should brown prosecutor be charged?

[Bells]

That is more than a little disingenuous considering Wilson is now without a job.

He resigned.

Then again, he's made close to half a million dollars out of it... And that is just from one money raising source. There were others.

So in your view frivolous and incompetent prosecutions are good? The reason we have grand juries is to prevent incompetent or malicious prosecutions. You seem to be inviting them.

You think killing someone or having a trial for a person who killed another is frivolous?

Joe, you aren't smart enough to try to do the whole turn the argument back on others trick you are so desperately trying to do. On the one hand, it is obscenely obvious and silly and on the other hand, you don't really seem to understand what it is I have actually said.

This case is dirty enough that a juror is suing because of just how badly this case was presented to them and to the public. Then again, if a prosecutor goes out of his way to allow people to perjure themselves in any hearing, it is a fairly safe assumption that it is an absolute farce to begin with.

Nice straw man. No one is arguing police officers shouldn’t be held accountable if they screw up. The reason most Americans are not up in arms is because there is no evidence the cop in this case did screw up. That is why the state attorney general, the bar, federal authorities have not and will not charge the attorney general you want thrown in jail for anything. One requires evidence to be thrown in jail in this country and you and those like you don’t have it.

Most Americans are not up in arms? Umm.. You have missed the protests in the streets across your country?

This is now under investigation. And at a guess, they are going to go over it with a fine tooth comb. Federally, this is being investigated as a civil rights case.. His admission that he knowingly allowed people to perjure themselves will open him up to even more issues.

Good example, you keep treating the grand jury as if it were a criminal trial jury. As has been pointed out to you numerous times, it isn’t. It is an investigative body. As I said before, how great would it be if cops were forbidden to speak with anyone who might lie to them? McCulloch isn’t pressing charges against those who lied on the stand because his office has limited resources and has been repeatedly pointed out to you, a lot of people lied on the witness stand – mostly against Officer Wilson.

Once again, you clearly have a reading problem. My whole point is that McCulloch should not have treated it like a criminal trial and acted like Wilson's defense attorney.

Now, as an investigative body, with no legal knowledge and who are meant to be guided by the prosecutor, how is the grand jury able to investigate what is put before them when 1) so many of the victims were lying with the full knowledge of the prosecutor that they were lying and at no time did the prosecutor inform the jury of this, 2) they were given the wrong statutes from the start? All of which was brought up by the juror who is now suing McCulloch for the hatchet job he did of that hearing. Not only that, the juror also alleges and this is easily seen in every aspect of the hearing, that the hearing was not at all like any other grand jury hearing and that this was so blatantly treated differently and with such a slant as to protect Wilson..

Is this how you think grand jury hearings should occur?

Then why do you keep ignoring those witnesses who lied against Officer Wilson and solely focus on the one juror who lied to support Officer Wilson’s account?

I am not. On the contrary, I have repeatedly said that any witness and non-witness that perjured themselves would have slanted that hearing and I have also repeatedly questioned how and why he could have 1) allowed them to perjure themselves and 2) not informed the jury that those witnesses were lying, 3) not pressed charges..

 

[Bells]

When did McCulloch admit he was wrong to allow all witnesses testify? Again, your focus on witness number 40 to the exclusion of all others (e.g. witness 41 and 42, etc.) is telling. And it ignores the fact that a grand jury is an investigative body and not a criminal trial jury. And then there are the physical facts which you keep ignoring.

What part of it is illegal to perjure yourself in front of a grand jury and what part of it is illegal for an attorney to allow people to perjure themselves and what part of it is illegal to not inform the grand jury that witnesses perjured themselves did you not quite understand?

Do you understand that McCulloch broke the law, and also breached the civil procedure rules he swore to uphold? Even though it isn't a criminal trial, he is still obligated to uphold the law which he swore to uphold.

The rules and the law clearly states that he has to inform the grand jury, even reconvene them if necessary, if he finds out that someone lied under oath in a grand jury hearing. He never did so. The laws and the rules also state that he is obligated to not allow people to lie under oath. He did so repeatedly. Do you understand that those breaches have nothing to do with the grand jury but with his actions? He broke the law. As I have said repeatedly, even if the grand jury held to indict, my response would have been the same.

McCulloch did his job as he was legally required to do, and that is why he has not and will not be prosecuted by state or federal authorities.

You could only say that if you agree and accept that grand jury hearings could be fixed with friendly prosecutors and that perjury is not a crime. This sets a dangerous precedent and it has literally made your legal system into a bigger laughing stock than it was beforehand.

The world will largely ignore it, because it isn’t relevant. What McCulloch did isn’t even wrong. McCulloch allowed everyone to testify. He didn’t suborn perjury as you have repeatedly alleged. Imagine all the things you would be saying if he didn’t allow the many witnesses against Officer Wilson testify just to keep one inconsequential witness for Wilson from testifying.

You don't put people in to testify as material witnesses because they corroborated a version of events, when they weren't even there. His job and the law and rules of the court clearly state that he had a duty to not only not allow people to perjure themselves, he was also obligated to inform the jury that someone was lying under oath. At no time did he do this.

And right from the beginning you have been wrong. You keep treating the grand jury as if it were a trial jury. It isn’t. As has been endlessly repeated, the grand jury is an investigative body. Its purpose is to prevent frivolous prosecutions. If police were only allowed to speak and listen to people who wouldn’t like to them, criminals would never go to jail. The grand jury saw all the evidence. It heard all witnesses and it made its decision based on all the evidence and the testimony of all the witnesses. You don’t think the grand jury is smart enough to figure out which witnesses were credible and which were not?

He treated it like a criminal trial and he was Wilson's defense. And he is being sued for it by a juror. And you don't think he did anything wrong?

Actually, no, the grand jury was never meant to be impartial. As has been explained to you many times before, most of the time it isn’t impartial. Most of the time grand jurors only see the prosecution witnesses. You keep treating the grand jury as if it were a criminal trial jury, it isn’t. As has been explained to you endlessly, no one has been legally accused. Therefore, there is no cross examination inside grand juries anywhere at any time…not just in the Wilson case. The grand jury is an investigative body and unlike criminal juries, grand jurors can and do independently question witnesses. They don’t need a lawyer or an advocate to question witnesses.

And as has been repeated multiple times, the grand jury is at the whim of the prosecutor, who saw fit to provide them with incorrect statutes pertinent to the case, and then had prosecution that allowed witnesses to lie to them about what they had seen and not seen.. And you think any decision based on the deceit of witnesses with the full support of this deceit by the prosecution is going to render a fair decision? Really Joe? Are you that naive?

How you can say there was no fairness in Ferguson grand jury is beyond me. Considering the prosecutor didn’t advocate for any point of view and allowed the grand jury to hear all witnesses and see all the evidence and question all the witnesses and evidence, it is difficult to see how that can be construed as “mischaracterization”.

I don’t see anyone looking away except folks like you who keep ignoring inconvenient evidence and misconstruing the facts of the matter. If there were a shred of impropriety here, the state attorney general, the state bar, and the US attorney general would bring charges against McCulloch and the press would be all over it. They haven’t and they won’t.

Of course he didn't advocate for any point of view when he allowed people to perjure themselves, present false evidence to the grand jury to support Wilson's version of events, provided the grand jury with the incorrect statute which had direct bearing on the evidence and the witnesses and what they were saying...

Every point of conflict that McCulloch raised is one that should have been addressed at trial, not by a grand jury. In using the grand jury as an instrument of exoneration for Wilson, McCulloch was able to introduce mountains of evidence that never would have been admitted at trial, and without any adversary to challenge any of it. The following observations, then, are not offered as proof of Wilson’s guilt or innocence, but as further proof of McCulloch’s utter prosecutorial malpractice.

At that press conference Monday night, McCulloch made a point of repeatedly impeaching witnesses who contradicted Darren Wilson’s testimony, while failing to challenge the one and only witness who corroborated Wilson’s assertion that Michael Brown “charged” at him. At one point, he specifically referenced conflicting witness accounts about Michael Brown’s hands:

​

Perhaps you should email McCulloch and inform him that it wasn't meant to be a criminal trial and his role wasn't that of the defense lawyer. And oh yeah, one of the people who contradicted himself about Brown's hands being up was Wilson. McCulloch kept silent about that of course. But Wilson testified that Brown's hands were not up. What a shame he had told the detective who was investigating the shooting that Brown's hands were up.

As it turns out, though, one of the “witnesses” to conflict on this topic was Darren Wilson. In an interview with a St. Louis County detective, Wilson said, according to grand jury testimony, that “Michael Brown never had his hands up.”

In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos hours after the grand jury decision, Wilson reiterated that assertion quite emphatically:

Stephanopoulos: “As you know, some of the eyewitnesses said at that moment, he turned around he turned around and put his hands up.”

Wilson: “That would be uncorrect — incorrect.”

Stephanopoulos: “No way?”

Wilson: “No way.”

​

Here’s the thing, though: that supervisor that Wilson is talking about, the first person he spoke to on the scene, also testified before the grand jury, and he says that Wilson told him Michael Brown did have his hands up. He says it twice in the grand jury, and refers to having said it at least twice before, once in an interview with the FBI, and once in a conversation with the prosecutor:


​

Wilson was never questioned about that inconsistency. At all.

We gave up lynch mob justice along time ago and let’s hope it never returns.

The fix was in before Wilson even testified and they made sure the grand jury went in to hear Wilson's testimony with only one thing in mind.. And they made sure of that by giving them a statute that had been deemed unconstitutional in 1985.. This is how you taint the well..

Before Darren Wilson testified for four hours, a move that is unprecedented in these types of proceedings, the assistant prosecutor, Kathi Alizadeh presented this piece of evidence to the grand jury. It was a statute, section 563.046. She told them:

“And it is, it says law enforcement officers use of force in making an arrest. and it is the law on what is permissible, what force is permissible and when in making an arrest by a police officer.'” ​

And that statute was a 1979 law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1985.​

You no longer need a lynch mob to kill black people Joe. You have a police force to do that for you, free of charge and some prosecutors who will bend over backwards to represent them before a grand jury.

 

[Russ_Watters]

Wilson never lost income.

Wrong: He was forced to resign due to safety concerns for him and his department, and received no severance or other compensation for his loss of income (aside, possibly, from normal unemployment compensation, but I'm not sure he'd be eligible for that). Brown pretty much ruined his life.

And secondly, you are right, what would have been most fair for all concerned is that this go to trial, the grand jury hearing took as long as a trial anyway.

No, that isn't what I said and it isn't correct. It is pretty clear that the prosecutor did what he did because he believed the case unworthy of even a grand jury, but he felt he had to put on a show for people like you. So no, the most fair course would have been for the matter to have been dropped -- by everyone -- in the few weeks after the incident.

And really, please, police officers serve the people, not the other way around. If they stuff up, then they should be held accountable.

There's no disagreement on the premise, but the fact of the matter here is that he didn't mess up and he was still punished, the government spent more money than it should have pursuing nothing and people rioted and police officers were executed in their cars over lies. You should be mad about that. Instead, you are mad that the prosecutor didn't do a good enough job of persecuting Wilson.

To demand that people just look the other way at any hint of impropriety...

I never suggested any such thing, Bells. You are fantasizing again. The opposite of (your desire for) wrongful prosecution isn't letting everything go, it is just not doing wrongful prosecution. I fully support going after bad cops. Your position, however, results in cops being executed in their cars and a town being burned-down by thugs masquerading as equality and anti-police brutality activists. That is the farce here.

It is not the prosecutor's job to protect the backside of the police officer who may have acted improperly.

No such thing happened or was suggested, Bells: You are fantasizing again.

Where did I say I did not care about that?

You demonstrated what you care about and don't care about by what you choose to focus your argument on. You have been near 100% anti-Wilson in this thread. Heck, you keep saying it, apparently accidentally, over and over again!

I said the exact opposite. I suggest you support that claim with a link or retract.

I can't quote something that didn't happen: you have to quote where you did say you care about the anti-Wilson lies.

It's always funny when people start using giant bold letters as though it makes them more correct.

I use it to highlight the important parts of the post, to make them more difficult to ignore. It is often necessary because people often ignore the most important points when they don't have a rebuttal.

Far from it, I said from the moment he admitted he knew witnesses were lying on the stand that what he did was wrong, regardless of what side they were supporting.

Show me. I quoted your first post in the thread and you didn't mention anti-Wilson lying. If it happened in other threads, I didn't see them.

And by the way, the hint I'm getting from you here is that you are upset about the anti-Wilson lying for the same reason that you are against the pro-Wilson lying: that it may have helped cause the non-indictment. That's hardly even-handed from you -- indeed, it just sets up a line of reasoning where no outcome is acceptable except prosecuting Wilson, regardless of the facts of the case.

Witness 40 was the most spectacular lying person...

I'm not sure I agree, given that from the start there were many anti-Wilson lying witnesses, which caused riots and murdered police officers. Where did you call for the people responsible for that (the media, the rioters) to be held accountable for that?

Your logic was tantamount to 'oh people will be mean to me'.. Please. He should have done his damn job as he is legally required to do it.

Don't be naive. In the Zimmerman case, Zimmerman was prosecuted because of the riots. The prosecutor here and in the Zimmerman case did more than he should have, not less, and for the same reason. It's not about being mean, it is about letting a lynch mob rule us.

I also thought the Zimmerman prosecutor was also an incompetent twat, what's your point?

You said: "he allowed people to perjure themselves to skew the proceedings." Again, this belies your previous claim that you understand and are equally upset about the fact that lying witnesses were presented on both sides (no "skewing"). And it illustrates the other side of the coin: no doubt, you are unhappy that Zimmerman wasn't convicted, despite having lying witnesses presented against him. You're not being consistent.

I said right from the start when this broke that regardless of which way the hearing went... turned that hearing into a farce.

Well if you said that in another thread, sorry, I missed it -- I can only go by what I'm seeing here and what you are saying now. What you are saying now is a mixture of fantasy and lynching. However, as I said above, from what you are saying here, it looks like you are trying to turn "fair" into "skewed" based on the outcome not being the one you wanted.

I had also declared weeks ago, that because that hearing was such a farce, because it had the appearance of having a prosecutor so biased right from the get go...

You are contradicting yourself again: if all witnesses were presented, that is not bias. Again: you appear to have one outcome in mind.

It was said weeks ago and repeatedly by myself and others that a grand jury hearing is meant to be impartial. This hearing was so out of the ordinary that it ended up being a one sided trial, with no cross examination. In short, the prosecutor treated it like a criminal trial and he was the defense attorney. There was no fairness to that hearing. Even the juror that is suing to be allowed to tell their side of what they were told and just how that case was mischaracterised to them and how badly it was handled and how different it was to all other grand jury hearings saw that. And I suspect that juror may not be the first or the last.

[setting aside the repeated self-contradictions there, which are the same as I addressed above...]
I'll put a finer point on it, Bells: It's your fault that it went that way. Yours and all the others who demanded a lynching for Wilson rather than allowing the prosecutor to drop the case as per the demands of his job description.

Corruption within the system? Look away folks, pretend it doesn't exist...

Or, look in the mirror, Bells. The only corruption in this case comes from you and yours, by demanding a trial/hearing where none was warranted.

 

[Russ_Watters]

He resigned.

Yes -- and therefore lost income.

Then again, he's made close to half a million dollars out of it... And that is just from one money raising source. There were others.

That's more than a little disingenuous since that's a legal defense fund, not money he gets to pocket as income.

You think killing someone or having a trial for a person who killed another is frivolous?

When there is clear evidence that no crime was committed, absolutely.

Of course he didn't advocate for any point of view when he allowed people to perjure themselves, present false evidence to the grand jury to support Wilson's version of events...

Did you forget to mention the anti-Wilson witnesses? Did you forget to pretend to be unbiased there?

My whole point is that McCulloch should not have treated it like a criminal trial and acted like Wilson's defense attorney.

You keep saying that: Did you forget you are also claiming he presented anti-Wilson perjurers without challenging them, unlike what a defense attorney would do?

 

[joepistole]

What part of it is illegal to perjure yourself in front of a grand jury and what part of it is illegal for an attorney to allow people to perjure themselves and what part of it is illegal to not inform the grand jury that witnesses perjured themselves did you not quite understand?

You didn’t answer the question. I asked, “When did McCulloch admit he was wrong to allow all witnesses testify?”, as you claimed. So answer the question. You are trying to avoid answering with non-relevant clutter.

Do you understand that McCulloch broke the law, and also breached the civil procedure rules he swore to uphold? Even though it isn't a criminal trial, he is still obligated to uphold the law which he swore to uphold.

Here is the thing Bells, you have no evidence to support your claim McCulloch broke the law or breached civil procedure.

The rules and the law clearly states that he has to inform the grand jury, even reconvene them if necessary, if he finds out that someone lied under oath in a grand jury hearing. He never did so. The laws and the rules also state that he is obligated to not allow people to lie under oath. He did so repeatedly. Do you understand that those breaches have nothing to do with the grand jury but with his actions? He broke the law. As I have said repeatedly, even if the grand jury held to indict, my response would have been the same.

Oh, and where are those “rules” Bells? What the McCulloch did was to allow all witnesses to testify before the grand jury. He didn’t suborn perjury as you have repeatedly alleged. He didn’t encourage people to lie. He didn’t tell people to lie. You want a lynch mob. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you the grand jury is an investigative body, its job is to question witnesses and examine evidence just like police detectives do. If we were to apply your “rules”, police would not be allowed to speak to anyone who might lie to them.

The You could only say that if you agree and accept that grand jury hearings could be fixed with friendly prosecutors and that perjury is not a crime. This sets a dangerous precedent and it has literally made your legal system into a bigger laughing stock than it was beforehand.

No, I can only say that is because it is true. If McCulloch had done something untoward he would have been punished by the bar (the legal authority overseeing lawyers), the state attorney general, and the US attorney general. You are using another straw man fallacy.

The You don't put people in to testify as material witnesses because they corroborated a version of events, when they weren't even there. His job and the law and rules of the court clearly state that he had a duty to not only not allow people to perjure themselves, he was also obligated to inform the jury that someone was lying under oath. At no time did he do this.

Your repeated refusal to acknowledge or understand the difference between a grand jury and a criminal trial is telling.

The He treated it like a criminal trial and he was Wilson's defense. And he is being sued for it by a juror. And you don't think he did anything wrong?

Except, he didn’t, and as for the juror law suit, the juror is suing to lift the gag order which is imposed on all grand juries. You are being more than a little disingenuous again Bells.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/05/ferguson-michael-brown-grand-juror-sues-gag-order/21284797/
And even so, one law suit does not a conviction make…just ask the royal family.

And as has been repeated multiple times, the grand jury is at the whim of the prosecutor, who saw fit to provide them with incorrect statutes pertinent to the case, and then had prosecution that allowed witnesses to lie to them about what they had seen and not seen.. And you think any decision based on the deceit of witnesses with the full support of this deceit by the prosecution is going to render a fair decision? Really Joe? Are you that naive?

The grand jury is convened at the behest of the prosecutor. You have no evidence the prosecutor presented incorrect statutes. The prosecutor’s office presented the correct statutes but didn’t include a subsequent court ruling. The subsequent court ruling was not germane to this case for the reasons explained in the below referenced article.
http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/11/yet-another-reason-lawrence-odonnell-is-wrong-on-ferguson-grand-jury-lawrence/
And yet again, you keep turning the grand jury process into an adversarial criminal trial and it isn’t, as has been explained umpteen times to you over the course of this and other discussions. You just cannot seem to get that through your head. You have no - absolutely no - evidence that the prosecution supported or suborn perjury. The grand jury is an investigative body. In order to do its job it needs to speak with all witnesses and examine all evidence as it did in this case.

Of course he didn't advocate for any point of view when he allowed people to perjure themselves, present false evidence to the grand jury to support Wilson's version of events, provided the grand jury with the incorrect statute which had direct bearing on the evidence and the witnesses and what they were saying...

Again, you refuse to recognize the purpose of a grand jury. And you keep repeating falsehoods. You are being more than a little deceitful here. The prosecutor allowed all witnesses to testify. If he were really trying to manipulate the system as you have repeatedly claimed, he would have not included those folks who lied against Officer Wilson. And again, the correct statutes were presented to the jury. A subsequent court ruling was not, but it wasn’t relevant to this case for the reasons previously explained.

Every point of conflict that McCulloch raised is one that should have been addressed at trial, not by a grand jury. In using the grand jury as an instrument of exoneration for Wilson, McCulloch was able to introduce mountains of evidence that never would have been admitted at trial, and without any adversary to challenge any of it. The following observations, then, are not offered as proof of Wilson’s guilt or innocence, but as further proof of McCulloch’s utter prosecutorial malpractice.

And this is yet another example of your inability or unwillingness to understand what a grand jury is. As I have repeatedly said, we don’t “willy nilly” bring people to trial in this country. That is why we have a grand jury. A trial is a significant expenditure of resources by the state and by the accused. Arresting and trying people is not done easily in this country for a reason. It was one of the beefs we had with the British and resulted in a revolution. As I said before, we don’t do lynch mobs. And you have no evidence that McCulloch did anything untoward, much less anything that would rise to the level of prosecutorial malpractice. If he had, there are legal bodies like the state attorney general, US attorney general and the state bar that would intervene. Those bodies have not intervened, and they will not, because they have no reason and no evidence to do so.

 

[joepistole]

At that press conference Monday night, McCulloch made a point of repeatedly impeaching witnesses who contradicted Darren Wilson’s testimony, while failing to challenge the one and only witness who corroborated Wilson’s assertion that Michael Brown “charged” at him. At one point, he specifically referenced conflicting witness accounts about Michael Brown’s hands:
Perhaps you should email McCulloch and inform him that it wasn't meant to be a criminal trial and his role wasn't that of the defense lawyer. And oh yeah, one of the people who contradicted himself about Brown's hands being up was Wilson. McCulloch kept silent about that of course. But Wilson testified that Brown's hands were not up. What a shame he had told the detective who was investigating the shooting that Brown's hands were up.
As it turns out, though, one of the “witnesses” to conflict on this topic was Darren Wilson. In an interview with a St. Louis County detective, Wilson said, according to grand jury testimony, that “Michael Brown never had his hands up.”
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos hours after the grand jury decision, Wilson reiterated that assertion quite emphatically:
Stephanopoulos: “As you know, some of the eyewitnesses said at that moment, he turned around he turned around and put his hands up.”
Wilson: “That would be uncorrect — incorrect.”
Stephanopoulos: “No way?”
Wilson: “No way.”
Here’s the thing, though: that supervisor that Wilson is talking about, the first person he spoke to on the scene, also testified before the grand jury, and he says that Wilson told him Michael Brown did have his hands up. He says it twice in the grand jury, and refers to having said it at least twice before, once in an interview with the FBI, and once in a conversation with the prosecutor:
Wilson was never questioned about that inconsistency. At all.
The fix was in before Wilson even testified and they made sure the grand jury went in to hear Wilson's testimony with only one thing in mind.. And they made sure of that by giving them a statute that had been deemed unconstitutional in 1985.. This is how you taint the well..
Before Darren Wilson testified for four hours, a move that is unprecedented in these types of proceedings, the assistant prosecutor, Kathi Alizadeh presented this piece of evidence to the grand jury. It was a statute, section 563.046. She told them:
“And it is, it says law enforcement officers use of force in making an arrest. and it is the law on what is permissible, what force is permissible and when in making an arrest by a police officer.'”
And that statute was a 1979 law that was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1985.
You no longer need a lynch mob to kill black people Joe. You have a police force to do that for you, free of charge and some prosecutors who will bend over backwards to represent them before a grand jury.

You don’t like the grand jury’s decision and you want to blame McCulloch for all your many perceived injustices. But in the real world, evidence and reason are required. And your positions are just not founded on evidence and reason.

 

[joepistole]

He resigned.

Yeah, he resigned because it would be unsafe for him to continue his work as a police officer. It cost him his career.

Then again, he's made close to half a million dollars out of it... And that is just from one money raising source. There were others.

That is either willful ignorance or deception Bells. Officer Wilson didn’t get that money. That money was given to nonprofits to pay for Officer Wilson’s defense should he be charged.

You think killing someone or having a trial for a person who killed another is frivolous?

No, I don’t Bells and that is why we have grand juries.

Joe, you aren't smart enough to try to do the whole turn the argument back on others trick you are so desperately trying to do. On the one hand, it is obscenely obvious and silly and on the other hand, you don't really seem to understand what it is I have actually said.

Oh, break out the ad hominem. The problem Bells is not that I or others don’t understand what you are trying to say. Quite to the contrary, I and others do understand, and it just doesn’t make any sense.

This case is dirty enough that a juror is suing because of just how badly this case was presented to them and to the public. Then again, if a prosecutor goes out of his way to allow people to perjure themselves in any hearing, it is a fairly safe assumption that it is an absolute farce to begin with.

You are lying again, per previously provided evidence; the juror is suing in order to be allowed to talk about the case. State law forbids grand jurors from talking about cases which are brought before them. And you have absolutely NO evidence the prosecutor did anything untoward.

Most Americans are not up in arms? Umm.. You have missed the protests in the streets across your country?

Are you not aware that there are more than 320 million Americans? How many people protested – a few thousand? A few thousand people aren’t “most Americans” when the population is more than 320 million.

This is now under investigation. And at a guess, they are going to go over it with a fine tooth comb. Federally, this is being investigated as a civil rights case.. His admission that he knowingly allowed people to perjure themselves will open him up to even more issues.

Well if it is under investigation, and I doubt that it is, I would expect them to go over it with a “fine tooth comb”. It doesn’t take that long to conduct this kind of investigation. It isn’t like they have to find a missing jet at the bottom of an ocean or that this is terribly complicated.
Again, you refuse to understand the role of the grand jury. You have real difficulty understanding the role of the grand jury. You have absolutely NO evidence the prosecutor suborned perjury as you have repeatedly alleged.

Once again, you clearly have a reading problem. My whole point is that McCulloch should not have treated it like a criminal trial and acted like Wilson's defense attorney.

Oh goodie, more ad hominem. When people cannot make reasoned argument Bells they resort to fallacies as you have repeatedly done throughout this discussion. McCulloch (i.e. prosecutor) treated this case as he should have treated the case. McCulloch treated this case as if it were before the grand jury, and guess what, it was before the grand jury where grand jury rules apply and not the rules of a criminal courtroom which you have and continue to advocate for. You have no evidence McCulloch did anything untoward.

Now, as an investigative body, with no legal knowledge and who are meant to be guided by the prosecutor, how is the grand jury able to investigate what is put before them when 1) so many of the victims were lying with the full knowledge of the prosecutor that they were lying and at no time did the prosecutor inform the jury of this, 2) they were given the wrong statutes from the start? All of which was brought up by the juror who is now suing McCulloch for the hatchet job he did of that hearing. Not only that, the juror also alleges and this is easily seen in every aspect of the hearing, that the hearing was not at all like any other grand jury hearing and that this was so blatantly treated differently and with such a slant as to protect Wilson..

You are making an argument against grand juries. The US justice system is founded on juries and juries of one’s peers. You can make an argument that juries are ineffective and inefficient and should be replaced. But as error prone as peer juries can be, I don’t think we have a better solution.
And you are back to misrepresenting the suit by a single juror.

Is this how you think grand jury hearings should occur?

Yes I do. I think grand juries should hear all the evidence and speak with all the witnesses and indict if they find probable cause.

I am not. On the contrary, I have repeatedly said that any witness and non-witness that perjured themselves would have slanted that hearing and I have also repeatedly questioned how and why he could have 1) allowed them to perjure themselves and 2) not informed the jury that those witnesses were lying, 3) not pressed charges..

And has been repeatedly pointed out to you, police listen to people who might lie to them and they may know witnesses are lying during their investigations. Are you suggesting we throw those policemen in jail? Are you suggesting police should not listen to people who might lie to them? The grand jury is just another investigative tool... like police departments. You are maintaining a nonsensical position here Bells. Our system of justice relies on the ability of jurors to understand the evidence. Yeah, sometimes juries get it wrong (e.g. the Zimmerman and Simpson cases). But they didn’t get it wrong in this particular case.

 

[iceaura]

It is pretty clear that the prosecutor did what he did because he believed the case unworthy of even a grand jury, but he felt he had to put on a show for people like you.

Yep.

But what he did, out of what you describe as cowardly unwillingness to make the proper decision, was put on s show trial of perjured testimony and incompetent failure to question inconsistencies and so forth - rig a grand jury hearing. That's illegal as well as a corruption of justice.

. And you have no evidence that McCulloch did anything untoward, much less anything that would rise to the level of prosecutorial malpractice.

We have McCulloch's explicit admission that he did something "untoward" - he suborned perjury.

In legal practice, the condition of suborning perjury applies to a lawyer who presents either testimony or an affidavit, or both, either to a judge or to a jury, which the attorney knows to be materially false, and not factual. In civil law and in criminal law, the attorney’s knowledge that the testimony is materially false must rise above mere suspicion to what an attorney would reasonably have believed in the circumstances of the matter discussed in the testimony. Hence, the attorney cannot be wilfully blind to the fact that his or her witness is giving false, perjurious testimony.

Moreover, an attorney who actively encourages a witness to give false testimony is suborning perjury, which is a crime punished either with formal disciplinary action, disbarment, or jail, or a combination thereof. Likewise, a false statement by an attorney in court also is a crime similar to subornation of perjury, and is punished accordingly. - -

You keep asserting the non- existence of physical evidence that has been posted in front of you, without ever dealing with it or acknowledging it. That is bizarre.

Well if it is under investigation, and I doubt that it is,

You really need to pay attention to physical reality here. The question of whether this farce is under Federal investigation, like so many of the difficulties you are having with this event, is a factual one, not somebody's opinion you can "doubt".

You are descending into slapstick:

And has been repeatedly pointed out to you, police listen to people who might lie to them and they may know witnesses are lying during their investigations. Are you suggesting we throw those policemen in jail? Are you suggesting police should not listen to people who might lie to them?

What in all that is goofy does a police interrogation of potential witnesses during street investigation have to do with formal testimony under oath at a grand jury hearing?

 

[iceaura]

Essentially though, the answer is that failure to put every pro-prosecution witness on the stand, whether credible or not, -

Witness 40 was not a witness, and the prosecutor knew that. Presenting a non-witness as a witness, telling the grand jury that her testimony was witness testimony, is forbidden by law.

The "pro-prosecution" witnesses - all the actual eyewitnesses, that is - were witnesses, and their testimony was relevant to the jury's evaluation of the event - if one is going to have this kind of theatrical show in the first place, rather than a normal prosecutor's presentation of evidence and argument at a normal grand jury hearing.

But that's my point: from what we can surmise, he did produce witnesses who lied AGAINST the cop.

You need to back that up. So far, every example of supposed "lies" by the actual eyewitnesses presented has been stuff they did not say under oath at the grand jury hearing, or stuff that agrees with the forensic evidence and might therefore be true, or both.

It is also the case that these witnesses were questioned adversarily, and doubt cast upon their testimony in front of the grand jury.

And so we do not appear to have, with these actual witnesses, a prosecutor suborning perjury. We have many other problems and questions regarding his conduct, but not that one.

We do still have, as is not proper, a supposed prosecutor safe from embarrassment of cross examination or contradiction at a real trial, questioning some witnesses differently than others, and biasing the jury's finding in that manner as well.

This is part of why grand juries should not be used to try cases - without the checks and balances of a trial, grand juries are unable to compare witness accounts independently of the prosecutor's agenda if any.

 

[Russ_Watters]

I'm sure, iceaura, that you have access to all of the testimony and evidence presented at the hearing? Please provide it for us so your claims about it can be verified.

 

[Russ_Watters]

Apparently, we do have access to some of the testimony:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/14/justice/ferguson-witnesses-credibility/

What is discussed in the link is that the prosecutor *DID* attack the credibility of the non-credible witnesses, including Witness 40. That makes the entire fantasy of this thread not just unsupported, but demonstrably false.

 

[iceaura]

I'm sure, iceaura, that you have access to all of the testimony and evidence presented at the hearing? Please provide it for us so your claims about it can be verified

No, that's not reasonable. I'm claiming an absence, you're claiming a presence. I would have to post hundreds of pages of testimony, and analyze each one, and take into account your viewpoint of each one.

All you have to do is post one or two examples of what you claim exists, and must have seen (or you would not be making the claim, presumably). So why haven't you?

What is discussed in the link is that the prosecutor *DID* attack the credibility of the non-credible witnesses, including Witness 40.

The examples are all of the prosecutor attacking the credibility of witnesses whose accounts contradicted Wilson's, with the exception of Witness 40 who was asked if she had dreamed her account instead of witnessing the event - but even 40, whom the prosecutors knew to be lying, was allowed to deny that without challenge, and was brought back for a second round of testimony that was presented to the jury as witness testimony. Nobody asked her if she could see over horizons and around corners.

We have all stipulated that the prosecutor attacked the credibility and testimony of witnesses whose accounts contradicted Wilson's. We know that.

 

[Russ_Watters]

No, that's not reasonable. I'm claiming an absence, you're claiming a presence. I would have to post hundreds of pages of testimony, and analyze each one, and take into account your viewpoint of each one.

All you have to do is post one or two examples of what you claim exists, and must have seen (or you would not be making the claim, presumably). So why haven't you?

Actually, that's not true. Many of your claims were affirmative, but blanket claims, where one example would do. And: "telling the grand jury that her testimony was witness testimony" is specific and affirmative and needs a direct quote of what he actual told the jury.

It turns out, at least some of the testimony is available and that particular claim of yours is debunked in the link I just provided: the prosecutor did indeed attack that witnesses claims, contrary to yours and Bell's assertions/fantasies. So this whole thread is based on demonstrably false fantasy.

Besides, this tactic of fantasize and burden of proof shift doesn't fly: you (and Bells) are claiming the prosecutor committed a crime. You need to provide affirmative evidence of that. You can't just make up some crap and dare me to prove you wrong. And its an ironic choice of troll tactic given the subject of the thread!

 

[joepistole]

But what he did, out of what you describe as cowardly unwillingness to make the proper decision, was put on s show trial of perjured testimony and incompetent failure to question inconsistencies and so forth - rig a grand jury hearing. That's illegal as well as a corruption of justice.

No he didn’t. For the umpteenth time again, a grand jury inquire isn’t a trial. As much as you want, need it to be, a grand jury investigation will never be a trial. It is the grand juror’s duty to question witnesses brought before them.

We have McCulloch's explicit admission that he did something "untoward" - he suborned perjury.

Oh, then where is it? The fact is you don’t have that admission. You keep repeating this lie because the facts and the physical evidence just don’t support your contentions. This is what the prosecutor actually said (i.e. admitted to):
“Lying Under Oath And Perjury
"It's a legitimate issue. But in the situation — again, because of the manner in which we did it — we're not going to file perjury charges against anyone. There were people who came in and yes, absolutely lied under oath. Some lied to the FBI — even though they're not under oath, that's another potential offense, a federal offense.

"But I thought it was much more important to present the entire picture and say listen, this is what this witness says he saw — even though there was a building between where the witness says he was and where the events occurred, so they couldn't have seen that. Or the physical evidence didn't support what the witness was saying. And it went both directions. ...

"I thought it was much more important that the grand jury hear everything, what people have to say — and they're in a perfect position to assess the credibility, which is what juries do." http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way...jury-heard-witnesses-who-lied-prosecutor-says

You keep asserting the non- existence of physical evidence that has been posted in front of you, without ever dealing with it or acknowledging it. That is bizarre.

Except that no physical evidence has been presented which supports your contentions – damn minor details again? Physical evidence is physical evidence; it isn’t someone making unsupported allegations (i.e. McCulloch suborned perjury). Your making stuff up isn’t evidence friend and yes it is bizarre.

You really need to pay attention to physical reality here. The question of whether this farce is under Federal investigation, like so many of the difficulties you are having with this event, is a factual one, not somebody's opinion you can "doubt".

Said the pot to the kettle…I don’t have difficulties with this event. I don’t have a problem with the grand jury’s conclusions and the due process of law here, you do. I would be surprised if there were a serious federal investigation of this event because as I said before it doesn’t take a year to investigate this issue. All the facts are well known. If a thorough federal investigation is underway, great. I don’t have a problem with it. Whereas, you do, that is why you have all the deception and outright lies. I am not the one who needs to recreate reality here in order to make sense of my ideologies.

If you are to believed, one would have to believe in a vast conspiracy that included the state attorney general, the state bar and the US Attorney General and POTUS. And I don't think President Obama and US Attorney General Holder are biased against black folks given both are black.

You are descending into slapstick: What in all that is goofy does a police interrogation of potential witnesses during street investigation have to do with formal testimony under oath at a grand jury hearing?

Actually, my analogy was very apropos. Law enforcement officers (i.e. police) and grand juries both conduct investigations. Lying to a law enforcement officer is just as unlawful as lying before a grand jury. Using your logic, we would throw law enforcement officers in jail for suborning perjury just because they talked to someone who might have told them a lie. Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. So how about playing a different tune? McCulloch didn’t tell the witnesses what to say. He didn’t suborn perjury as you have repeatedly alleged. He just let witnesses testify and be questioned by the grand jurors.

.

 

[Tiassa]

Oh, then where is it? The fact is you don't have that admission.

Actually, Joe, you just listed it.

There is a familiar not-quite pedantry taking place; when the political issue turns against someone, they often retreat into a bizarre realm of know-nothing.

By definition, putting a witness on the stand when you know they are going to lie constitutes subornation of perjury.

As I noted, McCulloch is preparing to stand on a presupposition of good faith. And it would appear you are anxious to buy in.

Meanwhile, I have yet to hear an answer from McCulloch's defenders: Who else gets this process?

You already know this was extraordinary process and the officer received extraordinary protection. What you're now backing is McCulloch's argument that, "Yes, I deliberately broke the law, but I had good reasons and it's my job to enforce the law, so it's okay."

 

[Russ_Watters]

By definition, putting a witness on the stand when you know they are going to lie constitutes subornation of perjury.

Still not true. If it were, jails would be filled with lawyers.

Meanwhile, I have yet to hear an answer from McCulloch's defenders:Who else gets this process?

Could you rephrase? I don't understand the question.

 

[iceaura]

Actually, my analogy was very apropos. Law enforcement officers (i.e. police) and grand juries both conduct investigations.

Grand juries do not conduct investigations. Investigators do not swear in their witnesses, put them under oath. The topic was perjury - false testimony presented under oath in a courtroom. Your "analogy" was absurd, completely missing the point.

No he didn’t. For the umpteenth time again, a grand jury inquire isn’t a trial.

You have obviously forgotten, but I was the one who pointed that out to you, long ago, because you don't seem to understand what that means.

You keep talking about this grand jury hearing as if it were appropriate to have the grand jury weighing testimony and evidence and evaluating the credibility of witnesses and so forth, when that kind of assessment is difficult enough at a trial. You want this kind of manipulated show trial to be the norm for grand jury hearings - replacing trials with a one-sided circus of perjury and buried evidence and no argument or case made.

Except that no physical evidence has been presented which supports your contentions – damn minor details again?

The locations and spread of the shell casings, both near the car and at the kill site. The audio analysis of the gunshot recordings - location, timing. The location and direction of the wounds on Brown's body. The location and severity of the photographed bruises on Wilson's face and neck.

Five or six times now you have seen these posted in front of you, sometimes with links and maps, and gone on to deny their existence.

None of these are easily explained under Wilson's account. They are apparent inconsistencies and seeming contradictions that cannot be cleared up without detailed examination and questioning - such as one obtains via actual trial by jury.

We have McCulloch's explicit admission that he did something "untoward" - he suborned perjury.
Oh, then where is it? The fact is you don’t have that admission.

He said explicitly that he knew witness 40 was not present at the event, and her account entirely a fabrication. He excused it thus:

I thought it was much more important that the grand jury hear everything, what people have to say — and they're in a perfect position to assess the credibility, which is what juries do.

With all due respect to what he thought was important, that is an admission of subornation of perjury. It is against the law for the DA to put people on the stand under oath as witnesses who were not witnesses, allow them to detail fabrications while under oath, and leave it to the jury to sort out whether they are credible or not. It's illegal. It doesn't matter how wonderful his motives were (and I think taking his word for them is inexcusably naive).

If a thorough federal investigation is underway, great. I don’t have a problem with it. Whereas, you do, that is why you have all the deception and outright lies.

Quote a lie, joe. Quote one. Just one. From any post of mine anywhere.

And when you can't, look at your posting here. You're off the deep end.

 

[Tiassa]

Still not true. If it were, jails would be filled with lawyers.

Prosecutors, maybe. Except they're law enforcers and, as we see from these discussions, enjoy a widespread expectation that they should be able to violate the law at will as long as they say they had a good reason.

Witness 40 perjured herself. We know this.

She was known to be lying before she took the stand. We know this as well.

McCulloch facilitated her perjury by choosing to put her on the stand.

It's one thing to put all the witnesses on the stand and dump as much information onto the grand jury as possible. And that, already, is extraordinary process and protection.

Taking McCulloch's argument with a presumption of good faith, the question arises why other people don't get this process and protection. This question remains unanswered.

Which raises another issue: As this argument goes on, one can distill the various components of each camp. And there is no doubt that there are many critics of the police for whom the details matter less than sticking it to the blue, but there are also other segments of the camp criticizing law enforcement.

And they keep raising certain points; extraordinary process, subornation of perjury, the purpose of a grand jury investigation, &c.

What they get back from the people supporting law enforcement is the equivalent of those who simply disdain the police. That is to say, all the questions remain unanswered, as such.

Even you can't manage a sustained, coherent argument. It's just detached blocks of information, personal superstitions asserted as fact, and so on. To wit: "Still not true. If it were, jails would be filled with lawyers." I mean, where do you get this stuff? Most lawyers have a formal escape route insofar as they can claim to not have known the witness was lying. And it's also why defense lawyers don't like to put their clients on the stand; if they could do what McCulloch did, they would calculate when their clients could get away with outright lying.

Perhaps you can come up with something a little more intelligent and a little less cowardly than hiding in myth. There is a bloc of argument in these discussions that has no real use for evidence; like you, they just make weird assertions suggesting, at best, that they have no clue what they're on about.

You want us to believe you have something important to say? Something other than giving aid and comfort to a racket? If you would like to be taken seriously, then it would behoove you to start dealing with reality in an honest and decent manner.

What we're talking about is real life and death, not some two-bit Bruckheimer crime drama.

 

[iceaura]

By definition, putting a witness on the stand when you know they are going to lie constitutes subornation of perjury.
Still not true. If it were, jails would be filled with lawyers.

How many times does the definition of subornation of perjury have to be posted in front of you, before you get around to reading it?

subornation of perjury
n. the crime of encouraging, inducing or assisting another in the commission of perjury, - -

The term subornation of perjury further describes the circumstance wherein an attorney at law causes a client to lie under oath, or allows another party to lie under oath

Subornation of Perjury
The criminal offense of procuring another to commit perjury,

The defendant is charged in [Count _______ of] the indictment with subornation of perjury in violation of Section 1622 of Title 18 of the United States Code. In order for the defendant to be found guilty of that charge, the government must prove each of the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

First, the defendant voluntarily and intentionally persuaded [name of witness] to testify commit perjury;

Second, the defendant acted with the intent that [name of witness] would deceive the [court] [jury]; and

Third, [name of witness] committed perjury in that:

(a) [he] [she] testified under oath or affirmation at [describe proceeding] that [specify alleged false testimony];

(b) the testimony given was false[, with all of you agreeing at to which statement was false];

(c) at the time [name of witness] testified, [he] [she] knew the testimony was false; and

(d) the false testimony was material to the matter before the [court] [grand jury]; that is, the testimony had a natural tendency to influence, or was capable of influencing, the actions of [specify, for example: the grand jury].

 

[joepistole]

Grand juries do not conduct investigations. Investigators do not swear in their witnesses, put them under oath. The topic was perjury - false testimony presented under oath in a courtroom. Your "analogy" was absurd, completely missing the point.

Planet Earth to Ice:
“A grand jury is a legal body that is empowered to conduct official proceedings to investigate potential criminal conduct and to determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may compel the production of documents and may compel the sworn testimony of witnesses to appear before it. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury
Yes Ice, grand juries do conduct investigations. That is their sole purpose. Swearing in is an historical artifact, a formality like judicial robes. It is still illegal to give false witness. It is illegal to lie to law enforcement officers just as it is illegal to lie before a grand jury, and contrary to your assertions, both conduct investigations, Google grand jury investigations. Your reliance on a ceremonial artifact like a robe or a horse hair wig or a formal oath just isn’t material and it doesn’t change the absurdity of the position you are arguing.

You have obviously forgotten, but I was the one who pointed that out to you, long ago, because you don't seem to understand what that means.

No you weren’t but hey, you were never one for facts or truthfulness.

You keep talking about this grand jury hearing as if it were appropriate to have the grand jury weighing testimony and evidence and evaluating the credibility of witnesses and so forth, when that kind of assessment is difficult enough at a trial. You want this kind of manipulated show trial to be the norm for grand jury hearings - replacing trials with a one-sided circus of perjury and buried evidence and no argument or case made.

Did I say I wanted to replace criminal trials? No I didn’t. You are making stuff up again Ice. You are using another straw man. And yeah, grand juries do weigh testimony. If they didn’t, why should they ever have anyone testify before a grand jury? A grand jury investigation isn’t a trial, much less a show trial and grand jury investigations are done in secret.

The locations and spread of the shell casings, both near the car and at the kill site. The audio analysis of the gunshot recordings - location, timing. The location and direction of the wounds on Brown's body. The location and severity of the photographed bruises on Wilson's face and neck.

All support Wilson’s account and that is why the grand jury didn’t indict Officer Wilson.

Five or six times now you have seen these posted in front of you, sometimes with links and maps, and gone on to deny their existence.

And each time it has been explained to you why you are wrong.

None of these are easily explained under Wilson's account. They are apparent inconsistencies and seeming contradictions that cannot be cleared up without detailed examination and questioning - such as one obtains via actual trial by jury.

Except they are easily explained, and the grand jury found there was insufficient evidence of a crime and did not indict Officer Wilson as a result. Your steadfast refusal to acknowledge reality really isn’t my problem.

He said explicitly that he knew witness 40 was not present at the event, and her account entirely a fabrication. He excused it thus: With all due respect to what he thought was important, that is an admission of subornation of perjury. It is against the law for the DA to put people on the stand under oath as witnesses who were not witnesses, allow them to detail fabrications while under oath, and leave it to the jury to sort out whether they are credible or not. It's illegal. It doesn't matter how wonderful his motives were (and I think taking his word for them is inexcusably naive).

Well actually, I previously provided the actual interview and what he actually said. And he didn’t say what you claimed he said. But it wouldn’t make any difference if he did. The prosecutor presented all the evidence to the grand jury. You and those like you want to focus on one witness and one witness only. It has been pointed out to you numerous times there are more than 40 witnesses. And the prosecutor said he pointed out to the jurors why some testimonies were false (e.g. buildings between witness and the event). And that is why no credible person is taking folks like you seriously.
If you can find some law that implicates some untoward behavior on the part of the prosecutor now is the time to reference it. Just repeating a lie ad nauseum isn’t going to make it true.

Quote a lie, joe. Quote one. Just one. From any post of mine anywhere.

People who live in glass houses ought not to throw stones.
“that is an admission of subornation of perjury.”
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/should-brown-prosecutor-be-charged.143543/page-3#post-3261237

He And when you can't, look at your posting here. You're off the deep end.

Is that so, well I don’t have a problem looking at my posts. Perhaps you do, because you are clearly off the deep end my friend. But I would say when you are impervious to reality as you clearly have been, when you have to rely on fallacious arguments as you are, when you have to invent “fact” (i.e. lie) in order to make sense of your ideology as you have done, that is when you know you have gone off the deep end.