General News Ferguson grand jury results

^ No, the issue here is that we're not sure whether or not he was surrendering. There is so much conflicting material that in any other case, it would be taken to court and decided upon. This is a case where a trial is needed, and the courts have decided on not providing one.

 

It's pretty amazing how many people actually witnessed the event and can read the cop's mind to determine his exact motives.

 

I planned to avoid this topic all together, but there is one thing that I feel I must point out for future understanding of the American legal system.

"Indictment: A formal accusation initiating a criminal case."

What this means is that an indictment is not a matter of declaring innocence or guilt. An indictment is a declaration of possibility. A possibility of whether a crime could have reasonably been commit in any given case. An indictment is used to determine whether a trial is warranted, which is why the entire purpose is almost always to determine who should be put on trial not whether they are guilty or not.

This criticism and outcry around the world is not being heard because Mike Brown was a saint and he was murdered. These protests are escalating because the American justice system has decided that the killing of another human being, whether a matter of malice or justifiable self defense, is not deserving of a mere trail. A mere accusation. Not a judgment of guilt. Not a sentencing. But a mere trial.

It doesn't matter if you believe this is a race issue. It doesn't matter if you believe the police have done no wrong and these protesters have go too far. The argument of guilt or innocence is debatable. The legal malpractice in this case is not. This simply does not happen. This is not meant to happen. This is not how the court system, nor the indictment practice, is meant to be carried out. Trails are meant to sort through conflicting evidence; there are no legal cases without conflicting evidence. Conflicting evidence and uncertainty have never been an arguments against an indictment and a charge.

For those who find the urge to direct a message at me about how much of a "thug" Mike Brown was, reread this post. For those who wish to argue with me about guilt and innocence, reread this post. For those who wish to convince me that the evidence is simply to murky and we may never know the truth so why bother, reread this post. Otherwise, understand that I will not address you.

Exactly.

 

It DOES matter because the jury should reflect the people who live in the area. I'm just wondering if it is a predominantly white neighborhood why there were only 3 blacks on the jury.

 

I can't help but think that is racism to make up for racism.

 

Perhaps what i have to say doesn't mean anything...but we'll see. At school today, we looked at evidence and witness accounts, had a discussion about these things. We were given papers with these things written on them, and we were all supposed to choose whether or not the police officer should be indited or not; we were a hypothetical jury. After reading the papers, we discussed what should have happened. From the evidence that i read, the police officer should have walked away because his use of a gun was justified and he was in danger. Another student raised her hand, saying that the police officer should have been indited because Michael was walking away his his hands in the air, asking not to be shot. About half the class started to mumble and shuffle their papers in confusion, including me, because that was not written on our papers at all. In fact, a very different situation was written down, that Michael had been very violent and forceful with the police officer. Here's the kicker: Out teacher had given us different papers, with different views on what had happened (different witnesses and whatnot), to show the evidence that the jury had to go through, and what they had to decide from. These people had a lot of things to think about and go off of, and i dont think we should hate these people for what their decision was...Coming from the physical evidence ( blood in the police officer's car, where Michael was shot, etc.) it's hard to decide on things, whether or not his use of the gun was justified. I'm not saying Michael should have died. That's no where near the truth. What the police officers did afterwords to the community was awful, and I have to say, it kind of feels like the police officer caused it. I'm sorry if i come across as extremely ignorant, i dont know everything, im just trying to speak my opinion with what i know...thanks for reading

 

All of the evidence that was presented to the grand jury are here. It's a lot to sort through.

 

In any decent criminal justice system, you must prove that you had to kill in self-defence before being cleared of all charges. In this case, the presumption of innocence the grand jury gave goes so far as to remove any responsibility.

There's not even an investigation into police misconduct, for Christ's sake. While the more fervent anti-Wilson group may be baying for his blood in an immediate verdict, what's disgusted the world the most is that Wilson isn't even being held accountable for what should be a criminal case in which manslaughter at the very least is filed against him, to which he would respond.

Instead, we have an antiquated, unprofessional legal institution preventing the case from going to a real court. And that is certainly not fair.

 

It's not innocent until proven guilty? Instead its guilty until proven innocent? So we assume he is guilty and he has to prove he had to kill in self defense?

 

We know he killed. Deciding whether that killing was justified should be up to the courts, like any other criminal case. He is innocent until proven guilty in court, but the point is that they didn't even bother bringing him to court for an action we know was committed, regardless of the motive. Self-defence should be a legal defence, not a get-out-of-trial-free card.

 

Even if he surrendered or not the cop still had no right to kill an unarmed teenager , had Mike Brown been white we all know he would have been alive right now .

This country does not care about black lives ,and we're the same country that would tell other countries to stop killing their people;Yet we're okay with killing our own people as long as their not white .
I'm still surprised some people are still justifying this cop's killing .

 

I found this as well, in a similar vein:

Similar things have happened in my own county as well. If a cop kills an unarmed black guy, or someone with a mental illness, I always know nothing is ever going to be done about it. It';s been like this for a long time now.

 

did you seriously just pull the reverse racism card?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw_mRaIHb-M

 

This shit needs to stop :tantrum:

 

If you want to discuss reverse racism, then please consider this article.

When a Black Cop Killed an Innocent White Man in Utah, the Press Was Silent - Freedom Outpost

I'm not trying to pull the "reverse racism" card. I'm not saying that there's black people who hate white people. I'm saying that a lot of things are being overlooked.

 

Actually, the burden should be on the government to demonstrate that a crime occurred. That include demonstrating all of the necessary elements of the crime. For murder/manslaughter, that includes demonstrating the absence of any legitimate reason for killing, because killing someone is a necessary but insufficient element of those two crimes.

The job of the grand jury is to determine if the preponderance of evidence (i.e., more likely than not) of the presented evidence shows that a crime occurred, not if a killing occurred. So if the evidence does not indicate that the accused is more than likely guilty of the crime by committing the killing, it's perfectly reasonable to stop the case before it goes to the courts.

I emphasize the if because I haven't done the necessary research to have an opinion on this case. Given how extensive the evidence presented to the grand jury is, I'm willing to bet that they had sufficient evidence to determine whether the the officer more than likely committed a crime. So I'm more inclined to think that since the grand jury did not think all that evidence shows that the officer was probably guilty of a crime, then he wouldn't have been convicted by a jury during a trial with the higher standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" anyways.

As someone who served on a jury for a misdemeanor trial in California earlier this year, I have first-hand experience recounted here of how juror stupidity can be a much bigger problem than how the system is designed. However, any decent justice system is going to rely, to a certain degree, on jurors. And jurors can be idiots.

To sum up my points:
1) The government must demonstrate that a crime occurred, and not merely that a killing occurred. The standard that they have to meet varies at different levels.
2) It's reasonable for a grand jury to stop a case from going to trial - even if we know a killing occurred - if the evidence does not show that a crime more likely than not occurred.
3) Since the grand jury failed to indict based evaluating the available evidence with the standard of "preponderance of evidence," it's unlikely that a trial jury would have convicted based on the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

 

"Brown was a thug and got what he deserved!" -- That comment had 50 upvotes on a discussion forum I post on. Just goes to show you how many people view this case.

 

In a less passionate articulation of the same opinion, I feel the officer was most likely justified in shooting. To the people saying "He was unarmed!" Well, it's perfectly easy to have the ability, opportunity, and intent to kill somebody without having a weapon. The cop only needs to feel it is necessary to shoot in order to save his own life or someone else's from victimization.

I don't know all of what happened there, and as cops say frequently, one shouldn't "Monday morning quarterback" the officer's decision without having been there. Yes he probably might have been able to subdue Brown with a taser. But the gist of it sounds less like a cold-blooded murder and more like a split-second decision while facing a determined attacker.

 

I agree that he was justified in shooting. The issue for me comes in how many shots he fired. He should have shot to disable neutralize the risk. Once again though, we cannot know what happened since we were not there.

So, the question for me is more of an excessive force question. From the evidence that I have seen, I see no reason for Brown to be dead.

 

This is the only part that bothers me too. There's no telling what even a single gunshot wound will do to somebody, but unless Brown was actively wailing on the cop as he was being shot, it wouldn't take many before he would cease to be a threat. The Wiki page said he was shot once when he started running away and ended up shot six times. Unless the officer had reason to believe Brown as still very dangerous, it's tough to agree with more shots in that situation.