Gah... got a half-completed reply stuck in my editor
The issue here is because the prosecutor had no intention of indicting him. So the grand jury was treated like a trial, contradictory evidence was presented to the grand jury with no one to question said evidence, they put Wilson on the stand, coached and coaxed him to present his version of events which is unheard of (even Scalia noted many years ago that the accused is not really meant to take the stand because a grand jury hearing is not to determine his innocence but whether there is enough to go to a trial), the jury were literally told to ignore the law and ignore common law if not ignoring it meant they would have to indict. And if that was not bad enough, the prosecutor did not instruct the jury to indict, which it is meant to.bells I ask because I do not know - what was this whole deal with Wilson, if not a trial?
Kittamaru said:bells I ask because I do not know - what was this whole deal with Wilson, if not a trial?
I would not at this time take issue with our colleague's response, but wanted to pitch in a couple of pennies for my own part:
• The normal process for a grand jury investigation is a prosecutor presenting evidence of why this or that subject should be indicted. At no time in any grand jury proceeding is a defendant's lawyer present to argue on behalf of said client. What McCulloch did was perform a grand jury investigation while acting, in many people's opinons, as an "attorney for the defendant". That is, he went to the grand jury and essentially pitched why the officer should not be indicted. Normally, defendants don't have such representation in a grand jury. In a trial, there at least would have been a lawyer present who would, in front of a jury, have challenged the officer's testimony and, I promise you, who would have thrown a holy fit when prosecutors tried to inform the jury according to an inapplicable, unconstitutional statute. There is no way the witness taking the stand that day would have done so without an opposing attorney literally raising hell about the state's attempt to misinform the jury. What the officer got appears to be the state of Missouri acting as a defense attorney. And this is the important part of the difference between a grand jury investigation and a trial. If this was a trial, at least one lawyer would be present arguing on behalf of the dead man. Ordinarily, that should be the state. What was this whole deal if not a trial? It was what it was, a grand jury investigation. And as far as being a trial? It was never supposed to be. When you dive into the history of grand jury investigations and indictments, you will find that nothing about this particular process was normal. This was extraordinary process, above and beyond the call of what is due. This was the state throwing a case. That is what it was, and not a trial.
To you, everything that is, is not because it doesn't fit with your expectations/ preconceived notions of what should be...What is has been clearly presented, but you stubbornly refuse to accept that...Consequently, you are doing they very thing you claim to be against i.e. acting as a judge, jury, and executioner--towards individuals and situations alike. Self Righteousness and Hypocrisy go hand in hand.
Good day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_gods
I see that you have taken a pause from your racist ideology to look up a dictionary. How wonderful. It is much better than your happy dancing on black people's graves while quoting and defending white supremacists and making white supremacist arguments yourself.To you, everything that is, is not because it doesn't fit with your expectations/ preconceived notions of what should be...What is has been clearly presented, but you stubbornly refuse to accept that...Consequently, you are doing they very thing you claim to be against i.e. acting as a judge, jury, and executioner--towards individuals and situations alike. Self Righteousness and Hypocrisy go hand in hand.
Good day.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quixotic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills
So much less than the average speed of "walking"..Two miles per hour is three feet per second.
In the 6.5 seconds from first shot to last,
Brown, charging at such a speed, could have covered 19.5 feet.
The distance was 15 feet.
Brown's rate of movement was less than 2mph.
I suppose if he'd said "he walked really really slowly towards me in a threatening manner" just doesn't sound as good...In a race with the typical user of a zimmer frame,
he would lose.
I suppose if he'd said "he walked really really slowly towards me in a threatening manner" just doesn't sound as good...
Scalia was referring to the Supreme Court decision regarding US v. Williams that found that federal prosecutors had no duty to present exculpatory evidence to a federal grand jury, which has no bearing on the duty of state prosecutors regarding state grand juries. In fact the majority of states require prosecutors to present some degree of exculpatory evidence to grand jurors, and no state prohibits prosecutors from presenting exculpatory evidence to a grand jury. And while in most states the accused doesn’t have a right to testify to a grand jury, there is no prohibition against them doing so. There is nothing illegal or necessarily improper about state prosecutors presenting evidence favoring the accused when such evidence is in existence, so why keep insisting that it is?The issue here is because the prosecutor had no intention of indicting him. So the grand jury was treated like a trial, contradictory evidence was presented to the grand jury with no one to question said evidence, they put Wilson on the stand, coached and coaxed him to present his version of events which is unheard of (even Scalia noted many years ago that the accused is not really meant to take the stand because a grand jury hearing is not to determine his innocence but whether there is enough to go to a trial), the jury were literally told to ignore the law and ignore common law if not ignoring it meant they would have to indict. And if that was not bad enough, the prosecutor did not instruct the jury to indict, which it is meant to.
A lot of Michael Brown’s behavior doesn’t make sense. Why commit robbery and assault in a convenience store in front of witnesses and a video camera? And then afterwards walk down the middle of a street with the stolen property in plain sight? Then mouth off to a cop and draw even more attention to yourself? And then top it off by assaulting the cop? Sound like a rational individual to you?And the evidence does not fit his actual testimony. At all. From the marks on his face where he said he was in the life and death struggle in the car, to his own testimony about how Brown was running at him after he chased him in the street when Brown ran away from him when he discharged his weapon twice in the car, to the fact that Brown turned around after having run away from him after he shot at him... Why would someone who is running away from someone with a gun, turn around and come back towards the guy holding the gun and had shot at you? That doesn't make sense. The only way that could make sense is if he shot at Brown while Brown was running away and Brown stopped running, and walked back towards him slowly (which is what Capracus is now saying must have happened)... But if Brown did that, then Brown was no longer the threat that Wilson testified he was when Wilson testified that he shot at Brown because Brown ran at him and charged him. If Brown was walking slowly towards him, then why didn't he use mace (after all, he testified Brown was 15 feet away from him) instead of unloading his gun into him? Wilson testified that Brown ran away from him, and by the image of the scene provided by Capracus, Brown was running fast enough away from him that his sandals fell off his feet. And he kept running well after that for a fair distance. So why would he stop, turn around and run back at Wilson? He ran away from Wilson when Wilson opened fire in his car. Wilson still had his gun in his hand when he gave chase, why would Brown stop, turn around and run back at Wilson? It makes no sense.
That Brown ran at Wilson prior to being killed is supported by witness testimony, whether brown was constantly running during the shooting as Wilson recalled is debatable, but regardless of how you categorize his motion, witness testimony and physical evidence show brown advancing towards Wilson during the shooting in spite of being warned to stop.And how and why does Wilson testify that Brown was running at him and not stopping running at him and he felt so threatened by this that he shot at him multiple times, when the physical evidence does not support Brown running?
Wilson’s basic premise that Brown assaulted him, ran away, reversed his course and advanced back towards him is consistent with the physical evidence, and the jurors found his narrative consistent enough with the more credible witness testimony to justify his claim of self defense.These questions would have been answered in a trial. Because right now, the testimony that Wilson gave does not actually fit the physical evidence at all.
The prosecutors in this proceeding were not legally or ethically obliged to instruct the jurors to be biased for or against indictment; they let the unbiased body of evidence lead the jurors to their final conclusion. The proceedings of this grand jury are open and reviewable, and to my knowledge there has yet to be a valid challenge to their procedural legality or propriety.Had the prosecutor been doing his job, had he not been protecting Wilson as he openly did, he'd have asked the jury to indict because those questions exist. Instead, he told the grand jury to ignore the law completely, to ignore those questions because to try to answer those questions and the contradictions which exist in the law and common law which was discussed in previous posts, if it meant that it would result in an indictment and he did not ask them to indict. And had the prosecutor been doing his job, then the grand jury hearing would not have ended up being like a trial, with the jury acting like the prosecutor and the prosecutor acting as though he was Wilson's defense lawyer.
Wilson's basic premise and what he testified to does not fit the physical evidence. It does fit the countless of eyewitness testimony who testified that he shot at Brown as Brown was running away from him as fast as he could, even losing his shoes in the process and not stopping to get his Nike's, and then Brown stopped running when he opened fire at the retreating Brown, turned around and slowly walked back towards him. More than half the witnesses testified that this happened.Scalia was referring to the Supreme Court decision regarding US v. Williams that found that federal prosecutors had no duty to present exculpatory evidence to a federal grand jury, which has no bearing on the duty of state prosecutors regarding state grand juries. In fact the majority of states require prosecutors to present some degree of exculpatory evidence to grand jurors, and no state prohibits prosecutors from presenting exculpatory evidence to a grand jury. And while in most states the accused doesn’t have a right to testify to a grand jury, there is no prohibition against them doing so. There is nothing illegal or necessarily improper about state prosecutors presenting evidence favoring the accused when such evidence is in existence, so why keep insisting that it is?
Here’s some educational refreshment.
Stepping Back: Thoughts on the Ferguson Grand Jury and Prosecutor
http://stanfordlawyer.law.stanford....ts-on-the-ferguson-grand-jury-and-prosecutor/
Do Prosecutors Have to Present Evidence That Helps the Defendant to a Grand Jury?
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclope...vidence-helps-the-defendant-grand-juries.html
A lot of Michael Brown’s behavior doesn’t make sense. Why commit robbery and assault in a convenience store in front of witnesses and a video camera? And then afterwards walk down the middle of a street with the stolen property in plain sight? Then mouth off to a cop and draw even more attention to yourself? And then top it off by assaulting the cop? Sound like a rational individual to you?
The reason Brown stopped running from the scene was that he realized he was being pursued by Wilson, and in his infinite wisdom may have thought he could stop his armed pursuer. Again.
That Brown ran at Wilson prior to being killed is supported by witness testimony, whether brown was constantly running during the shooting as Wilson recalled is debatable, but regardless of how you categorize his motion, witness testimony and physical evidence show brown advancing towards Wilson during the shooting in spite of being warned to stop.
The physical evidence does not disprove that Brown was running, only that it likely wasn’t fast or constant. If the most westward spent casing is advanced 10 ft instead of receded, Brown’s distance covered is 37 ft and his forward average speed is increased to 4 mph.
Wilson’s basic premise that Brown assaulted him, ran away, reversed his course and advanced back towards him is consistent with the physical evidence, and the jurors found his narrative consistent enough with the more credible witness testimony to justify his claim of self defense.
The prosecutors in this proceeding were not legally or ethically obliged to instruct the jurors to be biased for or against indictment; they let the unbiased body of evidence lead the jurors to their final conclusion. The proceedings of this grand jury are open and reviewable, and to my knowledge there has yet to be a valid challenge to their procedural legality or propriety.