Posted on 12/14/2014 8:16:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
The grand jury in the case of Michael Brown's shooting didn't just face an onslaught of witnesses with conflicting memories of what happened the day white police officer Darren Wilson killed Brown, an unarmed black teenager. It also heard from witnesses who couldn't be believed at all.
Some admitted lying. Others changed their stories under questioning. Prosecutors were so skeptical of one woman's account that they asked whether she might have dreamed about seeing the confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri, on August 9.
Most of the dozens of witnesses who testified likely did their best to describe what they saw, but a review of thousands of pages of grand jury documents shows that untrustworthy testimony came from some witnesses on both sides.
"It's no surprise that some people did not tell the truth in this or any other grand jury," says CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
What is unusual in the Ferguson case is that prosecutors chose to call so many witnesses, including some whose credibility they doubted....
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
“Is there no penalty of perjury?”
Silly person. If you have PC skin color, anything goes. In O-land, this is only fair. It’s not only “equal” but it’s revenge which is fine if you are the approved PC color. It organizes communities and mobs feel a sense of belonging they otherwise would not have had as they loot and burn and and destroy places they might have found work at. This keeps them utterly dependent upon O-freebies, the new currency of the new world the Bizarros are building out of the ruins of the USA.
I don’t find it hard to believe at all that those of a “social justice” bent will lie, see what they want to see, or both ...
How many arrests have been made for witnesses caught lying to a grand jury? Is this our “new normal” now? We have a president and half of congress lying to us all the time. What happened to “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.
I’m in agreement. The toxicology report sealed my opinion. Sadly, this kid was probably extremely doped up when he went to the store and stole the cigars...never knowing what he was doing. Same for walking down the center of the road. And he was shot while all doped up. From mid-morning on...he was probably not comprehending anything he did.
But here’s the one thing you ought to take home from this episode. How many people are doing this much dope/legal prescription pills per day, and walking around in a daze, and just might threaten you or your family? From the whole US...maybe two million a day? Should we sit back and start to think over the implications of just going down to the local grocery for a six-pack and what might happen in the parking lot there?
Honest people can have very different accounts.
That said, dishonest people just make crap up. There is a certain type of person who lies not to be believed but to frustrate. The bum that hands the clerk a $5 and then starts screaming that he gave her a $20 and is getting cheated. The bum knows that the clerk knows the truth, he simply lies in the hope that it will win him something more than the truth would allow.
That is the case here. I would surmise that the accounts are not evenly distributed, but rather grouped into plausible versions of the event and total fantasy.
Support the good guys.
Having read many of the transcripts I appreciate the major limitation in evaluating conflicting testimony is not seeing the body language and facial expressions of the witnesses while they were being questioned. The grand jury members did see the body language and could assess who was lying and who was telling the truth. From prior experiences with them the DA also had a strong impression as to which witnesses were telling the truth and how their testimony would be perceived in open court under cross examination.
I watched some of the Zimmerman trial live and gained great respect for the ability of a good defense attorney to take apart the testimony of prosecution witnesses to the point their testimony is no longer credible. The dissection of Rachel Jeantell was a classic cross examination and likely resulted in the not guilty finding. It is very possible some of the eye witnesses who testified to the grand jury would not be called to testify in open court for this reason. Others might be advised by their own attorneys to refuse the call to testify, knowing their unreliable clients could easily be caught perjuring themselves.
In a fair criminal trial with all parties seeking the truth, and with no other hard evidence than was presented to the grand jury, Officer Wilson would be acquitted. However, in today’s world I’m not sure. If a biased judge allowed the prosecutors to stack the jury, and members of the community intimidated jury members and witnesses, a Wilson trial would be a public spectacle and lynching. Consider also the prospect Wilson might not have access to the best legal talent to argue his defense. He doesn’t have the money to pay for his defense and many excellent defense attorneys
would decline to take the case pro bono due to the highly racially charged atmosphere. Any attorney with political ambition, or a desire to some day be appointed a judge, would run from this case.
I admire the DA for not taking the easy path and manipulating the evidence shown to the grand jury for the purpose of securing an indictment. The DA is a Democrat and killed his prospects for higher political office by not pandering to the crowd. He certainly could tell the hard evidence supported the officer. He also knew a criminal trial would become a national political event that would tear the community apart and exacerbate the racial divide in the entire country. Here is one instance where a public figure consciously harmed himself for the good of the country and to preserve the integrity of a justice system under attack. Contrast him with the political hacks in Florida prosecuting Zimmerman.
There are a still a few good people in public office. We should recognize courage and virtue when we see it on display.
Not sure if i sent you this one or not...
Ooops... sorry, wrong thread.
My bad.
I don’t know if you can (or should) prosecute witnesses who gave accounts that were unsupported by the physical evidence; if someone believes what they saw then there really isn’t much you can do about it (without endagering future witnesses everywhere). I do think they should prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those “witnesses” who later admitted they hadn’t even been there and were relaying what they were told.
Exactly. The prosecutor was taking great pains to appear non-biased.
In a way, I wish the case had gone to trial and all these delusional, agenda driven witnesses paraded up there and torn apart.
But all that popcorn wouldn't have been good for my waistline.
I'm not sure what you have in mind here - what sort of implications, and for whom?
When asked if pot just makes you mellow, he said, that’s like comparing someone who had a glass of wine with dinner to someone who had a fifth of scotch.
That's it in a nutshell. But some FReepers insist that the legal status of pot should be decided based on the fifth-of-scotch-equivalent end of the scale while the legal status of alcohol should be decided based on the glass-of-wine-with-dinner end of the scale.
We passed and they went about half a block and then one apparently turned and ran towards me and punched me in the back of the head right below my ear. I went down hard, face first; not knocked out but badly scraped up from the pavement. The two teens walked off, laughing. I was about 12 years old.
I think the so-called knockout game isn't new.
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