The old joke used to be: You can indict a ham sandwich. But that was the old joke. Now its time for a new joke: You can indict a ham sandwich, unless that sandwich has been accused of shooting a black person. See, an indictment is not hard to get. An indictment is not a conviction. It is just a grand jury saying to a prosecutor, yeah, we see that there appears to be evidence that could suggest this individual committed a crime, so you can go try this case and see if you can get a conviction. The defense is not supposed to put on evidence that shows innocence or raises questions about guilt; this isnt beyond a reasonable doubt or anything remotely like that. It is a pro forma, routine, one-sided affair that is nearly always just a minor stepping stone en route to a full trial on the merits. How routine? In the more than 13,000 federal cases when indictments were sought last year, indictments were returned in all but eleven of those cases. So 12,989 out of 13,000 times. I dont have the state figures, because the states dont report things uniformly. But you get the idea. Now, the Ferguson grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson. You knew that. But did you know that the Ferguson prosecutor, the one who supposedly sought to get that indictment, should never have been involved in the case in any way? Did you know that that prosecutor, a white man, went into his career because when he was a boy, a black man shot and killed his father, who was an on-duty police officer at the time? Did you know that the prosecutor resisted all outside efforts to get him to recuse himself from this case? A black man shot and killed his police officer Dad. But he was supposedly gung-ho about getting an indictment against a white officer who shot a black man. And my name is Ronald McDonald, nice to meet you! Do you believe he was a fair, impartial, unbiased government employee doing his job? I dont. At all. Now, lets be clear. I dont fault him for being biased; anyone in his situation would be. If you shot my Dad Id kill you and everyone who looks even remotely like you, just to be sure the world got the damn message that you arent to go around killing my Dad. But I do fault him for not recognizing his bias and recusing himself. If he had been a trial judge, he would have HAD to recuse himself from the case. Because the appearance of bias, if not actual bias, taints the process and erodes all public confidence in the integrity of the outcome. We would not accept any verdict that came from a trial judge whose personal story so strongly mirrors the facts of the criminal case before that judge. Now compare that to a grand jury prosecutor. It is a one-sided affair that happens entirely in secret. Biases held by the prosecutor would be much harder for us to detect; only the prosecutor knows how hard he or she is trying, or what evidence he or she is withholding or mischaracterizing. I submit to you that the Ferguson prosecutor threw the case by not actually trying to get the indictment. He lied to the grand jurors, telling them things like Officer Wilsons eye was out of its socket after Michael Brown hit him. You saw the photos of Wilson. No one hit him. His eyes seemed dull; he looked bored with having his picture taken by the medical examiner. The prosecutor did not even try to get the indictment with one hand behind his back. He put both hands in his pockets and whistled while Wilson walked free. Be honest. Once you learned about how the prosecutors Dad got killed, you knew how this indictment thing was gonna shake out. And the protestors in Ferguson all knew about how his Dad got killed. That is why they wanted a different prosecutor. When they didnt get one, I knew how this case would turn out. I said there would not be an indictment in an earlier post. Because this process has been corrupted from the beginning. From the decision to leave Browns dead body in the street for hours, to the decision not to take photographs (my camera battery was dead is actually the excuse given), to the decision not to make any official reports for a week (to give these amateurs time to consult with real professionals who could help them to paper the file properly), to the decision to withhold Wilsons name for five days (to give him time to scrub his social media posts of all references to black people or how awesome it is to shoot unarmed suspects or how much he hates it when thugs run away from him, etc), to the police departments decision to give the media a portion of surveillance footage that makes it look like Brown robbed a store (the whole tape shows Brown paying for the cigars and then later shoving the clerk when the clerk got in his face near the door, which is why the clerk never called 911 to report a robbery; no robbery occurred), this whole case has been a model of corruption, collusion, and covering up. Police Chief Tom Pinocchio Jackson kept touching his face when the media was asking him why he released the [partial version of the] surveillance footage on the same day he released Officer Wilsons name. He said FOIA [freedom of information act] requests from the media. I held onto it as long as I could. In other words, he was saying, some media outlets had actually requested this previously-unknown surveillance footage, and against his will, he was finally forced to turn it over. But as he said these things, he looked uneasy. And he touched his face and tugged at his collar. If, like I have, you have been trained to spot people lying to you, then you know why Old Man Pinocchio was touching his face. People do that sort of thing when they are telling an untruth. It is a subconscious thing that you really have to work hard to eradicate if youre gonna be a good liar. He was checking his nose to see if it was growing. Because, as we later got confirmed, there was no such FOIA request for the surveillance footage. Chief Jackson just wanted white America to stop giving a shit about Michael Brown. Make Brown look like a thug, he knew, and most white people wont give his white officers BULLSHIT story a close sniff. And most white people havent looked at this story beyond the headlines ever since that day. Old Man Pinocchio ought to get an award for his brazenness. Officer Wilson owes Chief Jackson a huge debt for keeping him out of prison...or the executioners chair. The Ferguson matter is about officers protecting one of their own. All post-police-shooting investigations are. But it is also, and more significantly, about racism. Thats in there, too. But you knew that. Its as obvious as the lack of any kind of injury on Wilsons face in the photographs. I will say one final thing. I dont excuse the looters or those who damaged public or private property. Those people are wrong. Period. You cant excuse stealing or damaging other peoples property because you dont like how the legal system failed you yet again. So I am against all the people who broke the laws by looting and vandalizing properties. Those people should go to jail, in my opinion. But that does not mean that protestors are criminals. Protestors are not looters or vandals. They are citizens, patriotic Americans who, like me, believe that America is supposed to mean what she says. That our laws are meant to be followed by everyone, even those with badges and guns and law licenses. They have a First Amendment right to speak, to assemble peacefully, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Those words mean what they sound like they mean. Protesting is noble. It does not make you a thug. Shame on Fox News for implying or even explicitly stating otherwise. The First Amendment is not there to protect speech that everyone wants to hear. We dont need a law to protect that kind of speech. The First Amendment means I can say things you absolutely hate hearing me say. You cant stop me from saying those things. Just like I cant force you to listen to me. I whole-heartedly support the protestors, the people marching and carrying signs, and even the St. Louis Rams football players who came out for their pre-game introductions with their hands up in solidarity with the protestors. Actually, those football players are one key to understanding this whole sad story. There has been a HUGE outcry against those football players actions by police unions and other apologists for police excesses, which tells you that the football players gestures are VERY effective. And when you see those people complaining about the protestors, about the football players, you know that what bothers them is really their own guilty consciences. They know that this Wilson - Brown - Ferguson thing stinks to high heaven. They dont like having their noses rubbed in it. But they can smell bullshit just like you and I can....they KNOW that Wilson got away with something significant here, and they know he had a lot of uniformed and suit-wearing people helping him. Otherwise, who the hell would care what a half-dozen football players do with their hands as they run out onto the field? Really, though, when you knew that the grand jury prosecutors police officer Dad got killed by a black man, you knew all you needed to know. Didnt you? Or am I the only one who thinks prosecutors are human beings? A-mer-i-ca, A-mer-i-ca, God shed His grace on thee.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 03:37:39 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015