I don't know enough about the situation in Ferguson to espouse a position on it (although that doesn't appear to have stopped you), but trying every single person who is so much as suspected of murder would grind our legal system to a halt. It would also, in federal cases, be a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment. The case in question is, I believe, a state case, but Missouri also uses a grand jury system. Whether that's a provision of the state constitution, as it is in my state, I don't know. In any event, casually dismissing one of the pillars of criminal law in the US is idiotic.
And the idea of putting on a jury trial for every single police officer who shoots a person is so incomprehensibly stupid that I am having trouble believing you actually stopped to think about that sentence for more than half a second.
This was just an embarrassing post to read, in all.
and the case against Darren Wilson is and should be considered a murder but of course it's increasingly difficult to prove such a charge against a police officer because the criminal "justice" system is stacked heavily in their favor. the basic facts in the case do not line up with Wilson's account of the encounter, including the fact that Brown's body ended up over 100 feet away from where Wilson emptied his gun at him, despite Wilson's testimony that it was 35 feet. add in the obfuscation and outright lies of the St. Louis and Ferguson police departments, the lack of police report, and the attempt to portray Brown as a retroactive criminal to justify the shooting and it becomes very clear this is a case which should be settled in a court of law, not a Grand Jury investigation. as the old cliche goes -- a Grand Jury could indict a ham sandwich. in this particular case, the grand jury decided that the life of the victim has no value compared to the life of his killer.
and yes, i will grant that there are a considerable number of actually justifiable shootings by law enforcement across America. this case was not one of those by any stretch of the imagination.
"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman
