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Just to add some context … this story is interesting in the context of the Ferguson, MO grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson. Recall that Wilson sho
by mherdeg 12y ago
Just to add some context … this story is interesting in the context of the Ferguson, MO grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson.
Recall that Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an 18-year old black man, in August 2014. The circumstances of the shooting were controversial.
In that case, the prosecutor, Bob McCulloch was asked by activists to recuse himself from the case because of apparent biases in his personal history (his father was a St. Louis police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty).
After the grand jury declined to indict Wilson, activists claimed that this probably happened because McCulloch convinced the grand jury not to indict.
This story is interesting because it provides evidence that in the "normal" course of operations of a grand jury, grand juries nearly always indict as long as there is something which looks like plausible evidence. So when the person in this story says "We had, as ever, no choice. We voted to indict" — that is interesting to compare against the Ferguson grand jury's decision not to indict, a very, very rare occurrence which should raise questions about how it happened.
Wikipedia glosses this as "Legal analysts raised concerns over McCulloch's unorthodox approach, asserting that this process could have influenced the grand jury to decide not to indict,[63][79] and highlighted significant differences between a typical grand jury proceeding in Missouri and Wilson's case.[33]".
- developer1 12y agoThe way you describe it though, it sounds pretty... disgusting... that grand juries nearly always indict. This would indicate that there is nearly no point in holding a trial if the norm is to always convict.
- dedward 12y agoA grand jury indicting is rather different than a trial jury convicting.
- Dylan16807 12y agoIndict and convict are different things. Indicting means proceeding to a trial.
- skwirl 12y agoIn normal circumstances, it makes sense that grand juries would always indict - because prosecutors would not bother to bring a case before a grand jury if they didn't think they would get an indictment. All you need to bring up charges is probable cause, which is a pretty low standard, and it should be pretty obvious to a prosecutor if they have it. So the cases are all pre-filtered just because the system is in place. Even if the grand jury system approved 100% of indictments, it doesn't mean that it isn't preventing bad indictments from getting through. The same reasoning holds true for high rates of approval for warrants and 0% of airline luggage going through screening contaning bombs. Trials are different because they have an extremely high standard - beyond a reasonable doubt. A prosecutor can be completely convinced in their own mind that someone is guilty of a crime and they have no choice but to bring them up on trial if they think they even have a chance of meeting the high standard, even though they may fail.
- sanderjd 12y agoYeah it's interesting, a couple times the article seemed to want to make the larger point that prosecutors have huge power to direct a grand jury in the direction they want them to go, but the evidence in the article actually makes the slightly different point that grand juries nearly always indict. Those two different points lead to two different conclusions about the Michael Brown case.
- Anechoic 12y agoAfter the grand jury declined to indict Wilson, activists claimed that this probably happened because McCulloch convinced the grand jury not to indict Another interesting result from this is that one of the grand jurors is suing to lift the gag order imposed on the grand jury so s/he can discuss the process in that specific case. The prosecutor has opposed the motion [1]. [0] http://time.com/3653815/ferguson-grand-jury-michael-brown-darren-wilson/ http://time.com/3653815/ferguson-grand-jury-michael-brown-da... [1] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/10/mcculloch-ferguson-grand-juror-lawsuit-gag-order/23172129/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/10/mcculloch-ferg...
- skwirl 12y agoBased on the DOJ report, it seems that the case never should have even been brought before a grand jury. The prosecutor faced intense political pressure to bring this up before a grand jury - he shouldn't have done so, but he would have been tarred as a racist by the national media if he didn't. It's a bad situation all around.
- ufmace 12y agoI mostly agree with this, but to be a little devil's advocate, it does look pretty bad for the local prosecutor, seen as in bed with the current system, to handle the case. Even if the shooting itself was completely clean - as it appears to be - it would still look better if an independent prosecutor was trying the case. But then, the DOJ reports seem to show that, while the shooting itself was probably clean, that's about the only thing in Ferguson that was. With such a level of animosity between the population and the law enforcement system, is there anything that the system could have done at that point to satisfy the population? And the system has done plenty to earn that level of animosity - at this point, it's easy to see why the population is furious, even if the Brown shooting isn't the best case to focus their anger on. But people pay a lot more attention to a shooting than to countless hassles via tickets for trivial offenses and a legal system designed to make it as difficult and expensive as possible to stay on the right side of the law. And so we have the situation today.