grounds. Showing both sides of the evidence just seems bizarre.
So is it unprecedented? Why allow for exculpatory evidence?
Is presenting the officer or the forensic reports showing both sides? It seems very shady if he basically offered a defence.
Well, my default understanding (which has been somewhat corrected by RNATB) is that the typical stance from a prosecutor before a grand jury is to present only the evidence required for indictment. That seems to be borne out by the statistics cited up-thread (which I agree are not particularly elucidating for this particular case). It also appears that this particular prosecutor uses the “only enough to get an indictment” approach.
So, for some reason he took a different approach this time. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that he bowed to public pressure to present the case to the grand jury, even knowing that he professionally did not believe the evidence rose to probably cause.
My contention is that this approach is foolish and cowardly (if the goal was to accede to public pressure). If he had a history of presenting GJ’s with all of the evidence, then OK. But he didn’t - he created a new paradigm just for this case. Combined with his press conference (and, admittedly, earlier biases against him) this makes me think he intentionally presented less than his strongest case.
Additional question, was there any evidence of actual physical contact between Brown and Wilson during the shooting? Did Brown actually go for the gun?
Yes, but’s there’s also a lot of people who are happy to have gotten their free booze and cell phones and McDonalds.
That may well be, but you haven’t demonstrated it. Indeed, I suspect from your last post that you don’t even know what my claim is, since you think you’ve disproven it by finding a federal judge who thinks probable cause means 90% certainty. I don’t know if it’s me, or you, or some combination of both of us, but it sure seems like communication just utterly breaks down when I try to go more than four posts deep with you. If it’s me, my apologies, because it’s pretty annoying.
Hamlet, I think part of the problem is the prosecutor departed from standard practices (and while he says he brought before the grand jury all the evidence, as a practical matter that’s not what happened … nor was it feasible (that’d take the GJ meeting on more than 25 occasions).
Prosecutor accepted going in there’d be fallout regardless, but it’s fairly clear from his handling of (just for one) the questioning of the officer that he preferred there be a particular outcome. If he cared about actual fairness and impartiality or even the appearance of it, he’d have (again, for one) questioned Officer Wilson in the same manner as he would any would-be accused (let’s set aside the normal practice and pretend that the accused usually testifies or is allowed to testify during a grand jury investigation).
I’m more concerned now about potential prosecutorial misconduct. Why was he (allegedly) presenting a potentially defence case?
I too am disappointed that there was not an indictment. Not that I am certain of Wilson’s guilt, not at all. But I find it unlikely that the evidence and testimony couldn’t meet Richard Parker’s defined standard of “probable cause that a crime had been committed”.
Seems to me (although I admit I have not read the evidence so recently released) that there were at least popular accounts of the incident that could be read as eye witness testimony of a crime. That should have been sufficient to bring the case before an actual jury, to let them be the ultimate finders of fact.
Thus I am surprised that the prosecutor chose to effectively try the entire case before the Grand Jury. For that is indeed what seems to have happened. All evidence was presented, and the Grand Jurors were left to sort it out, judge credibility, assess technical evidence, and make a quite literally final determination. But there were no “sides” chosen, and neither the evidence (and the State) nor the potential defendant had an advocate present. This GJ, unlike apparently at least 99.9% of other GJs, had to work through the evidence, the testimony, and the legal ramifications pretty much without leadership from anyone, least of all the prosecutor. Without that leadership, their course was random and undirected.
Were I in a cynical mood, I’d almost think that this result could have easily been foreseen. And if I ran short of soothing medicinal whiskey, I might come to believe that this was the prosecutor’s plan all along. If I was black, and lived in Ferguson, I might think this a miscarriage of justice.
Maybe that’s why they needed to loot the liquor store – for medicinal whiskey.
My understanding is that there’s not much dispute among witnesses and physical evidence that, at some point before he was shot, Brown was engaged in some sort of scuffle with Wilson in the car. At some point, the gun went off (perhaps) and Brown may have been hit or grazed while in the car. The dispute comes after that – Wilson says (IIRC) that Brown fled, before turning around and then ‘charged’ back towards him and Wilson shot him, while some of the witnesses say Brown fled, Wilson pursued, and then Brown turned back with (possibly) hands in the air, not ‘charging’, (to surrender, according to some witnesses) and was shot. There doesn’t seem to be dispute that Brown was not very close to the police car when he was shot.
So there was a scuffle in or halfway in the car, according to pretty much everyone. Shots may have gone off (or not). At some point Brown fled, again, according to pretty much everyone. It’s after that that it gets hazy – Wilson says Brown turned back to charge/attack him and he fired, while most of the witnesses (from what I can tell) say that Wilson pursued the fleeing Brown, and at some point Brown turned with hands raised to surrender, and may have been walking/stumbling towards Wilson, but was not “charging”.
What do you have against improvement?
I didn’t cite to that guy specifically, and you’re presumably singling him out because he appears to be an outlier.
But the survey of judges - trained legal professionals whose job it is to know the law and who are not confused amateurs relying on googling - shows that they tend to define probable cause as being somewhere around 40% or 50% likely with deviation in either direction, and this is also supported in note 60 by published legal comments from other experts. This supports my position that finding witnesses for innocence more credible on the whole than those for guilt could mean there is no probable cause, despite the existence of the latter. It contradicts your position which argues otherwise.
I agree with you that there’s been some confusion, as you seemed to back off your initial position in #3018 and then posted a confusing version in #3031.
But your initial statement was “if the grand jury opted to believe Wilson (who, unusually, got to testify) and other witnesses over other non-discredited accounts, then I think the prosecutor’s decision to conduct this grand jury in such an unusual way led to an unjust result”, and this continues to be incorrect.
As above, if there were enough credible witnesses of guilt to establish probable cause and the grand jury mistakenly thought otherwise, then they’ve made a mistake. But there mere existance of “non-discredited accounts” does not imply that there must have been probable cause as you maintain.
The forensic evidence shows that Brown moved at least 25 feet towards Wilson in a couple of seconds. Not witnesses. Forensic evidence. That’s a “charge”.
RE: McCullough
Why did he insist on taking the case himself? Did he imagine that his reputation in the black community is so good that his presence would ensure acceptance of a verdict? Does he have a sterling record, one likely to boost the confidence of that community that justice will be strictly served?
Can you cite this? I had no idea forensics could establish such a thing.
Further, by “couple of seconds” do you mean exactly 2? Normal walking speed for a healthy adult is about 5 or 6 feet per second, which (if he wasn’t charging) would make it 4 or 5 seconds for 25 feet. Sprinting speed is 3 to 4 times that, so 15-25 feet per second, which would put a time for “charging” 25 feet at about 1 or 1.5 seconds.
Fother, it may surprise you to learn: (a) plenty of lawyers *including *judges don’t know the law or care to know it (many with a point of view “that’s why they made appellate courts”); (b) judges available to be asked or answer a survey, etc. don’t necessarily represent a good sampling of those who’d be involved with making probable cause determinations [1]; © again, plenty of judges don’t know the law but believe they do (and some do, but simply do not care and one is required to force them to follow it).
[1] Rather unfortunately, in a number of states as to a number of types of crimes (not anything to do with killing, fortunately), a police officer is free to be the complainant seeking charges and that decision will ALWAYS (with exceptions) be rubber-stamped by a commissioner or magistrate. (And in the state I have in mind, a district court commissioner need only be (i) 18, and (ii) a resident of the county. One doesn’t need so much as a high school degree.)
Sorry. Richard Parker is correct. Probable cause exists when the totality of facts and circumstances are sufficient to warrant a person of reasonable caution to believe that an offense has been committed. This is not quantifiable as a percentage, but it is absolutely less than a preponderance of the evidence. It is a low standard.
All three options would be on solid ground. Unless someone does not happen to like one of the options.
The grand jury heard all of the evidence available. After hearing all of the evidence available, the grand jury didn’t find a reason to indict.
Bricker, watch out or they’ll have you analyzing the diff between reasonable suspicion and probable cause. 
Hellz, what’s more depressing is the analysis of how few in criminal justice (though as a practical matter it really only takes the cop) care about probable cause generally, let alone (the ostensibly required) prob cause as to each (ostensibly required) element of a crime.
I’ve seen people charged, prosecuted (and, sadly, who plead guilty to the charged offense or lesser) on no more than (what was in fact) reasonable suspicion.