Kelly: Grand Jury on Police Shooting May Be Good Idea

NBC News ^ | October 9, 2012 | NBC News

[Uncle Chip]

The city's top cop says not enough is known about the shooting of Noel Polanco on the Grand Central Parkway last week

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said a grand jury should probe the death of a 22-year-old unarmed driver shot and killed by police after being pulled over on a busy highway near LaGuardia Airport on his way home from work last week.

Speaking with reporters before the Columbus Day Parade, Kelly said not enough is known about the shooting of Army National Guardsmen Noel Polanco by an Emergency Service Unit detective and that a grand jury investigation will be needed to "determine precisely what happened there."

He's not officially calling for a grand jury probe, however.

[NEMDF]

In Omaha, there is ALWAYS (a law?) a Grand Jury investigation into any death where police officers are involved or the person is in police or correction department custody. Seems like a good idea.

[muawiyah]

hmmm ~ so the stories are not sticking together.

[smokingfrog]

This cop has a history of abuse. I don’t see any way this does not go to a grand jury. Criminal charges need to be filed.

[presently no screen name]

This will go to the Grand Jury. The detective over reacted - no guns in vehicle. Wonder if they did a blood test on the detective.

Also, Noel’s father committed suicide about 3 mos ago.

[capt B]

Emergency service PO’s, in unmarked car, 5 am, on a highway, very unusual

[Uncle Chip]

and they stopped him by blocking him in. Why??? Did they do that because they had no siren and no lights on identifying themselves as police???.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

It used to be standard practice that whenever a death occurred due to homicide, whether criminal, justified, accidental, or neglectful, it would always result in a Medical Examiner inquest and a Grand Jury investigation.

This was not a bad idea, but in both cases, the insistence of full, formal hearings in all cases became cost prohibitive, yet instead of streamlining and making these cases more efficient, it was decided to not do them unless there was an obvious need.

Today, things are so bad that in many cases, Coroners only perform ‘pro forma’ autopsies, and families are hiring private medical examiners to remove any doubts as to state of health and cause of death.

There is not yet a private equivalent of a grand jury, but eventually someone might devise one, with the idea of providing its conclusions to the appropriate prosecutor to help them determine that an official Grand Jury should be convened.

[Uri’el-2012]

This cop has a history of abuse. I don’t see any way this does not go to a grand jury. Criminal charges need to be filed.

This Detective has two prior Civil Rights violations and
has cost NYC over a half million Dollars in payments to victims.

[Manly Warrior]

Qualified Immunity=License to kill.

This legal consideration/excuse given to government employees MUST be overturned in every state and at the federal level.

Did you ever notice the military is not so protected? Violate US law, UCMJ and or the “laws of Land Warfare” and our warriors are in jeopardy (even in combat where it most difficult to determine who’s who-combatant or not).

But, cops, firemen, mayors, any employee of a government are enjoying license to violate the law with a mantle of governmental protection....

If I recall my civics correctly, they serve us, and are accountable to us....

[capt B]

Was it a private car? Where they in uniform? How many? a lot left out

[brityank]

There is not yet a private equivalent of a grand jury, but eventually someone might devise one, with the idea of providing its conclusions to the appropriate prosecutor to help them determine that an official Grand Jury should be convened.

To my understanding, that was the original intent in both British and American jurisprudence. A Citizen would present his complaint and evidence directly, and if the GJ agreed they forwarded a Bill of Particulars to the District Attorney. That the DA's and Courts have usurped that provision is one of the reasons victims receive little justice in our current system.

Make it so the Complainant has to foot the costs if the GJ issues a "No Bill" and will cut out the frivolous suits, both criminal and civil. 'Loser Pays' is a good idea that should be implemented across the board.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I can see some potential problems in that, but a more modern version has some possibilities.

To start with, a private grand jury would have 15 people employed by it. A retired judge or other legally competent arbitrator; a attorney who is experienced with criminal prosecution; and a third competent arbitrator who just observes the entire process, not contributing to it, but is the third vote in a panel of the three.

The remainder are 12 educated and objective jurors. And this is important. These are not “peers”. They hold college degrees as experts in different fields, so are competent to examine and analyze evidence. In effect they are expert “witnesses”, when examining the evidence.

Ideally, the jury should have a corporate law attorney, statistician, physicist, an information technology and computer expert, an electronics technician or engineer, a linguist, a criminal forensic expert, a pharmacist, an ER nurse, a gun and explosives expert, a chemist, a historian, and several research assistants for the others.

Of course, there would likely be overlap in expertise, as well as other experts needed on an intermittent basis.

This would be prohibitively expensive for ordinary criminal cases, and there is not a big backlog of cases presented to grand juries currently. So this private grand jury would mostly work to examine extremely complex white collar crimes, and crimes of the wealthy against the wealthy.