Jenksismyhero

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 12:06 PM) I'm saying that putting it through a completely atypical "fact finding" grand jury is a sham. If the prosecutor didn't think it merited charges, he should have explained why himself instead of holding a sham GJ to, in your words, cover his ass. If you're so concerned about "taxpayer money" in the criminal justice system, you shouldn't be happy with an unnecessary sham GJ. But you and I both know that him making a unilateral decision to not bring charges would not have been sufficient to appease people. You'd be crying about him being a corrupt prosecutor backing his friends at the PD.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:57 AM) No. The problem is that the prosecutor probably isn't using that level of discretion in front of the GJ if it isn't Darren Wilson, police officer, who has been charged. If this particular prosecutor exhibits this level of care and makes sure to present both sides of the argument every time he's in front of the GJ, or everytime he has a new case on his desk, then there isn't a problem. But I guarantee that doesn't happen. But why can't this be handled a little more delicately given the extreme pressure he's under on both sides? As I said before, he's got a city that rioted causing a national story. He's got the FBI and DoJ up his ass. I'm sure the state and White House have called wanting to be kept in the loop about things. His choices were to just get an indictment and take the guy to trial on relatively weak evidence, or undergo a more exhaustive grand jury proceeding to really see if there was a potential for a case here. And frankly i'm sure the drawn out grand jury proceeding was done on purpose to try and get everyone to calm down. I really don't see a problem with the fact that he did this a little differently. It's not exactly unheard of, it's just not common.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:50 AM) http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/11/25/jur...c-world-trailer I want to be excited about it, but I kinda give that a big MEH.

QUOTE (illinilaw08 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:37 AM) Prosecutors and judges golfing together on the weekends could be a pretty big ethical issue for both sides. And if them golfing together is swaying the way the judge hears a case, and is creating a bias, we absolutely should get new judges. The problem, as I see it, here is that the prosecutor handled this differently than he would a usual grand jury for any number of reasons. The prosecutor, by handling it that way, made it more likely that he would not get an indictment. With a community that apparently already feels that the police aren't serving their needs, finding that the prosecutor acted in a way that made an indictment less likely is... not going to help things. I'm not taking sides on Wilson's actions here... but if you can't see why the above is potentially problematic, I don't know what to tell you. So in order to appease the masses, the prosecutor should bring charges and force a cop to be charged with murder? That's the best option here?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:11 AM) I can't imagine why you think personal bias could never be a problem in cases like these. Comparisons to judges don't make sense. Prosecutors have to work with PDs in order to get convictions. That's not what judges do, so the same conflict isn't there. It can be a problem, but I don't think that's an issue that's going to sway a jury, who is making a decision on the facts that are being presented. At best you've said that he oversold how great Wilson is by showing that he was a baby saver before this shooting. Great, wonderful. Do you really think that one fact swayed the facts here? Do you really think the grand jury decided this case had no probable cause because he seemed like a good guy? Sorry, I don't buy it. And this prosecutor works with all of the judges in the courthouse. Probably had tens of hundreds of trials with each. They know each other. They golf on the weekends. Clearly there's a potential for bias there, so we need new judges too.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 11:10 AM) I don't know why you're lol'ing. You're admitting above that he's running this grand jury completely differently from how he and everyone else runs every other grand jury. He went on TV last night to whine about the media and how unfair it all was. He clearly didn't think Wilson should be indicted, but he ran a sham grand jury or pseudo-mock-trial if you want to call it that to get this outcome and give himself a shield. Grand Juries aren't meant to hear "all the facts" in a mock-trial with no real adversarial system or the same rules and standards of evidence, witness examination, etc. Turning a grand jury into a mock-trial is what makes it a sham. I don't see how making it a larger fact finding process is more of a sham than putting on select witnesses in order to get an indictment simply because he could. That's why i'm lol'ing. You're claiming some injustice was done here when the real injustice would be to indict the guy and make him go through a whole trial and waste taxpayer money on sure-loser case.

btw, walking through City Hall, it's interesting to me that half or more of the protesters are young white folks.

So to be clear here: In order to prevent an unarmed black teen from being shot after attacking a cop and allegedly rushing after him a second time, we should create an entire new court system to handle the potential charges and trial, right?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:56 AM) That doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me, particularly in the case of a homicide investigation. Probably should get new judges too. They get to know the police departments pretty well.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:58 AM) It might be appropriate in any case with a police officer as a defendant. A prosecutor in another area might be buddy-buddy with those PD's, but he won't have a regular working relationship with the specific PD or officer in question. Did this prosecutor have a relationship with Wilson?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:55 AM) Prosecutors don't present conflicting or exculpatory evidence against their case at real trials. They don't paint hero cop stories of the defendant at real trials. Ok, but the defense would, so....that information is still getting out there. Right, he wanted a grand jury to hear all the facts and decide if an indictment should be brought. He wanted it to all be out there. He didn't want to get a sham indictment and bring a meaningless trial if the facts didn't warrant it. Lol, ok man.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:54 AM) We couldn't get a jury to find probable cause in a trial without a prosecutor. I have no idea how things would have gone had there been an actual attempt at a prosecution and neither do you. They were presented more information with less chance of diminishing that information through cross on a lesser standard and that wasn't enough. I ask again, what the hell is going to be different at trial? Great, a prosecutor isn't going to bring in a defense. Guess what, the defense attorney will bring a defense!

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:50 AM) Which is why a guy with a clear partnership and bias in favor of the police department due to being the prosecutor who works with that police department should not have been the one making the decision. You just outlined exactly, to the letter, why there should have been a special prosecutor making that decision. So basically any case involving a cop should have a special prosecutor? Is that what you're saying? Because 100% of SA's offices in this country are buddy-buddy with the cops.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:48 AM) A trial with these prosecutors who were running defense for Wilson would be a sham. A trial with an independent prosecutor who was not deliberately attempting to avoid charges against Wilson would likely not be. I don't think he did that, but we can agree to disagree. He wanted to present a mock trial, let the grand jury decide, and cover his ass.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:47 AM) Do you believe that is a statement that would have gone unchallenged in court? Would a jury wind up finding that credible after a cross examination? Because right there is an example of why we have an adversarial system, so that foolish statements like that aren't the basis for whether or not a person goes to jail. Right, and the statemetns of the friend who started this whole surrender thing would have been attacked and his entire credibility for having just committed a crime with this guy would have been at issue for the jury. You're pointing to one statement out of 70 hours of testimony as if that was the smoking gun that would have killed Wilson's credibility. 1) I don't think it would have, because I still see nothing wrong with that. 2) All of the pro-State witnesses would have to undergo the same cross. I say again - you couldn't get a jury to find probable cause, but you think a jury with a standard of guilty beyond reasonable doubt is going to come to a different conclusion because some witnesses would be cross examined?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:39 AM) I didn't say that. If the prosecutor thought it was a sham charge (he has a bunch of conflicts of interest, so let's take that with a grain of salt), he should have the courage to make the call and explain himself. He shouldn't run an obviously sham GJ in order to give himself a shield and then make himself look like an idiot in the press conference announcing the GJ's findings. As it is, we already wasted "taxpayer money" on a sham GJ. Right, because that would have appeased you. I guarantee you if he had done that you would be b****ing that he should have at least presented the facts to a grand jury or a judge in a prelim hearing. That guy, mistakes and all, was damned if he did, damned if he didn't.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:38 AM) Which is why we have an adversarial system with advocates on both sides who argue cases like this in front of a group of as-close-to-impartial people as we can find known as a "jury trial" where the people are compelled to evaluate such claims against each other. But if a jury of people couldn't find probable cause from mere factual statements of witnesses without lawyers picking them apart, what makes you think a trial, with a more stringent standard of guilty beyond reasonable doubt, is going to be anything more than a complete waste of time and money?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) Then it makes zero sense to present that officer's testimony to a grand jury, which is why it shouldn't have happened. In the setting of a court room, that officer could have had his testimony attacked under cross examination by an aggressive prosecutor and crazy things like him turning into the hulk wouldn't have been dignified as they were. As that other quote said, it was a trial without a prosecutor. The defendant gave his testimony and there was no one to cross examine it. The same could be said of all of the witnesses though.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) So because you haven't heard any complaints, there must not be any. Well, I have heard them, read up on them and am aware they exist and treat their employees just as poorly as places like Walmart. Although with any large company you have complaints. People b**** and whine. It's work. The vast majority of people are working a job they don't want to be at.

Here's your typical white liberal Gen X viewpoint of this: http://gawker.com/bad-americans-cant-stop-...paign=tuesdayAM Unarmed black teen murdered by racist cop in racist police department in racist country in racist state in racist country, and riots and violence and property damage are acceptable responses.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:07 AM) The person yelling that was not anywhere near a crowd. Also its worth pointing out that what you just said about unreliable witnesses is entirely true. Which is why we should apply that same standard to the officer's testimony. I mean I think people do. The guy in his press conference last night made a comment that you take the potential-defendant's statement but know that it's self-serving. I'm sure the grand jury members were told that as well (or using common sense could understand that).

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:07 AM) Why would it be a sham trial? It's potentially a sham trial if there's little evidence and you're just getting an indictment because you can.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) All bringing it to a GJ did was show that he was running a sham GJ. As your 2 partners said, it would be trivially easy to get an indictment if he wanted one. Running a sham GJ only further undermines the legitimacy of the justice system. And getting a sham indictment and wasting tax payer money on a sham trial wouldn't?

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 09:54 AM) So, it's worth pointing out again that in realtime, right after the shooting, there is video of witnesses (not witness testimony later which I don't like relying on for either side, realtime video) of people running towards the officer yelling "He had his f***ing hands up". That was people's first reaction after seeing it happen. And it's entirely possible that all that started with one witness (the friend) and the rumor basically just spread through the crowd. You've already got people who told the media they witnessed the whole thing, and then apparently changed their statements and admitted they didn't actually see it. Without knowing the person on the tape and whether that's direct knowledge, it's pretty meaningless.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 25, 2014 -> 09:44 AM) That's not how they're ever used except in the case of a police officer potentially being charged. In every other type of case, they almost always result in an indictment. They're not run like a full mock trial with the defendant testifying and the prosecution pointing out conflicting evidence. They're usually just the prosecution presenting all of the damning evidence in favor of an indictment and then asking for an indictment, which the GJ promptly gives. That's why they hear a bunch of cases in a short period. http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguso...-darren-wilson/ edit: maybe that was their original purpose, but that's not how they're actually used. In Illinois (and maybe Missouri, I don't know) for big cases they usually don't even bother with a grand jury. They'll usually do a prelim hearing and get the charges ok'd that way. And I still say, the reason he did it this way was the pressure from both sides, and he wanted it out of his hands.