Posted on 08/20/2014 10:18:53 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
On Wednesday, amid continued protests demanding “Justice for Michael Brown” prosecutors will bring evidence before a grand jury as they determine whether to indict Brown’s killer, Officer Darren Wilson. The power to indict rests with local prosecutors and pliant grand juries, and as Jonathan Cohn has pointed out, a prosecutor will usually refrain from indicting altogether if the accused faces a low likelihood of conviction. In this case, a combination of entrenched racial and occupational biases, and most importantly the oddities of Missouri law, all but ensures that a conviction is off the table.
We may never know what actually happened during the violent encounter between teenager Michael Brown and policeman Darren Wilson. But legal judgments rarely happen with perfect knowledge and absolute certainty. In their place, we rely on presumptions and standards that guide our thinking and discipline our judgments. In general, we presume innocence. But when we know that a killing has occurred and can definitively identify who committed the act, our presumptions are supposed to shift. Now we are supposed to presume guilt, and it is the shooter who must prove that his actions were justified. Unless the shooter is a policeman. And unless the victim is a black male. And unless the shooting happens in Missouri.
In any clash of witness testimony, police officers begin at huge advantage. Although the courts insist that juries give policemen no extra credence because of their badges as an “essential demand of fairness,” that’s not how jurors actually think or behave. Large percentages of potential jurors readily admit to giving police testimony extra weight, and many more likely act on this implicit bias. And in this case, the favoring of police testimony is compounded by another more pernicious bias: racial prejudice. Extensive research shows that Americans are far more likely to believe that African Americans—and especially young black men—have committed crimes and display violent behavior. It therefore won’t take very much to convince a jury that Officer Wilson was acting out of self-defense.
But these cultural biases are only part of the story of why a conviction will be near-impossible. The central reason is Missouri state law. Throughout history, claims of self-defense and compelling police activity have served as justifications for the use of deadly force. Most people intuitively understand that self-preservation is a basic right and that police must sometimes use violence to protect society and apprehend criminals. But generally, we expect situations of justified violence and legal killing to be the rare exception, and most people would probably imagine that policemen and citizens raising claims of justifiable homicide must meet a substantive burden of proof. But in Missouri, these justifications barely require any evidence at all.
In other states, claims of self-defense need to be proven as more likely than not, or in legal speak, to a “preponderance of the evidence.” It’s still the state’s obligation to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the defendant actually killed the victim. But once that’s established, the prosecution doesn’t also have to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the killing wasn’t justified. That’s because justifications—like self-defense—require the accused to make an active case, called an “affirmative defense,” that the circumstances were exceptional. The logic here is simple: As a rule, homicide is a crime and justification is reserved for extraordinary cases. Once the state has proven that a defendant did in fact kill someone, it should be the accused’s obligation to prove his or her actions were justified.
Not in Missouri. Instead, as long as there is a modicum of evidence and reasonable plausibility in support of a self-defense claim, a court must accept the claim and acquit the accused. The prosecution must not only prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, but also disprove a defendant’s claim of self-defense to the same high standard. Under Missouri law, all a citizen claiming self-defense or a police officer claiming to have fired while pursuing a dangerous criminal need do is “inject the issue of justification.” In other words, he only needs to produce some evidence (his own testimony counts) supporting the claim. Once he does so, “any reasonable doubt on the issue requires a finding for the defendant.” In Missouri, the burden doesn’t budge an inch, even after we know that the defendant has killed the victim. It doesn’t matter that there is certainty that Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. As long as there is still the slightest possibility that Wilson acted in his own defense, Missouri law favors Wilson.
Within reason, legal protections for, and presumptions in favor of, policemen acting in the line of duty make sense. Society has chosen to give these men and women guns, after all. And if we expect these officers to put their lives on the line, we owe them some measure of trust and due deference. But trust cannot become a license to kill. We have a word for a situation where killing is the default, where violence is so expected that the burden is no longer on a killer to prove his actions are justified. That word is war. It has no place in suburban St. Louis.
I’d believe the National Enquirer or Scrappleface before I’d believe the New York Times.
Need to remember this the next 1000 times some thug guns down innocents. Gonna be a lot of Brothers out there trying to prove they’re innocent.
It is not a matter of "perception" or "racism" to understand the facts of young black male violence.
Just like you can bet the bank that a 70 year old black woman (or elderly black man) won't try to knock your lights out in a gang initiation.
He’s being Zimmermaned. The black population just can’t seem to come to grips with the fact that white men will fight back if their heads are being bashed into the concrete or the orbis of their skulls are being caved in.
They’ll get a much bigger taste of what is now a rare occurrence should they insist on pushing the issue. Someone was buying those millions of guns and billions of rounds just since November 2008.
What a load of horse stuff. You never presume guilt until evidence proves guilt.
***
Good grief. The author really exposes himself as an ignorant fool.
It really doesn’t even have to be that drastic.
If I fell imminently threatened, I am going to take action.
If that means I spend the rest of my life in jail, then that’s what it means. I ain’t going out like a b*tch.
I’ll be in jail, and the threat will be dead, and that’s it.
Yeah, not very much: Like the videotape of the thug committing a strong-arm robbery and assault just minutes before the confrontation with police, the x-rays of the officer's massive facial injuries, the Coroner's autopsy report, the testimony of twelve witnesses...
Regards,
isn't it just as prejudicial to make a wholesale endictment that most whites are fundamentally racist?
Well, the SC over ruled state laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleeing_felon_rule#U.S._Law
How come I get a 404 when I click on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charging_felon_rule#U.S._Law?
Officer Wilson's error was to go on patrol without packing a proper elephant gun.
Implicit in raising the self defense the defendant is admitting the killing but the killing was justified so that the burden of proof shifts to defendant prove self defense.
True, dat.
Given the actual facts as we know them, I don't know what Wilson is supposed to be punished for. Littering?
And why shouldn't they? Let's look at the stats shall we?
“Ignorant fool”? I think he’s something much more “pernicious”. There’s so much he knows that isn’t so.
Works for me.
A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead...however...Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force.
—Justice Byron White, Tennessee v. Garner[3]
I believe I left some of them out.
“Extensive research shows that Americans are far more likely to believe that African Americans—and especially young black men—have committed crimes and display violent behavior. “
Earth to author; that is because blacks, and especially young black men, are many times more likely to commit violent crimes than other groups. Just look at the official FBI crime statistics for proof.
Bingo. Without question. Anyone who doubts this should do a ride along with police officers in different communities for a week in different types neighborhoods where the racial makeup is predominantly one race or another and see the truth for themselves and it has little to ue itch economics because some of those black drug dealers are pulling down more than CEOs of mid-level companies...
> I’ve often wondered about Reverend Jackson and Reverend Sharpton. Did they go to divinity school? Are they ordained ministers in any known religious denomination? Where are their churches?
I’m guessing Universal Life Church at $25 a pop...
“Extensive research shows that Americans are far more likely to believe that African Americans—and especially young black men—have committed crimes and display violent behavior. “
“Extensive research shows that Americans are far more likely to believe that African Americans—and especially young black men—have committed crimes and display violent behavior. “
> Earth to author; that is because blacks, and especially young black men, are many times more likely to commit violent crimes than other groups. Just look at the official FBI crime statistics for proof.
Bingo. Without question. Anyone who doubts this should do a ride along with police officers in different communities for a week in different types neighborhoods where the racial makeup is predominantly one race or another and see the truth for themselves and it has little to do with economics because some of those black drug dealers are pulling down more than CEOs of mid-level companies...
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