Congratulations to Kimberly Gardner on her outstanding primary victory!
Last month, we posted, "We Need Black Prosecutors". The voters of St. Louis decided the same thing and elected Kimberly Gardner as the democratic nominee and the next presumptive St. Louis City Circuit Attorney. In a city that is majority African-American, it is of extreme importance that St. Louis is finally positioned to have it's first Black Circuit Attorney. Ms. Gardner will become the most powerful person in the St. Louis City criminal justice system.
When a kid commits a crime, the justice system has a choice: prosecute to the full extent of the law, or take a step back and ask if saddling young people with criminal records is the right thing to do every time.
"It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men"
Adam Foss, a former assistant district attorney in Suffolk County, Massachusetts discussed how prosecutors can change lives. He is among the type of black prosecutors we had in mind when we wrote our post last month. Below is a video of a TED talk Mr. Foss gave about the power of the prosecutor. At the beginning of his talk, he asked the audience a few simple questions that drove home a very powerful point that too many prosecutors miss.
What makes Ms. Gardner's victory even more amazing is the fact that she won dispite the fact the neither the St. Louis Police Officers Association or the Ethical Society of Police (St. Louis' black police union) endorsed her. Both unions endorsed other candidates. As a result, Ms. Gardner doesn't have any political obligation to police officers.
I've never had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Gardner, but the limited interviews and news clips I have seen, indicates she shares some of the same sentiments as Mr. Foss.
I believe Ms. Gardner will be a fine circuit attorney dedicated to her new position and will be a refreshing change from the current administration.
However, there is no greater protection than personally understanding your rights. It's still important to educate yourself about the law and how our court system works.
Two years ago this week, Eric Garner died in Staten Island after officers wrestled him to the ground, pinned him down and applied a fatal chokehold. The man who filmed the police killing of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta, is now heading to jail for four years on unrelated charges—making him the only person at the scene of Garner’s killing who will serve jail time. Last week Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges. He says he has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by cops since he filmed the fatal police chokehold nearly two years ago. We speak to Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica Garner, and Matt Taibbi, award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine. He’s working on a book on Eric Garner’s case.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Video made by Laron Murray and The Fortune Society media team featuring the final words of Eric Garner over John Coltrane’s "Alabama." This isDemocracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, we turn now to another police killing, this one here in New York. Two years ago this week, Eric Garner died in Staten Island after officers wrestled him to the ground, pinned him down and applied a fatal chokehold.
POLICE OFFICER 1: Put your hand behind your head!
ERIC GARNER: I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!
RAMSEY ORTA: Once again, police beating up on people.
POLICE OFFICER 2: Back up. Back up and get on those steps.
RAMSEY ORTA: OK.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The man who filmed the police killing of Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta, is now heading to jail for four years on unrelated charges—making him the only person at the scene of Garner’s killing who will serve jail time. Last week, Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges. He says he has been repeatedly arrested and harassed by cops since he filmed the fatal police chokehold nearly two years ago.
AMY GOODMAN: Eric Garner’s death spurred protests over New York Police Department’s use of excessive force, its policy of cracking down on low-level offenses. Eric Garner’s family reached a $5.9 million settlement with New York City last July.
To talk more about where the case stands today and the fact that Ramsey Orta will be going to jail, and also Bernie Sanders’ concession to Hillary Clinton—Eric Garner’s daughter, Erica Garner, who joins us today, campaigned with Bernie Sanders. He had a TV campaign ad centered on her story. We’re also joined by Matt Taibbi, the award-winning journalist with Rolling Stone magazine, working on a book on Eric Garner’s case, the author of a number of books, including The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! I’m so sorry, Erica, as you sit here to see video after video of police killing culminating right now, and once again seeing the video of your father gasping and saying, "I can’t breathe." But you have been speaking out publicly about this for almost the full two years. You haven’t stopped.
ERICA GARNER: Yes. I’ve protested. I’ve spoke on panels. I traveled across this nation. I exhaust all avenues. I even endorsed Bernie Sanders to get my message out. And it’s like we keep having a conversation I exhausted for two years. And, you know, how much talking do we need to have? The Black Lives Matter movement been very compassionate, patient, and basically begging the nation. You know, we are under attack as black people. We are being gunned down every day. And these officers are not being held accountable. And no charges, from Tamir Rice to my dad to Freddie Gray, you know, has been.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And your reaction when, obviously, the events last week—two more incidents, two more deaths, caught on video, and yet nothing seems to be happening?
ERICA GARNER: No. All I’m hearing is conversation. We need legislation put into place. We need a special prosecutor. They’re just now using the special crimes prosecutor for a guy last week named [Delrawn Small]. And that was the undercover police officer who shot a black man.
AMY GOODMAN: Wayne Isaacs was the off-duty police officer who shot Delrawn Small.
ERICA GARNER: Yes. And it’s like, you know, we need some type of legislation put into place. We need a special prosecutor. Governor Cuomo put that as an executive order temporarily after my father passed away, and no one is talking about it. You know, no one is trying to make it permanent.
AMY GOODMAN: The reason we know exactly what happened in your father’s death is because of that videotape. The man who filmed the police killing of your father, Eric Garner, Ramsey Orta, is now headed to jail for four years on unrelated charges—making him the only person at the scene of Garner’s killing who will serve jail time. So, last week, Ramsey Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges. He has said he’s been repeatedly arrested and harassed by police. Earlier this year, Ramsey Orta came to Democracy Now!, and we talked to him.
RAMSEY ORTA: Clearly, when they jumped out on me, that was the first thing that came out his mouth: "You filmed us, so now we’re filming you," because I asked, "Why do you have your cameras out?" When they jumped out on me, they had their phones in their hand, instead of a gun or anything, from my knowledge, was supposed to be in their hand. So I asked him: Why is he filming me? And he said, "Because you filmed us."
AMY GOODMAN: So that is Ramsey Orta speaking on Democracy Now! The significance of what he did? Soon after your dad was killed, at a memorial service that was held, there’s actual applause during the service for one man, for Ramsey Orta, who was sitting in the audience.
ERICA GARNER: Yes, it showed the courage to do it, and also he told the whole world, like he showed the whole world, you know, what exactly went on. If there wasn’t no video, you know, we wouldn’t know, like, he was killed. And we don’t have that from the police department. We don’t have transparency. I knew body cameras would be a bad idea if it wasn’t a federal legislation or some type of thing that says if you mess with this camera, if you turn it off or if anything goes wrong with this camera, you know, you will be held accountable. And now you’re hearing cases like the camera fell off, like in Alton Sterling case, or, you know, it’s basically our word against theirs.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Matt Taibbi, I wanted to bring you in. You’ve been doing research specifically on the Eric Garner case and trying to look at this whole issue of police killings. This whole issue of, as we’ve seen, of the—in the Alton Sterling case, where somebody does do independent filming, and they’re confiscated; meanwhile, the police cameras fall off—the importance of these cameras and the battle over cameras?
MATT TAIBBI: I mean, it’s critically important that citizens make these recordings. I think the Eric Garner case is a classic example of why this is necessary, because reports later surfaced that the official police report later that evening left out the fact that a chokehold had been used. And so, had there been no film of what happened, we might never have heard of this case. It would have gone down probably as an accident that took place, where a person who was in bad health simply gave out in the middle of a routine arrest. But we—you know, because we have that video, we saw exactly what happened. So it’s critically important that people make these videos. And I think what’s going on now is that everybody has cellphones, and for the first time people are seeing how common this is.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Erica Garner, about what’s happening now with the federal investigation? I mean, the police officer in the case was not charged. You did have a lawsuit, the family had a lawsuit, that was settled for $5.9 million. But the federal investigation, what is that? And this is two years now.
ERICA GARNER: Yes. It’s like the DOJ is dragging their feet. A couple of months ago, I sat in a civil liberties panel with representatives from the DOJ. And I kindly asked them, you know, face to face, as we was on the panel, you know, "What is taking so long? How come my family didn’t get no answers, any type of updates on my father’s case?" And they told me, you know, they will answer my question soon. Here we are almost to the two-year anniversary, and I hear—I see an article out about, you know, how two federal prosecutors from the DA in Brooklyn and two prosecutors from Washington is fighting over whether or not it’s enough evidence to go on. You know, the Brooklyn side is saying, "Well, we don’t have enough evidence," but the people from Washington are saying, "Well, we do. We want to push forward." And it’s up to Loretta Lynch to make that decision.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And even some of the basic information, two years later, is not out. For instance, the past record of the officer involved, Pantaleo, in terms of his excessive force decisions in—previously. What’s happened with that?
ERICA GARNER: No. I put in countless FOIA requests. Matt Taibbi helped me with some of the letters. And the response I got was letters stuck underneath my door or in my mailbox from the NYPD telling me I have to ask Daniel Pantaleo for permission to look at his records and that what I’m asking for is unwarranted. What can be more warranted than his daughter asking, just simply asking about what complaints was made against this man?
AMY GOODMAN: And, Matt Taibbi, if you could talk more about this and this major piece the Times did about how—this battle that’s going on within the Justice Department about whether to even continue with this investigation into the Eric Garner death?
MATT TAIBBI: Yeah, if I could just follow up quickly, though, on this issue of the personnel records with—of Daniel Pantaleo. This has been a fight that’s been going on for two years. The Legal Aid Society last year filed suit and actually got a judge to order the Civilian Complaint Review Board to disclose very limited information about basically just how many substantiated abuse complaints there were in Pantaleo’s file. And the city at that point could have just released the information, but they chose to appeal, and they’re fighting this basically to the death. It’s now two years. It’s probably going to be three years before this is resolved. And the law is really not on the civilian side. It actually says that you need the express written permission of the police officer to obtain personnel records. There’s Section 50-a of the New York Civil Rights Code. It provides extraordinary protections to police officers. So, it’s extremely difficult for somebody, you know, even a family member of a victim, to get to those records. It’s almost impossible. And that’s one of the things that’s played out in this case.
AMY GOODMAN: Erica Garner, I wanted to get your response to Bernie Sanders now conceding that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic presumptive presidential nominee. You campaigned with Bernie Sanders. He made a TV commercial with you as the subject, taking on the issue of police brutality. What are your thoughts today, how your story, what happened to your dad, the issues you care about—are you also throwing your support to Hillary Clinton?
ERICA GARNER: I’ll throw my support towards any nominee, presidential nominee, that’s going to show me what the DOJ will look like, what they’re going to do about the crisis that’s going on in America right now, and that’s going to stand behind the chokehold bill. Letitia James has been putting that bill in for a while. She hasn’t gotten any support from anyone and—any other elected—
AMY GOODMAN: The Manhattan borough president.
ERICA GARNER: —any elected officials. And it’s like, you know, right now, every elected official in the House right now is up for election. And, you know, I say we refuse our vote until they hear our issues and fight for our issues.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And by chokehold bill, for those who are not aware, could you explain?
ERICA GARNER: This chokehold bill will make it illegal, all the way illegal, to—for the police officers to choke anyone. It’s in the policies of the New York Police Department policies, but it’s not actually a law.
AMY GOODMAN: According to The New York Times, the last time the federal government brought a deadly force case against an officer in New York was 1998, almost 20 years ago, when Francis Livoti stood trial, eventually was convicted of charges of choking to death a young Bronx man named Anthony Baez. I want to thank you both for being us. Erica Garner, even on this second anniversary of your father’s death, our condolences to you and your family. And thanks so much, Matt Taibbi, for being with us and pursuing this case for Rolling Stone and for your book.
That does it for our broadcast. After the conventions—we’ll be broadcasting two-hour specials every day from Cleveland next week and then the Democratic convention in Philadelphia—I’ll be doing a convention wrap-up at Provincetown Town Hall on the 29th of July and Martha’s Vineyard on the 30th.
Republished with permission under license by Democracy Now.
Television's Judge Joe Brown, who served a five day prison sentence this summer, stated that jails are slave warehouses. Brown was found in contempt when he reportedly became verbally abusive to court workers and ignored Juvenile Court Magistrate Harold Horne's warning to calm down. Watch the video of his comments concerning that incident on our corrupt judges page.
During an interview he presented a very interesting take on mass incarceration. He acknowledges systemic racism and discrimination while finding many of the victims of mass incarceration complicit in there own destruction. Brown points out that most people in jail did it to themselves by pleading guilty, most likely because of plea bargains. He touches on Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, and Blacks not exercising political power correctly
He invoked W.E.B. Du Bois' talented tenth concept and expressed the view that part of the problem is that many of the most talented people in the black community do give back and are only concerned only about themselves.
I realized everyone needs to know how to navigate the court system while witnessing people being financially ruined by predatory lawsuits and elderly people at risk of being homeless because of minor building code violations. Courts have the power to ruin your life. If you're not wealthy, you should take a moment and learn more about the law.
A 60 Minutes segment about Glenn Ford demonstrates the bias, indifference and callousness that occurs everyday in courtrooms.
The original prosecutor, Marty Stroud, apologized and admitted that he and the justice system perpetrated a horrible injustice upon Mr. Ford. However, Stroud admitted at the time of Mr. Ford's conviction, that he and his team celebrated the victory.
The current prosecutor, Dale Cox does not believe an injustice was committed against Glenn Ford. He reasoned since Mr. Ford was not executed and freed after 30 years, the system worked. Cox stated, "I'm not in the compassion business, none of us as prosecutors or defense lawyers are in the compassion business. I think the ministry is in the compassion business. We're in the legal business. So to suggest that somehow what has happened to Glenn Ford is abhorrent, yes, it's unfair. But it's not illegal. And it's not even immoral. It just doesn't fit your perception of fairness."
We Need to Talk About an Injustice
Bryan A. Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and a clinical professor at New York University School of Law. Stevenson has gained national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system.
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing. – John Adams
About 200 municipal judges, prosecutors and court administrators met in secret Friday, August 14, 2015, at UMSL to plan for Missouri court reform changes forced by Senate Bill 5, the legislation that takes effect Aug. 28.
Meetings held by public officials, especially when they concern issues as important as municipal court reform which has been the subject of public outcry and protest which gained national attention invites suspicion. It has already been well documented that St. Louis area municipal courts have been used to generate revenue and abuse rights. However, this is nothing new, municipal courts have operated this way for decades. Professor T.E. Lauer, a law professor at the University of Missouri published, "Prolegomenon to Municipal Court Reform in Missouri" a stinging indictment of the municipal courts in 1966. Professor Lauer stated in his argument:
"It must be recognized, however, that in bringing about this reform it may be necessary to overcome substantial resistance on the part of municipalities which will be reluctant to lose their power over offenses defined by state law. Not only would this reform diminish the importance of the municipal court, but more importantly it would cause a loss of revenue to municipalities, in that municipal fines, which are now paid into the municipal treasury, would become state fines to be paid to the school fund."
Missouri lawyers, judges and court personnel certainly knew the greater St. Louis municipal court system was an issue. I'm certain some Missouri Circuit Court, Missouri Court of Appeals and Missouri Supreme Court judges were at one-time municipal court judges or represented clients in municipal court and saw first hand the problems. The fact that constitutional rights of poor and minority defendants were routinely violated was known to most lawyers who after all are officers of the court. However, the vast majority of those court officers remained silent instead of bringing it to the public's attention. It appears that very few lawyers lodged formal complaints, and many attorneys profited from an unfair court system resulting in an increase in clients and fees. It's unfortunate that it took a protest movement and international attention before anyone took serious action.
In 2013, the municipal courts of St. Louis City and County collected $61,152,087 in fines and fees. During that same time, the combined total of court fines and fees collected by Missouri municipal courts was $132,032,351.63. This means that the municipal courts in the St. Louis region accounted for 46% of all fines and fees collected statewide, despite being home to only 22% of Missourians.
St. Louis area municipalities have most certainly become dependent upon the revenue generated by their municipal courts. The judges, prosecutors, and court administrators mostly likely, directly or indirectly, receive their pay, raises or bonuses based on the amount of revenue generate. Reduced municipal court revenue would probably result in job losses, which of course those in attendance at the closed meeting, would not want to fall victim to. St. Louis area municipalities have a vested interest to keep their courts because municipal courts can generate revenue in others ways besides traffic tickets. Municipalities have already stepped up enforcement of tall grass, housing code, and various other types of municipal ordinance violations.
Holding a closed meeting naturally makes people wonder if this was a strategy session to exchange ideas how to keep the revenue from municipal courts flowing. After August 28th, there will certainly be increasing municipal court revenue from fines other than traffic violations. Even if a municipality does not increase the number of violation citations, they could simply increase the standard fine from say $100 to $500.
Until people educate themselves and become familiar and active within our "justice" system, justice will remain a concept unavailable to many. If you have not already done so, become familiar with the ordinances of your municipality. Browse around this site to learn how you can help yourself with certain legal issues without having to pay for an attorney.
On the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's killing, keep in mind that before the militarized response to the Ferguson Protesters occurred, ignorance was weaponized in and around the St. Louis area. Ignorance is a state of being uninformed (lack of knowledge) and is not used here as an insult to anyone. Various police departments and municipal courts used people's ignorance of their rights and how to properly defend those rights in court as weapons against the very people they were sworn to protect and serve.
As the discussions about Michael Brown's death continued, the fact that people were being victimized not only by the police but by the municipal courts began to be reported. After I lost my job and ran into my own legal issues, I was shocked to see how blatant rights were being violated within our local courts. The new municipal court reforms put in place are a good start, but it's just a matter of time before municipalities start implementing new strategies. As time passes, new issues will dominate the headlines and memories of specific details about police and municipal courts will begin to fade. The remedies normally available through the courts are usually too expensive because of the high cost of attorneys, but you don't need an attorney to make the court system work for you.
Policing has changed and the reactions to excessive force by police has changed dramatically. Prior to Mike Brown's killing, police departments almost always stood by the side and defended cops accused of brutal acts and unjustified killing. That has now changed, at least when a video exists. Hopefully, there will come a day when a video is not required to bring justice against rogue cops. I am certain the vast majority of police are decent, honest and hard-working, but there are some that are not and that factor coupled with the blue code of silence wreak havoc on certain communities. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, responding to comments about a University of Cincinnati Police Officer, during a conversation about with Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd conceded police do protect each other from criticism no matter what, as do other professions.
Americans have short attention spans and memories. Municipalities will most likely start violating rights again using new creative unfamiliar methods and ignorance will once again be weaponized and used against people. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it. However, most people are only vaguely familiar with the law; even lawyers only know a small portion of the law. There is a principle which is sometimes put in the form of a rule of evidence, that everyone is presumed to know the law. That principal is based on the difficulty to prove that a person did, in fact, know the law. Additionally, many people would purposefully not make themselves aware of particular laws to preserve their ignorance. As long as people remain ignorant about their rights and how to invoke and protect them, that ignorance of the law will certainly be taken advantage of and weaponized not only by unscrupulous governments but by predatory businesses and institutions.
Just as slavemasters used ignorance against slaves to exploit them, St. Louis area municipalities have used ignorance of state law, legal procedure and constitutional protections to exploit and oppress people. Many St. Louis municipalities created illegal laws with the sole purpose of creating revenue. Just because an ordinance exists doesn't mean it's valid; ordinances and other laws sometimes get struck down as being void, illegal or unconstitutional. Most municipalities know that many people won't even bother to read or research the law.
You don't need a lawyer to discover what the law says, the law is available for everyone to read. Prior to my job loss, I made a pretty decent salary and could easily afford to pay an attorney to take care of traffic tickets. For example, I paid attorneys as little as $30 to handle traffic violations. Bellefontaine Neighbors has a speed trap on eastbound Lewis & Clark (Hwy 367) just past Hwy 270 overpass, where the speed drops from 55 to 45. There's a sign posted with the reduced speed limit about halfway on the overpass. A truck in the right lane blocked the posted 45mph sign from my view. A traffic cop was positioned just past the overpass and I got caught by that trap. I found an attorney on Craigslist, paid that attorney $30 to have the violation reduced to a moving violation, but I had to pay the City of Bellefontaine a fine of about $200.
However, even a $100 red light ticket fine became a major burden after my steady income was gone. There are a lot of organizations that provide free legal assistance, their resources are limited and they can only help so many people. When my legal issues arose, I could not afford an attorney, and the legal assistance agencies I contacted couldn't help. I was facing the loss of tens of thousands of dollars, so I learned how to effectively defend myself. This site contains valuable free information for you to help yourself and additional information is constantly being added. No one will ever fight as hard for you as you will, don't get caught in the trap of being dependent on someone else to do for you what you can learn to do for yourself. Even if you can currently afford to pay for legal services; keep in mind that may not always be the case. During the very time when I was most vulnerable and need assistance the most was when I could not afford legal services. Fortunately, I was able to research the law for myself, but most people I witnessed in court on their own lost; your ignorance is their power.
Skewed statics, policial, institutional and media spin all contribute to confusing the issues and create or increase ignorance. One of Adolf Hilter's closest advisers, Joseph Goebbels, stated; If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself. To overcome ignorance, you must first learn to see through the layers of lies to first understand what the actual issues are and then formulate a strategy to overcome them.
Phillip Agnew, with Dream Defenders, gives a near perfect response to the systematic oppression of black people during the PBS program America After Ferguson and exemplifies what can happen when a person is no longer held captive to ignorance.
See the full-length PBS program America After Ferguson, which includes additional statements by Phillip Agnew not shown in the brief clip above. Tim Wise during his lecture on the Legacy of Institutionalized Racism addresses the topic of responsibility brought up in America After Ferguson.
The News 4 Investigates documentary, “The Injustice System: Cops, Courts and Greedy Politicians", aired yesterday June 26, 2015, and points out many of the flaws with our justice system. It's not enough to know the problem exist, people caught up in an unjust system must be taught how to navigate their way out. At the moment, a lot of attention is being given to this issue, but like all issues, over time people will forget and the system will eventually figure out new ways to strip rights and cash from its victims.
Take the time to look around this site and become familiar with the tools you need to defend yourself. Your rights do not evaporate simply because you can't afford an attorney, but most people don't know how to invoke their rights. If you can't afford an attorney you have two choices; continue being a victim and having you hard earned money stripped away from you or take some time and learn about our court system and the rules that protect you. Decide whether you want to miss a few hours of television programming and develop knowledge that may help you the rest of your life or become a helpless victim to a system that will surely invent new ways to as my departed grandmother in law would say "rob you without a gun".
The Friendship Nine was a group of African American men who went to jail after staging a sit-in at a segregated McCrory's lunch counter in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961. The group gained nationwide attention because they followed an untried strategy called "Jail, No Bail", which lessened the huge financial burden civil rights groups were facing as the sit-in movement spread across the South. They became known as the Friendship Nine because eight of the nine men were students at Rock Hill's Friendship Junior College. They are sometimes referred to as the Rock Hill Nine.
Today, after 54 years of being labled as "Felons", The Friendship Nine were officially exonerated in court. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, "Justice too long delayed, is justice denied". Although, I am glad that these men's names have finally been cleared, the fact that it took so long to do so is a complete failure of justice. Most likely in the future, say 20, 30 or even 50 years from now, there will most likely be a story of someone wrongly convicted in 2015 finally getting justice.
There are too many stories of men, some of whom have spent half of their lifetime in jail, because they have been wrongly convicted of crimes. Learn to fight for your rights and get justice today, so people won't have to celebrate 50 years from now that justice has finally reached you.
There is no appearance of justice in the Darren Wilson Grand Jury Verdict. Let's be clear, since August, calls for a special prosecutor were made, because a significant portion of the public believed that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch was biased. The assumption from the beginning was that the officer would not be indicted.
See The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell below which points out that the St. Louis County Prosecutor's office mislead the Micheal Brown Grand Jury by providing instructions on outdated law.
Bias and prejudice are innate characteristics—often deeply ingrained and concealed from our own self-examination. The United States Supreme Court recognized this when it said that “[b]ias or prejudice is such an elusive condition of the mind that it is most difficult, if not impossible, to always recognize its existence.” Further, the high court said, bias or prejudice can exist in someone “who was quite positive he had no bias and said that he was perfectly able to decide the question wholly uninfluenced by anything but the evidence.” Crawford v. United States, 212 U.S. 183, 196 (1909).
Even Supreme Court Justices remove themselves from case to preserve the appearance of justice when their bias may be called into question. McCulloch could have diffused the situation by simply recusing himself from the process. McCulloch as prosecutor could have simply brought charges as he does against countless others who don't happen to be police officers.
The secret and unknown witness testimony carries virtually no credibility. Were these witnesses criminals promised reduced charges or sentences for their testimony? Were they paid off? Were less credible witnesses purposefully chosen to testify to make Wilson's version seem more credible? The world will never be able to determine the witnesses' credibility, because no one knows who they are. Read The Smoking Gun article, "Witness 40": Exposing A Fraud In Ferguson, which claims witness 40 whose testimony supported Darren Wilson's version is bipolar, lied and didn't witness the shooting of Michael Brown.
Any other average citizen could be arrested based upon a single person making accusations against them. In fact, Mike Brown, was supposedly an alleged suspect because of a phone call by an individual who was not even the owner of the store involved. I don't believe Darren Wilson would have been convicted if he had gone to trial. However, the process of a public trial could have at least eased tensions and provide much needed and called for transparency.
