A few careful words on Ferguson, and the nature of indictment: An indictment might be thought of as analogous to an impeachment. Especially in the case of Wilson: a man entrusted with power in order that he may serve and protect the people, and expected to not violate this trust because of greed, spite, laziness, or any other selfish passion. To indict then, or to impeach, is not to hand down a final judgement. It is to say, yes, this is serious; this is not pettiness; this man may well have acted in gross violation of the law, and this question deserves a proper judgement. So why are people angry that Wilson was not indicted? After all, according to statistics from the DOJ, from October 2009 to September 2010, U.S. prosecutors sought indictment in 193,000 cases; 11 grand juries did not return an indictment. So why might Wilson be one of the select few? Take a look at the article on Scalia. According to the system of common law that we have established in this country, grand juries, in deciding on the question of indictment, are only to examine that evidence which might be called damning. It is not to be a petite-trial, in which the defendant is given leave to defend themselves or to present exculpatory evidence. It seems that Wilson, however, under the wing of a passionate prosecutor, was given this petite-trial. Reading that article, I was reminded of a speech given by the great Barbara Jordan during the Nixon impeachment hearings. On July 25, 1974, she, a black woman raising her voice in a chamber haunted by the souls and bodies of a thousand white men, told the House Judiciary Committee that they must not misunderstand the nature of the task before them; they must not think it petty to say, yes, this public man may well have abused his power in gross violation of the law. Shockingly, they decided that the accusation raised was worth taking seriously, and that the words of this brave black woman had some merit in them. In Ferguson, an accusation against a public man was not taken seriously enough to subject him to the standard processes of law which he made a career out of subjecting people to. And so the lives of millions of black people across America, overwhelmed by the dread of one day being in the position of making such an accusation, were not taken seriously This is why people are mad, or at least, why they should be. #blacklivesmatter
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 03:44:00 +0000