Here’s a fact The New York Times seeks to explore in the wake of the decision to let the killer of an unarmed youth go free:
A nation with an African-American president and a significant, if struggling, black middle class remains as deeply divided about the justice system as it was decades ago. A Huffington Post-YouGov poll of 1,000 adults released this week found that 62 percent of African-Americans believed Officer Wilson was at fault in the shooting of Mr. Brown, while only 22 percent of whites took that position.
The Times notes that this divide is nothing new:
In 1992, a Washington Post-ABC News pollfound that 92 percent of blacks — and 64 percent of whites — disagreed with the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers involved in the videotaped beating of a black man, Rodney King.
“What’s striking is just how constant these attitudes have been,” said Carroll Doherty, the director of political research for the nonpartisan Pew Research Center in Washington.
This particular article doesn’t go into much depth on who might be right — the white majority that sees justice being done from King to Brown, or the African American majority that sees culpable killers go free, but it does make clear that the experience of everyday life is … well, it’s the great grey lady (formerly) of 43rd Street, so this is how the sociology passage begins:
That whites and blacks disagree so deeply on the justice system, even as some other racial gulfs show signs of closing, is perhaps not as odd as it seems.
Not odd at all, as it happens, on the evidence of another long analysis piece in today’s paper the Ferguson decision:
But the gentle questioning of Officer Wilson revealed in the transcripts, and the sharp challenges prosecutors made to witnesses whose accounts seemed to contradict his narrative, have led some to question whether the process was as objective as Mr. McCulloch claims.
And what might have prompted such unpleasant suspicions about an upstanding public servant? Perhaps this:
Officer Wilson, in his testimony, described the encounter in terms that dovetailed with a state law authorizing an officer’s use of deadly force …
In some cases the questions seemed designed to help Officer Wilson meet the conditions for self-defense, with a prosecutor telling him at one point: “You felt like your life was in jeopardy” followed by the question, “And use of deadly force was justified at that point in your opinion?”
Might as well have just used cue cards.
Defense witnesses — which is to say that those witnesses with testimony to exculpate the voiceless dead against the charge of he had it coming — did not receive such helpful guidance:
Though the prosecutors did not press Officer Wilson and other law enforcement officials about some contradictions in their testimony, they did challenge other witnesses about why their accounts had varied.
…
Prosecutors did not seem to shy from pointing out the discrepancies between multiple interviews of a single witness, or at some points exploring the criminal history of some witnesses, including Mr. Johnson, Mr. Brown’s friend.
And you know something: priming works. This was a prosecutor/cop defense attorney who knew exactly what he was doing:
Over the months, the jurors seemed to focus intently on the final movement that Mr. Brown may have made toward Officer Wilson, after a brief chase. The prosecutor asked witness after witness if it seemed as if Mr. Brown were reaching for a weapon, though few said they saw anything like that. Mr. Brown was found to be unarmed.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Or rather, this is an answer to the question implied in its companion article. If blacks and whites view the criminal justice system differently, then, obviously, as the Ferguson trial of that dastardly murderee, Michael Brown, shows so clearly, that’s because it is different for white and black. Or more precisely to the point made brutally clear in the sorry history of the Ferguson grand jury, both black victims and those African Americans accused of crimes cannot expect the abstract ideal of the rule of law to reach them.
The single essential requirement for justice within a justice system is that the institutions and individuals involved receive genuinely equal treatment. As we can see from the top level decisions made in this case down to the fine grain of particular questions and answers, Darren Wilson benefited at every stage from the unequal approach prosecutor McCullough chose to employ. (Take a look at this New Yorker piece by Jeffrey Toobin for a fine account of just how thoroughly the fix was in from the moment McCullough chose to go the grand jury route.) Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address pondered out loud the mystery that two sides, each believing in the same God and in their claim on the blessings of heaven were still locked in an utterly destructive struggle. How could that be so? Perhaps, he said, in what seems to me to be the most devastatingly honest utterance by any American president ever:
The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
The offenses still come. It’s a good thing that in twenty first century America a child can no longer be sold away from its parents. It’s a step in the right direction that the act of looking at a white woman whilst being a black youth is not still a capital offense.
But a century and a half after a president counseled his war-riven nation, the offenses still come.
The death of a teenager who, we are told, it was OK to kill, simply adds this latest harvest of blood to the debt that Abraham Lincoln sought to settle so long ago.
Image: William Hogarth, The Court, c. 1758.
Frankensteinbeck
How can only 22% of whites think Wilson deserves to be tried for gunning down an unarmed man? I’d buy 50%, because apparently 50% of whites are racist assholes, but what the Hell? As Whitey McWhiterson Whiter Than Ronald McDonald Man myself, I’m mortified and angry that so many of my peers can be so blind.
Brendan in NC
@Frankensteinbeck: It’s close enough to that magical 27% to think that’s in play. Also, the first thing I noticed was the painting and how much the subject looks like Fat Tony…
SiubhanDuinne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I really find it hard to believe that number.
Smiling Mortician
@Frankensteinbeck: I think it’s partly the wording of the question: is Wilson “at fault”? Seems like the question is asking for a verdict on guilt or innocence rather than an opinion about whether there should be a trial. I can easily believe that only 22% of whites know or care enough about the available evidence to make that judgment. I haven’t seen the complete survey but maybe there’s an “I don’t know” option?
kindness
Here’s the thing though. If the oppressed, the unconnected, the poor come to the conclusion that they will get crapped on no matter what, well then the turn of events will lead to other conclusions that don’t ever seem to go so well for those who are in power/connected/not poor. And when you have a country that is so awash in high powered weaponry, there really isn’t all that much standing in the way of some of those souls finding relief. It won’t matter if this plays into the hands of those who would love this to occur so they can double down on their oppression. These actions will come about because of gut reaction, not reason or logic. The French…in their revolution….they weren’t right but they weren’t completely wrong either. Hate to say it but I think history is gonna repeat itself a bit.
Lavocat
Absolutely, positively WRONG.
It always amazes me how often people get this simple truth WRONG.
It is not the RECEIPT of “genuinely equal treatment” that matters in a democracy – it is the PERCEPTION of receiving genuinely equal treatment. PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING!
And, right now, progressive Americans perceive that America is a long way from becoming progressive.
Brendan in NC
Oops read that wrong. Again – it depends upon who was polled. If they only polled Missourians in lily white areas – that might be a true number
Lavocat
P.S. I love your writing style. You truly have a gift.
Leo
I haven’t seen this discussed (I’m sure it has been somewhere, but I haven’t seen it), but from what I’ve read of the transcript witness 10 seems to be an important witness who I expect was a big part of why Wilson wasn’t indicted. He read as much more credible and less emotionally involved than Wilson himself, but corroborates important parts of Wilson’s story.
Not that that in any way contradicts anything in this post. There should have been a trial, and McCollough was not doing his job as a prosecutor. Reading things in the best light possible, he was trying to be both prosecutor and defense attorney, which is not how our system is supposed to work.
burnspbesq
Does anybody here sincerely believe that if Wilson had been indicted, gone to trial, and his testimony at trial had been consistent with his testimony before the grand jury, he would be convicted? And if so, why?
BGinCHI
Nice post, Tom.
Jesus, the NYT seems unable to draw the conclusion that is right in front of its face. I wonder why an American newspaper would want to uphold the status quo? Why would they fail to see the harsh reality all around them? Do they not also know about Af-Am incarceration rates?
When institutions are run by all the same class and color of people, they will tend to reproduce the biases inherent, from historical sources, in that system.
wasabi gasp
@Lavocat: It is a great post.
@Frankensteinbeck: Even the 62% number seems low. Maybe respondents are interpreting fault as a synonym for guilt, causing reticence.
BGinCHI
@burnspbesq: I’ll see your George Zimmerman and raise you an “at least there could be a trial with discovery and an adversarial process.”
Better than nothing, though not great.
JPL
@burnspbesq: I don’t know the answer but if the prosecutor did his job, we might find out more. Wilson was nothing but a parrot.
RP
This is one of the best posts in the history of the blog IMHO.
The Dangerman
I watched a little bit of FOX last night before my stomach couldn’t take any more; now, I know FOX lies like a motherfucker, but they were claiming up to 7 eyewitnesses support Wilson’s story. Is this even remotely true?
I had to turn off FOX about the point Guiliani said he would have prosecuted all the witnesses supporting Brown for perjury (apparently, Dude’s running for President and he’s gonna be the anti-Uniter candidate).
eric
Institutions draw those people who are most like what the institution is then doing. You want a justice system that metes out more justice, you need to design a justice system that metes out justice. To do that, you need the people in charge of the justice system to want a justice system that metes out more justice, but those are not the people attracted to the current system. The justice system needs a systemic break, akin to a psychotic break, when there is a fundamental shift in how the institution exists. Yet, the chicken-egg quality of such change requires, in my view, a revolutionary change and not a mere attitudinal adjustment. When and how does this happen? I do not know. Sorry for the pessimistic lack of helpful insight.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@burnspbesq: Convicted of “what” seems to me to be the important question. Yeah, given the way the law is, it probably would have been difficult to convict him of murder or manslaughter. But surely something like “reckless endangerment” or other significant crime? The details of the charges matter.
I was called for a jury pool and ended up sitting for questioning for a panel that involved a charge of aggravated malicious wounding. The maximum possible penalty was 20 years, IIRC. (!) I wasn’t picked (my honeymoon started the next day.) If the prosecutor wants someone charged, they can find a charge, even in Missouri.
(IANAL.)
It’s a systemic problem, not just a “rogue cop”. But charges needed to be brought to move the process of changing the system. IMO, that still needs to happen.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
I just find myself so…galled at the entire thing. For christ’s sake, they’ve literally demonized Michael Brown in an attempt to paint Darren Wilson as innocent beyond all rebuke. The result is worse than Trayvon. Not only did they turn it into a trial on Brown, upon which he was found guilty of supernatural thuggery, but they turned it into an outright indictment of the entire black community and anyone who dared speak against Wilson, as McCulloch made so clear in his announcement.
They’ve turned him into a goddamn folk hero, as so made apparent by the slobbering interview he got on ABC, as well as the execrable Peter King proclaiming that Wilson should get an invite to the White House for public lauds and apologies just to show how much of a fucking hero this man is to everyone.
And the racists have come out full force, emboldened and seeing that racism pretty much holds no consequences anymore. They’re free to let their freak flags fly. Not to mention pooh-poohing from ostensibly liberal people who have basically gone ‘oh, they did their best, but it’s clear Brown really must’ve been the thug he was called all along’, as well as those who are publicly indicting an entire side for the actions of rioters that didn’t even quite reach the scale of your standard sports championship celebratory riot (much as news attempted to paint it like some kind of endemic response to this brand of protester.
I just….guh. I have to pass along this opening quote from a Salon article that pretty much sums it up so much:
And that’s pretty much it. There pretty much is no convincing the country anymore that Black Lives…hell, Non-White Lives at that…matter. With almost zero tangible consequences for racism anymore at this point, we’ve pretty much already lost.
@The Dangerman:
That’s the thing that makes me tear my hair out the most. It’s the full-on acceptance that the result means that Darren Wilson was an angel, Michael Brown was necessarily a criminal demon thug, and that everyone who attested otherwise is a non-American criminal danger that needs to be prosecuted and persecuted for daring to upset the natural order, because how dare you believe this hero could kill anything except a psychotic savage animal deserving of death?
I just….god, fucking dammit.
Political Realism
Poor little Mike Brown, he never did anything to anybody, a real gentle giant who no doubt was a future rocket scientist or brain surgeon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97PH8B2PEls
Or maybe he was just a thug who liked to commit strong armed robberies (the strong armed robbery was committed against an East Indian man, btw). Not that it matters, it will still be framed as whitey vs. everyone else instead of what it really is: law abiding citizens of all colors vs. thugs.
Political Realism
Poor little Mike Brown, he never did anything to anybody, a real gentle giant who no doubt was a future rocket scientist or brain surgeon:
Or maybe he was just a thug who liked to commit strong armed robberies (the strong armed robbery was committed against an East Indian man, btw). Not that it matters, it will still be framed as whitey vs. everyone else instead of what it really is: law abiding citizens of all colors vs. thugs.
C.V. Danes
If you’re 25 times more likely to be shot than someone who is white, and 7 times more likely to go to jail, then of course you’re going to view the justice system differently.
Where do you go for justice when the people who are supposed to be protecting you are the ones doing the shooting?
JPL
IMO, Brendan @ 2 has a good eye. Fat Tony existed at another time.
JPL
@Political Realism: Yup.. He deserved a death sentence for being a thug. A lot of teenagers would not be walking around by that definition.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
OT: Justice Ginsberg got a heart stent Wednesday – http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/11/26/3597344/breaking-justice-ginsburg-has-heart-surgery/
Cheers,
Scott.
Leo
@The Dangerman: Depends on what you mean by “Wilson’s story.” There are key parts of the story, like exactly what happened during the struggle inside the car, that no witnesses can really contradict or confirm. All the stuff about Brown’s facial expressions seems to fit in that category too, from what I can tell. But it is definitely true that multiple witnesses testified consistently with Wilson on some key issues, like Brown stopping, turning around, and running at Wilson. There were also several witnesses that specifically testified that they did not see a “hands up” gesture. So Wilson did have witnesses who supported his story in a general sense.
Belafon
@Frankensteinbeck:
Because more than 50% of whites are racists, though they try to believe they are not. I don’t have the Salon article with me, the link is at home, but when asked whether the troubles blacks have are because of blacks themselves or external issues, white Democratics outside the South split approximately 50-50. White Democrats in the South and Republicans outside the South are over twice as likely to blame blacks, and Southern Republicans are even worse. Put all those numbers together and you get a pretty clear picture of what a majority of whites in this country think.
TriassicSands
Any time a police officer shoots (and kills) an unarmed civilian it should be considered an egregious law enforcement failure. The police officer should lose his (or her) job and face an exhaustive investigation to determine whether or not criminal charges should be filed. There may be exceptions to that, but they ought to be few and far between.
It seems to me that police officers use their weapons much too often in unnecessary circumstances, probably because they are afraid and possibly because they know any subsequent investigation will be heavily weighted in their favor. Tasers were introduced to be less lethal, but like any instrument of force available to the police, they are subject to abuse, which sometimes leads to death. However, guns are much more likely to result in fatalities.
We need smarter, more courageous police officers; people who accept that the job is dangerous, and who take the “protect” part of their job description seriously.
mai naem mobile
Adding to the shitstream of bad news.Just heard.on the news that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a stent placed in her right coronary artery. This year just needs to be over with. People really expect O to go to Ferguson.For real? Are you people stupid? I don’t want my president shot. Assholes.
SiubhanDuinne
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Speedy recovery, Notorious RBG!!
Tom Levenson
@Leo: None of whom were subject to critical scrutiny, as a trial is supposed to achieve.
Though, of course, the prosecutor that would pull the stunts documented in the grand jury record, not to mention calling the grand jury in the first place, is not one would provide such scrutiny. Fix was in five ways from zero.
That does not mean a properly conducted trial, with a prosecutor actually trying to prosecute against the best efforts of a competent defense attorney, would have ended in a conviction for murder or anything else. But we’d have a lot better picture of who Wilson was and what he did than we do now. Which, in a system to both deliver and be seen to yield justice, would be a good thing. To repeat the obvious: we don’t have such a system now.
C.V. Danes
@Political Realism: Whatever he was, he didn’t deserve to be gunned down in the street.
El Caganer
Maybe I’m reading the numbers incorrectly, but if 64% of whites thought something was wrong with the Rodney King beating and 22% of whites think something is wrong with the Michael Brown killing, I don’t think that shows a striking consistency of attitudes. I think that shows that things have gotten a hell of a lot worse.
El Caganer
@Political Realism: Or maybe he was really a space alien responsible for the disappearance of MH370! It’s possible! You dumb fuck.
Citizen_X
@Political Realism:
Gosh, maybe. Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe rain, maybe snow. I guess we’ll find out in Brown’s trial, right? Oh, that’s right, we can’t, because he’s fucking dead.
(And it wouldn’t have happened anyway, because the clerk didn’t even want to press charges for this altercation that you need to call a “robbery.”)
Leo
@Tom Levenson: I agree with this. I would add that there would have been a different jury, one that would have had a voir dire process to try to establish whether they had pre-conceived notions that would prevent them from viewing the evidence fairly.
Re “stunts,” I guess I just see one stunt which is the decision to try to present “all evidence” to the grand jury with a sort of “impartial” attitude, rather than just try to get the indictment like a prosecutor usually does. All the other defects just flow from that one bad decision as far as I have seen.
Mnemosyne
@Political Realism:
Oh, sweetie, you still think that was a robbery video even though the “victim” in it came forward within a couple of days of Brown’s death and said there was no robbery?
I know this is going to be a shock, but the Loch Ness Monster doesn’t exist, either.
Kathleen
This is an outstanding piece, Tom. I appreciate all that you write, but this one is most profound. Thank you.
greennotGreen
@TriassicSands: Actually, I think that Wilson’s having a gun is what allowed the incident to escalate to an unnecessary death in the first place. If he had not had a gun, he probably would have been nicer when he asked Brown and his friend to get out of the road. If he had not had a gun, he probably would have waited for back up before confronting the “suspected felon.”
Once upon a time, I was in my car when a bunch of scuzzy-looking white guys crowded up to it, and one of them reached in. I just drove off. Amazingly, no one was killed.
But then, I didn’t have a gun.
Betty Cracker
@mai naem mobile: A stent is pretty routine these days, so I’m told. The Notorious RBG should be just fine. FSM protect and preserve her for a thousand years!
greennotGreen
@El Caganer: Yeah, but in Rodney King’s case there was a video of the incident.
Betty Cracker
@greennotGreen: So true. Unfortunately, guns, or rather the US firearms fetish, makes true reforms in policing practically impossible. The cops can argue, with some justice, that since every other yahoo on the street is packing, they can’t go about unarmed.
FlipYrWhig
@El Caganer: that’s what I thought too. 22% is drastically, repulsively low. 64% isn’t great on King either. But the difference is that with King there was video of a guy being beaten while on the ground, and with Brown there’s only narrative, and some of it makes him seem like an Orc.
NorthLeft12
I think I tend to believe that number for whites who believe that the Officer was at fault.
I frequent the CBC site [more left leaning than most] and am surprised at the high number of commenters who are of the “if he had only done what the nice policeman had asked, none of this would have happened” type.
People, and in my experience, white people are very eager to accept the word of the government on “uncomfortable” issues like this. Even though it was a farce, I hear a lot of “well, the justice system works and he was judged by a jury of regular folks”, and I suspect that is very comforting to a large number of people.
Leo
@greennotGreen: And Wilson’s story relies heavily on the implicit (and in some places explicit) fear that Brown would overpower him and take his gun. The gun being there ratchets up the encounter at every stage.
gwangung
@Leo: That’s the mark of an incompetent.
You don’t put yourself into a situation where your gun can be easily taken away from you.
gnomedad
Justice Scalia Explains What Was Wrong With The Ferguson Grand Jury (sort of)
blueskies
@burnspbesq: I can honestly say that I don’t know what will happen in the next few moments, much less what the outcome of a jury trial might be.
And if you say you know otherwise, that you can reliably predict the outcome of a jury trial, then you’re even less self-aware than I’d previously thought.
But of course, you’re asking the wrong question just to troll, so…
greennotGreen
I think that in a traffic accident you have to have tried to avoid the accident, e.g., someone swerves into your lane, you have a free lane you can get into to avoid the accident, but you don’t because you’re in the right, you would share some of the blame. I could be in error about this. Why shouldn’t policing be like that? This death was avoidable if better decisions had been made on the front end by Wilson. By Brown, too, but his bad decisions would not have led to a death (unless he really was trying to take Wilson’s gun before it was drawn. To my mind, if he was trying to take it after it was drawn, he was just trying to save his own life.)
Redshift
@burnspbesq:
If start with the assumption that defendant’s statements under cross-examination will be consistent with prior statements, how often would we ever bother to have trials? You can justify a lot with assumptions that have no basis in reality.
Leaving that aside, it is demonstrably true that it is extremely difficult to prosecute a police officer, and on that basis, it would arguably correct not to indict. However, as a matter of the effect on the public, declining to indict because there is insufficient evidence for a successful prosecution is considerably different that declining to indict because eyewitnesses are challenged and declared to be liars, and the defendant is unchallenged and assumed to be truthful.
Cacti
@burnspbesq:
Even if he’d been indicted, I never expected him to be convicted of anything.
A white judge would have granted him a change of venue to a white suburb, ex-urb, or rural county. Not because people there hadn’t heard about what happened, but because in this country, only white people can be trusted to judge the guilt or innocence of white on black violence under the color of law.
Kristin
I’m surrounded by white people who think this whole thing is a travesty. I can’t believe only 22% of us are. That is BEYOND depressing.
But, you know, racism is over.
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig:
In talking to friends and neighbors about the grand jury result, that has struck me too — in fact, I’d say attitudes toward the outcome of the case hinge on perceptions about Brown.
The people I know who think the outcome was the right one aren’t unfeeling racist monsters. They believe the story about Brown reaching in the window and going for the cop’s gun, so they believe it was a justified, if regrettable, shooting.
Kristin
@Betty Cracker: That smacks of privilege, though. This incident isn’t just about whether the shooting was just. It’s about African-Americans being afraid to walk the streets, lest they be gunned down by a person who is supposed to be protecting them, and then having a bunch of other white people protect that person.
Cacti
@gnomedad:
In a WaPo column yesterday, they indicated that during McCulloch’s 23 years as SLC prosecutor, 5 police have been referred to the grand jury for suspect shootings, and 0 indictments have been returned.
The only way that happens is if the prosecution doesn’t want an indictment, and the GJ is treated as a formality.
Cacti
Also too, this “poor little old me” song and dance from Wilson is ridiculous.
The guy is 6’4″, 210 lbs, and was a former high school hockey player.
Belafon
@Redshift: More importantly, there’s a division of labor that McCulloch chose to ignore. It’s not the job of a grand jury to decide guilt or innocence; that the job of a jury in a trial. It’s the job of a grand jury to decide if a jury should hear a trial, and if there is a chance for conviction. It’s also the job of a prosecutor to try people, not to be a defender.
Kristin
@Cacti: His testimony sounded crazy to me. At best, he sounded incompetent.
Redshift
There were two comments in interviews in the past couple of days that I found notable, one that was infuriating and one that was powerful and telling.
This morning, there was an interview on BBC with an ex-cop presenting the police point of view. Since BBC interviewers actually ask probing questions, he was being pressed on how deadly force might be avoided. The infuriating statement was that even if the suspect is unarmed, there is a deadly weapon in the situation, because the cop has it, so if there is any possibility of the suspect getting hold of the gun, deadly force is justified.
I guess the only reasonable solution is for cops not to carry guns, eh?
Then there was an interview with an Egyptian activist on the PRI/BBC “The World” yesterday. She was appalled at the turn of events, unsurprisingly, and compared it to the lack of justice in post-revolution Egypt. The host said that surely she had to see that we have a justice system here, that it’s not the same. Her response: “This result was wrong, so clearly there is something wrong with both systems.”
Scott S.
@JPL: If we’re going to start handing out death sentences for thuggery, we’ll end up putting bullets in the brainpans of every teabagger in the country.
Matt
Even money that the #opkkk stuff turns up Wilson and McCulloch having hashed this whole plan out at their monthly Klan meeting. That entire PD should be looking for new jobs…
Leo
Think Progress linked to an opinion by Scalia outlining the role and function of the grand jury and holding that the prosecutor is under no obligation to present exculpatory evidence. To my mind, this is the killer document to show why McCollough’s process was fucked:
United States v. Williams
Jist is that the prosecution didn’t need to present anything other than the evidence most favorable to an indictment. McCollough voluntarily presented Wilson’s side of the story.
Cacti
@Redshift:
Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were both armed.
Each of them had two arms that were black. There is no greater danger in the eyes of your average Guntotius Peckerwoodius Americanus.
jayjaybear
@Scott S.: Saaaaay now…
Steve from Antioch
@burnspbesq:
That is what I was wondering, too. I haven’t read all of the transcripts or looked at all of the evidence, but I have read Wilson’s testimony and looked at (I think) all of the photographs and measurements. Wilson’s story seems consistent with the physical evidence (which isn’t surprising since I presume he had access to it so his story could be tailored.) [The only inconsistency I noticed was his claim that he racked the slide on his Sig after its fourth (?!) misfire – this is inconsistent with the round count and the number of shots fired.]
It doesn’t seem that there is any question that there was a struggle/fight while Wilson was in the car. At least one round was fired inside the car. I don’t think there is a jury that would convict had those been the fatal shot. (But they were not.)
There were two sets of shell casings which is consistent with Wilson’s story that he pursued Brown.
Most telling of all to me was the fact that there were blood stains beyond the point where Brown’s body came to rest, indicating that he turned around and advanced back toward Wilson.
I haven’t got through the witness testimony, but from what I’ve read in the press, it is at best muddled on what Brown was doing as he advanced back toward Wilson – whether his hands were up and he was surrendering or whether he was running towards him.
One procedural thing that stood out to me was that the prosecutor clearly did a sympathetic direct of Wilson. There was even the standard Q/A establishing that the vehicle was marked and officer was in uniform that appears in nearly every trial direct of a uniformed officer. An argument can be made that a prosecutor should be impartial when presenting evidence to grand jury, but I can’t really reconcile the prosecutors questions with mere impartiality.
But if you set aside the issue of the prosecutors motives, I still wonder whether there is a strong case that a jury would convict on the evidence that is out there.
Finally – great post Tom.
Betty Cracker
@Kristin: Agreed. We all tend to see things through the lens of our lived experience, and if we’re not part of a marginalized group, it takes an effort to understand that perspective, an effort too many don’t bother to make. My sense is that in many cases it’s through ignorance rather than malice, but the end result is the same.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Cacti:
Yeah, and especially in Michael Brown’s case, people have been lead to believe his very frame, his very body, was somehow even worse than a gun, that his very being alone was a more devastating weapon than bullets could be and if Wilson hadn’t shot, the demon would’ve pounded him into literal red paste.
The very being of a black man’s body is a crime in the eyes of far too goddamn many people in this country.
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@Betty Cracker:
And far too often, where ignorance and malice are involved, the former far too often leads into the latter to where the two end up indistinguishable. Usually when those in question mistake their ignorance for insight.
RareSanity
@burnspbesq:
That is a bullshit premise Burnsie, and you know it.
This isn’t about trying to read tea leaves and predict what the outcome of a jury trial would be. This is about the fact that a prosecutor used a forum of which he had complete control, a grand jury, to avoid the situation ever going to an actual trial.
Do I think that McCulloch would have spontaneously discovered that he was supposed to be representing the people of Ferguson in the trial with all of the zeal he could muster, and not taking a dive for the police department? No I don’t. But at least his point shaving would be on full display in a courtroom, with a full public record.
But to answer your question, even under protest of it being flawed in its premise, I’d say thanks to Mr. McCulloch’s actions, we’ll never know.
Archon
If the same people the are defending Wilson weren’t defending Zimmerman, (an obvious sociopath without a badge) when he shot and killed an unarmed black man he was bigger then and who wasn’t on video bullying a store clerk, I would just call Wilson supporters authoritarians and police apologists.
The fact that that vast majority of people the supported Wilson’s actions also supported Zimmerman’s actions suggest that their are people that love blacks getting their just desserts from police, vigilantes, whatever because all young blacks are of course current or future criminals. To them that’s the legacy of the civil rights era, blacks knew their place now their running amok with help from naïve or licentious white liberals.
We’ve come a long way but the Obama era has really opened my eyes (probably not as much as white liberals who thought racism was a thing of the past but still). I can’t pretend anymore that the civil rights era is settled and their aren’t a huge amount of whites in this nation that would be just fine returning to a system where black lived under a police state with zero legal or political recourse. And it ain’t just hillbillies either (i.e Giuliani, Supreme court, etc)
Steve from Antioch
Oh, and my bit of Monday morning quarterbacking is this: Why did Wilson not simply use his free right hand not to pull his Sig but instead put the SUV in drive and get away a safe distance, keep the “suspects” in view and wait on backup?
Kristin
@Betty Cracker: I think that might explain the 22% number. I wish this incident could be a teaching moment, but I’m afraid all the reports of “looting” and “rioting” have made that impossible.
Steve from Antioch
@Kristin:
Speaking of rioting: http://imgur.com/a/rYd72
Dave
@Kristin: It is privilege a one that should be shared by all. Really it’s two different issues one is the actual killing of Brown and both his and Wilson’s actions. And that has basically become nearly impossible to sort out. I am positive that Wilson acted wrongly and that Brown’s death was not necessary but how badly is subject to interpretation the second issue and it influences why it’s not knowable is the extremely bad faith actions of the local departments and the DA’s office. Made worse by media and preexisting narratives regarding black Americans. It pisses me off incredibly because the actions of the police since the incident has clearly been escalation and a giant fuck you to the community. I suspect it’s a mix of them actually believing it’s correct and the cynical manipulation of how the media will inevitably report on angry black protesters especially when some become violent, and some always will any group of more than a few has an idiot and an asshole in it, that they are out of control and scary monsters. Never mind the actual scale of the violence or the context (and yes if you are setting cars on fire you are an asshole at least at the moment it doesn’t make hundreds of other protestors assholes thouhg) It’s made worse by the low-level unexamined racism of most Americans.
One thing I actually believe Wilson in that when he describes Brown as demonic and terrifying is that to Wilson he actually was. Now that in way decreases Wilson’s culpability it either makes it worse or leaves it the same. There are so many white males terrified of the supposed physically superior unhinged and mentally inferior image of the black male that it’s essentially a nation wide pathology. It’s toxic masculinity taken to the 10th degree and then applied to black males (and even worse in a way is that a lot of black males will absorb this attitude as well). Leaving a curious mixture of contempt and fear and hitting the toxic masculinity that many white dudes are exposed to as well and it undermines their own sense of the adequacy of their masculinity. Fear makes us dumb and stewing in a toxic police, media, and probably social settings that encourages casual racism and fear (and no I don’t 100% know that Wilson is in that but yeah I do lets be honest) means he probably is telling a completely subjective truth about how he saw Brown though not necessarily about the events leading to Brown’s death I severely doubt he was all “please good youths you should use the sidewalk top of the day to you” that he presents himself as.
Dave
@Kristin: It is privilege a one that should be shared by all. Really it’s two different issues one is the actual killing of Brown and both his and Wilson’s actions. And that has basically become nearly impossible to sort out. I am positive that Wilson acted wrongly and that Brown’s death was not necessary but how badly is subject to interpretation the second issue and it influences why it’s not knowable is the extremely bad faith actions of the local departments and the DA’s office. Made worse by media and preexisting narratives regarding black Americans. It pisses me off incredibly because the actions of the police since the incident has clearly been escalation and a giant fuck you to the community. I suspect it’s a mix of them actually believing it’s correct and the cynical manipulation of how the media will inevitably report on angry black protesters especially when some become violent, and some always will any group of more than a few has an idiot and an asshole in it, that they are out of control and scary monsters. Never mind the actual scale of the violence or the context (and yes if you are setting cars on fire you are an asshole at least at the moment it doesn’t make hundreds of other protestors assholes thouhg) It’s made worse by the low-level unexamined racism of most Americans.
One thing I actually believe Wilson in that when he describes Brown as demonic and terrifying is that to Wilson he actually was. Now that in way decreases Wilson’s culpability it either makes it worse or leaves it the same. There are so many white males terrified of the supposed physically superior unhinged and mentally inferior image of the black male that it’s essentially a nation wide pathology. It’s toxic masculinity taken to the 10th degree and then applied to black males (and even worse in a way is that a lot of black males will absorb this attitude as well). Leaving a curious mixture of contempt and fear and hitting the toxic masculinity that many white dudes are exposed to as well and it undermines their own sense of the adequacy of their masculinity. Fear makes us dumb and stewing in a toxic police, media, and probably social settings that encourages casual racism and fear (and no I don’t 100% know that Wilson is in that but yeah I do lets be honest) means he probably is telling a completely subjective truth about how he saw Brown though not necessarily about the events leading to Brown’s death I severely doubt he was all “please good youths you should use the sidewalk top of the day to you” that he presents himself as.
JPL
@Scott S.: hmmm
Dave
@Cacti: Very true media focused on Brown’s size ignored that Wilson isn’t exactly a hell of a lot smaller either. Very sneaky and plays to a great many biases.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Why is it so easy for these non-monstrous people to believe the worst of Brown but not of Wilson?
lethargytartare
@Leo:
wasn’t there someone going on and on here yesterday condescendingly explaining how the Prosecutor HAD to include every shred of evidence gathered?
Has he/she posted their contrite mea culpa yet?
Kryptik, A Man Without a Country
@schrodinger’s cat:
The hint is in his name, sadly enough.
Whether they want to admit it or not, they likely hold racist apprehensions that color their reactions.
Hell, I’ll admit I still have racist reactions at times. I’ll find myself apprehensive when I’m walking and a lone black guy passes me while I have my bag out or a phone out. But I usually end up having to remind myself when I realize what I’m feeling that this is stupid and irrational, and I almost never outwardly act on it precisely because it’s such a stupid thing to feel. It’s not a conscious ‘Oh my god, this guy must be a thug!’ but a gut feeling born out by the repeated drilling of such ‘black guy = thug’ imagery we’re constantly bombarded with so much.
Leo
@lethargytartare:
Yep.
Nope.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve from Antioch:
Which photographs and measurements? The medical examiner who testified complained in an email to the department that he had not been given either measurements or crime scene photos before his testimony. The police photographer said that the battery in his camera was dead, so he didn’t take any official photos.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: I think the video from the store was very damaging for perceptions of Brown. Which is why the cops released it, of course.
Steve from Antioch
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Here is where some of it is collected: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/ferguson-diagram-of-the-scene/
There are many more photographs and a more detailed key describing evidence locations in the document cloud documents.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve from Antioch:
Two huge problems with that drawing: it is not to scale, and it does not indicate where Wilson was standing in relation to Brown when he fired. I think we can all agree that claiming that a guy 100 feet away “charged” at you is a whole lot less plausible than claiming a guy 20 feet away did it.
Steve from Antioch
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
It is not to scale but here is the key: http://www.kmov.com/special-coverage-001/ferguson-files/Photos-Renderings-of-the-crime-scene-283799081.html?gallery=y&img=1&c=y
From the location of the spent shell casings you can get a pretty good estimate of where the shooting took place in relation to the body and the blood stains. [Assuming, of course that the scene was not manufactured.]
Also, the fact that there was a bullet lodged inside the SUV and Brown’s blood was inside the SUV, this would be consistent with placing the first shot’s fired inside the SUV.
If you are really interested in this, I’d suggest that you go through the evidence in the document cloud. Lots of stuff there.
Leo
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): What evidence would you suggest they use to determine where Wilson was standing? The eyewitnesses conflict. The diagram does include shell casings, which may tend to indicate where Wilson was standing at certain times.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: Darren Wilson actually killed an unarmed teen, so why does that fact not color their perceptions? Also,since when is robbery a justification for murder? Is this a version of some version Biblical/Sharia Law I am unaware of?
Would their perceptions have been any different if Brown and Wilson were both white?
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: They don’t think it was murder, and they don’t think the killing was about the robbery; they believe the cop when he said Brown went for the gun, and that’s why they think it was a justified shooting.
I don’t think their perceptions would have been different if Wilson and Brown had both been white, all other circumstances being the same, but who knows? Most people have biases — conscious or not, admitted or not.
During the conversation I referred to above, I pointed out some ridiculous claims by Wilson, namely that Wilson had politely asked Brown and Johnson to move on the sidewalk and that Brown immediately got aggressive for no reason whatsoever etc. I find that implausible, and my friends admitted it did sound fishy.
But overall, they found the cop’s version more credible than Johnson’s, and I really think that store video successfully assassinated Brown’s character for many people — exactly as the authorities intended.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Steve from Antioch:
Right, but where are the actual MEASUREMENTS that show where those shell casings and other evidence is in relation to one another? I can only do a limited amount of web surfing from a phone.
And, frankly, since the WaPo has been one of the biggest defenders of Wilson, I may need some reassurance that they actually have all of the evidence that was presented and not a carefully selected sampling.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Leo:
With good measurements and access to the gun, a crime scene investigator should be able to reconstruct where each person was standing with a decent amount of accuracy. Since the medical examiner complained that he wasn’t given access to the crime scene photos or measurements before he was scheduled to testify, it’s unclear to me if those photos and measurements don’t exist or if the police chose to withhold them from the ME.
Lavocat
@RP: Agreed. As my old man would say, Tom gets right to the “meat ‘n’ potatoes o’ things.”
Lavocat
@Kryptik, A Man Without a Country: Most of my friends and acquaintances are similarly deflated by all of this. Not me. Sure, I’m angry as hell, but I find it energizing, invigorating even.
For all you liberals, progressives, lefties, or whatever you wanna call yourselves, I tell you Do Not Lose Faith.
All you have to do is remember and act upon this simple admonition: BEAR WITNESS.
All you have to do is REMEMBER the motherfuckers who did what we know they did and said what we know they said.
There will come a time when the bill will come due. And you want to be there to serve them that bill.
Dish served cold and all of that, blah, blah, blah.
Lavocat
@C.V. Danes: I think we both know the answer to that.
Leo
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The measurements are here. The crime scene investigator testified in vol. 2 of the transcript and was asked by a grand juror whether he could testify regarding how far the shell casings might have traveled and he states that that is beyond his expertise. The prosecutor then indicates that a ballistics expert will testify later. I haven’t located that testimony yet. So that is why the crime scene investigator’s diagram doesn’t show where Wilson was standing.
Patricia Kayden
Great post, Tom. Very well written. It feels that this country’s history has hamstrung it as far as race relations are concerned. Not sure how long it’s going to take for healing to occur.