Supreme Court ruling could figure in Michael Browns slaying ::posted Tue, 12 Aug 2014 20:14:55 +0000:: ift.tt/1uLRenn rss@dailykos (Meteor Blades) A makeshift memorial is pictured near where black teenager Michael Brown was shot to death by police over the weekend in Ferguson, Missouri. The pistols are not used in self-defence—but to stop the men who are running away. They are considered substitutes for swift feet and long arms. Now we doubt the propriety of employing them for such a purpose. A Policeman has no right to shoot a man for running away from him. —Editorial in The New York Times, Nov. 15, 1858. We dont yet know precisely what happened in the slaying of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, over the weekend. We do know that the unarmed Brown, an 18-year-old black man expecting to start classes at Vatterott College this week, was shot dead by a still-unnamed police officer. Police claim that Brown—known to teachers not as a troublemaker but as a gentle giant—got into a struggle with the officer and tried to grab his service pistol, something friends said was out of character for the teenager. St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the officer shot at Brown and missed while he was in the police cruiser and then shot him several times as he ran away. Although accounts vary widely, witnesses have said Brown was more than 30 feet from the patrol car when he was gunned down. Jennifer S. Mann reported: “The federal courts are very clear that there are times and places where officers are allowed to shoot people in the back when they are running away, even if they are unarmed,” said David Klinger, a criminal justice professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and expert on police shootings. Klinger, a former police officer, pointed to the 1985 U.S Supreme Court case Tennessee vs. Garner. Justice Byron White wrote for the 6-3 majority in the Garner ruling, stating: “This case requires us to determine the constitutionality of the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon. We conclude that such force may not be used unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. The intrusiveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched. The suspect’s fundamental interest in his own life need not be elaborated upon. The use of deadly force also frustrates the interest of the individual, and of society, in judicial determination of guilt and punishment. Against these interests are ranged governmental interests in effective law enforcement [… ] we are not convinced that the use of deadly force is a sufficiently productive means of accomplishing them to justify the killing of nonviolent suspects. There is more on this below the fold. [Forwarded by the MyLeftBlogosphere news engine. Link to original post below:]
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 21:28:28 +0000
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