We keep hearing about police plans to respond to protests in Ferguson, Missouri if the grand jury investigating Officer Darren Wilson’s shooting of Michael Brown decides not to return an indictment.
On the other hand, if the grand jury decides to indict Wilson, there would be a warrant for his arrest, and that would mean there’s officially an accused murderer on the loose. And we know he’s got access to weapons, training, and an undisputed willingness to kill, right? So how come we haven’t heard anything about the plans to send SWAT teams to capture him?
Obviously, no one expects Darren Wilson to be indicted. The other clue is that it’s taking so long for the grand jury to announce a decision. If anyone in the prosecutor’s office really thought Wilson was a murderer, do you think they would have allowed him to remain on the streets for three months?
As Jeff Gamso points out, this is a slam-dunk indictment if the prosecutor wants it to be. If you or I had shot Michael Brown, the grand jury proceedings would have gone something like this:
- Present witness Dorian Johnson, who was present at the shooting, and have him repeat his statements to the media describing how Darren Wilson shot an unarmed Michael Brown in cold blood.
- Present the medical finding that Brown was shot six times and that he died from the shots.
I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that’s enough for a murder indictment. There’s no need for cross examination or hearing from the other side. Grand juries proceedings are not a trial, they are the threshold over which an accusation must pass to get to a trial, and it’s a very low threshold. The grand jury just has to think it deserves a trial.
Of course, for them to do that, the prosecutor would have to want them to.
I don’t find the fact that a prosecutor could get an indictment probative of whether he should get one, not at all. The special prosecutor in Florida, for example, indicted Zimmerman with nothing that would support a conviction. That’s not serving justice. If there were conflicting witnesses, it would be lousy practice to merely put on Johnson, about as biased a witness as one could find. The fact that there were six shots fired isn’t indicative of anything. Police are trained to fire until a subject is down. Why would a prosecutor want to indict a police officer if the evidence showed that he was in legitimate fear of his life and fired in self defense? Why would you assume that if the prosecutor is presenting the evidence fairly, he doesn’t want an indictment? I will presume, until I see evidence to the contrary, that if the officer isn’t indicted, then there was not sufficient evidence to bring a legitimate indictment. Sure, prosecutors often get grand juries to indict on insufficient evidence. Are you really advocating that? Why? Because the protesters and civil rights groups want it to be a racist cop shooting an unarmed kid, rather than a scared cop shooting a charging thug with more than a 100 pounds on him who already tried to get his gun? The easiest path would be to punt and let the riots wait until Wilson was acquitted, if the evidence is insufficient or equivocal. I see no reason to presume that the prosecutor isn’t trying to do the right thing, regardless of what might make the mob happy.
Thanks for commenting. I’ve been meaning to respond, but you raise several issues so I think I’ll do it in a post…but I haven’t had time to put it together yet.
Posted my reply here.