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Then you run into the problem of innocent, or at least justified, people having their financial lives destroyed defending against murder charges. I don't think

Then you run into the problem of innocent, or at least justified, people having their financial lives destroyed defending against murder charges. I don't think it's as simple as "if someone dies there needs to be a trial".

jnks 12y ago
> I don't think it's as simple as "if someone dies there needs to be a trial". But there almost always is in reality, if there's a reasonable suspect. The only exception seems to be with law enforcement officers.
- Crito 12y ago
  Not really. Iff it makes it to the Grand Jury, then what you said is true. Often it never makes it that far. In many self-defense cases involving non-police civilians the district attorney will decide that no crime was committed and that will be the end of it. One quick example from the top of a google search: http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/janitor-wont-be-charged-in-shooting-deaths-of-2-teens-b99239212z1-253608471.html http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/janitor-wont-be-charged-i...
higherpurpose 12y ago
Only something like 11 cases out of 160,000 the accused has not been indicted. The prosecutors can already "automatically" put everyone through trial. Not to mention plenty already "have their financial lives destroyed" through the Civil Forfeiture law.
- rayiner 12y ago
  That's the statistic for federal grand juries.[1] And it has mostly to do with the fact that federal prosecutors only bring slam dunk cases. At the federal level, there is often a lot of consternation about whether what is being prosecuted should be a crime, but it's very rare that a prosecution is brought on shaky evidence. At the state level it's much higher 3-4%. You can say it's a rubber stamp, but in practice the average is raised by the fact that most criminal cases are slam dunk (that kilo of cocaine found in the accused's car is almost certainly his). And the bar for an indictment is relatively low, just probable cause. It'd be pretty uncomfortable if prosecuto so we're bringing lots of cases where they don't even have enough evidence to convince 3/4 of a grand jury there is probable cause. [1] The distinction is relevant because federal and state prosecutors handle totally different sorts of crimes.
- sp332 12y ago
  And that's only for cases that even made it to a grand jury. I haven't seen any stats about "officer-involved shootings" that never even got that far.
anigbrowl 12y ago
We could adopt the English approach to coroner's inquiries, which are non-adversarial and don't have any custodial sanctions, but operate in public and can be input to a murder trial if that's appropriate. I don't want to put everyone on trial for murder, but I do think that every death needs to have an open investigation. This would obviously require some fundamental changes to the US legal system, but I think that it's already experiencing severe stress under the weight of its own contradictions.
- walshemj 12y ago
  Any death in custody in the uk gets investigated even more so in the rare case when deadly force is used.
joesmo 12y ago
At the absolute least, there should be a trial if the accused is known to have committed the homicide like the cases mentioned in the article. In one case, it was caught on tape, and in cases of a shooting ballistics can easily prove this. I don't think any of the officers mentioned in the article would deny that they had committed homicide, only that it wasn't murder. When there has been a homicide like that and the killer is known, there should never be a case without a trial. That goes doubly when the killer is a law enforcement officer. If we want to fix the current problems with policing in America, the only way to do that is to hold LEOs to higher standards than everyone else (and ideally stiffer penalties).

jnks 12y ago

> I don't think it's as simple as "if someone dies there needs to be a trial". But there almost always is in reality, if there's a reasonable suspect. The only exception seems to be with law enforcement officers.

Crito 12y ago
Not really. Iff it makes it to the Grand Jury, then what you said is true. Often it never makes it that far. In many self-defense cases involving non-police civilians the district attorney will decide that no crime was committed and that will be the end of it. One quick example from the top of a google search: http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/janitor-wont-be-charged-in-shooting-deaths-of-2-teens-b99239212z1-253608471.html http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/janitor-wont-be-charged-i...

higherpurpose 12y ago

Only something like 11 cases out of 160,000 the accused has not been indicted. The prosecutors can already "automatically" put everyone through trial. Not to mention plenty already "have their financial lives destroyed" through the Civil Forfeiture law.

rayiner 12y ago
That's the statistic for federal grand juries.[1] And it has mostly to do with the fact that federal prosecutors only bring slam dunk cases. At the federal level, there is often a lot of consternation about whether what is being prosecuted should be a crime, but it's very rare that a prosecution is brought on shaky evidence. At the state level it's much higher 3-4%. You can say it's a rubber stamp, but in practice the average is raised by the fact that most criminal cases are slam dunk (that kilo of cocaine found in the accused's car is almost certainly his). And the bar for an indictment is relatively low, just probable cause. It'd be pretty uncomfortable if prosecuto so we're bringing lots of cases where they don't even have enough evidence to convince 3/4 of a grand jury there is probable cause. [1] The distinction is relevant because federal and state prosecutors handle totally different sorts of crimes.
sp332 12y ago
And that's only for cases that even made it to a grand jury. I haven't seen any stats about "officer-involved shootings" that never even got that far.

anigbrowl 12y ago

We could adopt the English approach to coroner's inquiries, which are non-adversarial and don't have any custodial sanctions, but operate in public and can be input to a murder trial if that's appropriate. I don't want to put everyone on trial for murder, but I do think that every death needs to have an open investigation. This would obviously require some fundamental changes to the US legal system, but I think that it's already experiencing severe stress under the weight of its own contradictions.

walshemj 12y ago
Any death in custody in the uk gets investigated even more so in the rare case when deadly force is used.

joesmo 12y ago

At the absolute least, there should be a trial if the accused is known to have committed the homicide like the cases mentioned in the article. In one case, it was caught on tape, and in cases of a shooting ballistics can easily prove this. I don't think any of the officers mentioned in the article would deny that they had committed homicide, only that it wasn't murder. When there has been a homicide like that and the killer is known, there should never be a case without a trial. That goes doubly when the killer is a law enforcement officer. If we want to fix the current problems with policing in America, the only way to do that is to hold LEOs to higher standards than everyone else (and ideally stiffer penalties).