There’s this saying you might have heard a few times during the past week: “A good prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.”
A St. Louis County grand jury decided Nov. 24 not to indict Darren Wilson, a white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed African-American ?teenager.
First, let’s clear some things up. What happened Nov. 24 was not a trial, and an indictment is not a verdict. An indictment is a formal accusation of a crime. If Wilson had been indicted, the case would have moved to a trial, in which a verdict would be passed.
So if indictments are so easy to get, then the question remains: Was this grand jury unfair, or is St. Louis County prosecutor, Robert P. McCulloch, just a bad lawyer?
It could be a combination. Because any way you look at it, this case was not handled like others, at least not by Missouri standards.
As the New York Times pointed out, a typical case is presented in about a day to a grand jury. In Wilson’s case, the grand jurors met for 25 days within the span of three months.
Typically, a prosecutor would provide a charge or several, and that’s what the grand jury would base its indictment on. In Wilson’s case, McCulloch didn’t ?recommend any charges against ?Wilson.
Typically, a grand jury would hear a few testimonies.
The testimonies normally would come from the investigators who have looked over the evidence and ?interviewed witnesses.
Just a few. In Wilson’s case, the grand jury heard from 60 witnesses.
Typically, the grand jury wouldn’t hear from the defendant. In Wilson’s case, Wilson testified for four hours.
Typically, grand jury activity is kept secret under Missouri law. In a later trial, evidence from the grand jury can be submitted. In Wilson’s case, McCulloch released the testimony and the evidence after the grand jury reached its decision.
We also can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room. The grand jury was made up of nine white people and three black people. An indictment requires the agreement of at least nine jurors, but ?surely that’s just a coincidence.
Since the decision, people have raised questions and concerns regarding the handling of the case. MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Bloom blasted McCulloch through Twitter, calling his ?cross-examination a “tea party.”
And clearly, quite a number of people agreed as evidenced by the riots and protests, both peaceful and not, that erupted after the decision was ? announced.
Wilson’s case was not fair. McCulloch did not fulfill his duty as a prosecutor. The case was handled far too differently from the standard, and it allowed Wilson to walk away without ever even facing a trial.
What happened in Ferguson was a failure in our country’s legal system, and as the cases of police shootings pile up, it is imperative the system be fixed.
