Ferguson

[Griddlelol]

The thing is (and I've been learning this myself recently) grand juries aren't about establishing reasonable doubt. They're about establishing the possibility that a person is guilty of the crime for which they're accused. If that possibility exists, they go to trial, where reasonable doubt is then established. 

I'm not particularly well versed in American (or any) legal...stuff. I'm not even sure I understand the point of a grand jury. It's a trial to see if a trial can happen? That just sounds pointless to me.

 

 

Anybody watch the video (or read the descriptions of it) of the Tamir Rice killing?   The police's story is not matching up with the video, particularly not how the boy could have been ordered to show his hands 3 times in the 1.5-2 seconds that it took for the officer to shoot him upon arriving at the scene.

 

Fuck! That's horrific. The kid is on his own, no one around. The police come rolling in and shoot him instantly. Then walk about for a while. That's pretty damning. It doesn't even make sense.

I can't see them telling him to raise his hands in that amount of time. 

[tberton]

A Grand Jury, in principle, is to figure out whether or not the prosecution has enough evidence to establish probable cause on the part of the accused. It's meant to prevent prosecutors from bringing cases to trial when they've got no evidence.

[Merus]

Can't you just fire the prosecutors for incompetence though?

[itsamoose]

Apparently the Assistant DA that ran the Grand Jury gave the jury the wrong law regarding the use of force.  This hasn't been the law since 1985 where it was ruled unconstitutional.  The Grand Jury was later given the correct law after hearing all evidence, but were not given clear instructions on what in the old law wasn't actually the law any more.  If this isn't the icing on the cake I don't know what is.

[thefncrow]

Can't you just fire the prosecutors for incompetence though?

 

Individual prosecutors, maybe.  Even then, the person firing them is the District Attorney, who is usually an elected official, and as such has political priorities in mind when directing the office.  If the case has somehow been silently moved forward by a rogue prosecutor without any knowledge of any of his bosses, then sure.  But more likely, when very weak prosecutions are being pushed, that's because of direction from the higher-ups, and the only way to change that direction is to vote the DA out of office in the next election.

 

That's unlikely to happen with McCulloch, since he's the St. Louis County DA, and St. Louis County is 70% white and the DA election is always held as part of the mid-term elections, where the electorate is almost always more white and elderly.

 

I'm not particularly well versed in American (or any) legal...stuff. I'm not even sure I understand the point of a grand jury. It's a trial to see if a trial can happen? That just sounds pointless to me.

 

Basically, think of a grand jury like this: the prosecutor basically gives a jury the version of the facts available to him in such a way as to be maximally damning to the accused, and the jury gets to consider whether or not they think, given the facts described to them by the prosecutor, that there's probable cause that the accused might have done what's he or she has been accused of.  It's less about being an important part of the process, and more about an opportunity for the GJ to say "And, so?  Even if all the facts presented are taken in the most favorable light, how does this add up to <crime>?"

 

There's a reason that the number of no bills issued is miniscule.  For reference, in 2010, federal prosecutors prosecuted 162,000 cases, and in that year, there were exactly 11 instances of federal grand juries returning no-bill verdicts.

[Merus]

Oh, I see, it's Americans being dumb. I don't know if there's any advantage in electing the DA because the electorate isn't in a good position to decide whether the DA needs to be replaced.

[Griddlelol]

Basically, think of a grand jury like this: the prosecutor basically gives a jury the version of the facts available to him in such a way as to be maximally damning to the accused, and the jury gets to consider whether or not they think, given the facts described to them by the prosecutor, that there's probable cause that the accused might have done what's he or she has been accused of.  It's less about being an important part of the process, and more about an opportunity for the GJ to say "And, so?  Even if all the facts presented are taken in the most favorable light, how does this add up to <crime>?"

 

There's a reason that the number of no bills issued is miniscule.  For reference, in 2010, federal prosecutors prosecuted 162,000 cases, and in that year, there were exactly 11 instances of federal grand juries returning no-bill verdicts.

 

I'm not trying to be deliberately dense, but why on earth is it called a "Grand" jury, when its job could be fulfilled by a judge or team of experienced barristers glancing over the files for a couple of hours? Just seems like an utter waste of time and money, while the name suggests it's of the utmost importance. 

 

I dunno, I assumed grand jury would be about judging super high profile cases that have had way too much media attention for people to remain impartial. Instead, it's a pretrial to see if there's a point in going to trial. Just have the fucking trial and save half the effort.

[Gwardinen]

I find this kind of interesting:

 

The touching hug photo from Ferguson protests is a blatant lie

[Mangela Lansbury]

I'm not trying to be deliberately dense, but why on earth is it called a "Grand" jury, when its job could be fulfilled by a judge or team of experienced barristers glancing over the files for a couple of hours? Just seems like an utter waste of time and money, while the name suggests it's of the utmost importance.

I dunno, I assumed grand jury would be about judging super high profile cases that have had way too much media attention for people to remain impartial. Instead, it's a pretrial to see if there's a point in going to trial. Just have the fucking trial and save half the effort.

It's called a grand jury because it meets for a year and hears many cases, as opposed to a petit jury that only meets for one case (and is usually just called a jury).

Grand juries aren't always necessary for a case to go to trial, and aren't used at all in some states. A lot of states do just skip the whole thing and go straight to trial.

[Griddlelol]

It's called a grand jury because it meets for a year and hears many cases, as opposed to a petit jury that only meets for one case (and is usually just called a jury).

 

That makes some sense with regards to the nomenclature. 

[Bjorn]

So the police are investigating Michael Brown's stepfather, considering charges of "inciting a riot". Meanwhile, the local police do not appear to be involved in an investigation into the burning of Brown's father's church, which was burned the night of the grand jury announcement, but the circumstances around it look very suspicious (nothing else burned around it, distant from the rest of the fires and the pastor had been a leading critic of the police). The ATF is investigating it.

[Dewar]

Oh, I see, it's Americans being dumb. I don't know if there's any advantage in electing the DA because the electorate isn't in a good position to decide whether the DA needs to be replaced.

 

I'd rather have a chance to elect him instead of him being appointed by other people in the government. Really neither is a good solution.

[Dewar]

Can't you just fire the prosecutors for incompetence though?

 

Wikipedia Quote:

 

In that era most criminal prosecutions were conducted by private parties, either a law enforcement officer, a lawyer hired by a crime victim or his family, or even by laymen. A layman could bring a bill of indictment to the grand jury; if the grand jury found there was sufficient evidence for a trial, that the act was a crime under law, and that the court had jurisdiction, it would return the indictment to the complainant. The grand jury would then appoint the complaining party to exercise the authority of an attorney general, that is, one having a general power of attorney to represent the state in the case. The grand jury served to screen out incompetent or malicious prosecutions. The advent of official public prosecutors in the later decades of the 19th century largely displaced private prosecutions.

While all states currently have provisions for grand juries, today approximately half of the states employ them and twenty-two require their use, to varying extents.

 

So at the time when Grand Juries were popularized, prosecutors were private and there was a need to filter out both stupidity and harassment via prosecution. They still hang around because, well, laws are slow to change I guess.

[Mangela Lansbury]

So at the time when Grand Juries were popularized, prosecutors were private and there was a need to filter out both stupidity and harassment via prosecution. They still hang around because, well, laws are slow to change I guess.

Pretty sure America's the only country that still has grand juries.

Maybe not, but pretty sure.

[Merus]

I'd rather have a chance to elect him instead of him being appointed by other people in the government. Really neither is a good solution.

 

I think it's particularly hard for America to get competent government employees because one of America's founding myths is that the government can't be trusted. What kind of American joins an organisation which their culture suspects can't be trusted?

 

That is not to say that there aren't incompetent people in government in every country on Earth, of course. Sometimes they become prime minister and embarrass your country on the world stage.... sigh.

[Gormongous]

I think it's particularly hard for America to get competent government employees because one of America's founding myths is that the government can't be trusted. What kind of American joins an organisation which their culture suspects can't be trusted?

 

That is not to say that there aren't incompetent people in government in every country on Earth, of course. Sometimes they become prime minister and embarrass your country on the world stage.... sigh.

 

I wouldn't say that it's a founding myth. It's certainly a post-Nixon myth (and also something of a post-Nixon fact), which for most Americans, with their dim awareness of history, is tantamount to being a founding myth.

 

Also, district attorney of some place like St. Louis County is a thankless job that no one would normally seek to do, so the only people who would run for it are people like McCulloch with an ulterior motive. The problem's not necessarily replacing McCulloch, the problem's finding someone better to replace him.

[Bjorn]

I wouldn't say that it's a founding myth. It's certainly a post-Nixon myth (and also something of a post-Nixon fact), which for most Americans, with their dim awareness of history, is tantamount to being a founding myth.

 

Also, district attorney of some place like St. Louis County is a thankless job that no one would normally seek to do, so the only people who would run for it are people like McCulloch with an ulterior motive. The problem's not necessarily replacing McCulloch, the problem's finding someone better to replace him.

 

Sometimes I feel like the entirety of America's cultural knowledge is based solely on post-WW2 suburban culture, and they've just assumed that everything before WW2 was just like Leave It to Beaver, but with fewer cars. 

[tberton]

I wouldn't say that it's a founding myth. It's certainly a post-Nixon myth (and also something of a post-Nixon fact), which for most Americans, with their dim awareness of history, is tantamount to being a founding myth.

 

Also, district attorney of some place like St. Louis County is a thankless job that no one would normally seek to do, so the only people who would run for it are people like McCulloch with an ulterior motive. The problem's not necessarily replacing McCulloch, the problem's finding someone better to replace him.

 

Maybe not distrust, but certainly a disregard for government interference is a founding myth of the US, what with issues about taxation, land acquisition and governance being big motivators for the American Revolution.

[Gormongous]

Maybe not distrust, but certainly a disregard for government interference is a founding myth of the US, what with issues about taxation, land acquisition and governance being big motivators for the American Revolution.

 

But at the same time, the Articles of Confederation were widely acknowledged to be a failure, sufficient for it to be replaced by a federal government that was seen as egregiously invasive but still necessary. I don't deny that America's always had some ambivalence about the relationship between government and society, but it's an ambivalence that's been expanded and recast over the years to be prophetic post hoc about current social ills.

 

There are a lot of American assumptions about political life that are crazy in their amorphousness, though. I still don't get the hostility to taxes. Throughout history, strong states with high standards of living have high taxes. There is literally no exception (in fact, it's almost always a strong correlation) so I have no idea why the average American is obsessed with driving down taxes and starving their government, just to save a couple thousand a year.

[Twig]

Well probably the AVERAGE american really needs that extra couple thousand a year, because of the distribution of wealth. I know that in my current state a couple thousand more a year would really help ME out, and I have a steady reliable job now. I mean I can still buy luxury items, but with my insurmountable student debt, I can't do it very often. If something drastic happened, I would be fucked. I don't have a large emergency fund right now. Building it, but slowly, and through careful management of funds.

 

Sure you could easily say that couple thousand a year goes somewhere worthwhile, but when you're the one hurting for money, well. Also when that couple thousand goes toward corrupt cops like in Ferguson and etc. I mean it's like what's the point of giving them money if this shit's going to happen.

 

But then again maybe them having more money for police would lead to less corruption. Except they'd probably spend it on more military equipment.

 

I literally just talked myself back and forth on the issue like five times in this post, and that's pretty much mostly in the context of Ferguson's current issues. There are any thousands of others, right. I'm not what I'd call an educated person on the subject, but I feel like I'm more educated/reasonable than most. So I can definitely see why this is always such a big issue.

 

Of course for the rich people, they're usually just greedy instead of confused like me.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I mean I can still buy luxury items, but with my insurmountable student debt, I can't do it very often.

 

The thing is, the idea of taxes are that you shouldn't have that student debt in the first place. Or at least, it should be way lower. Taxes are supposed to drive down cost of living for people across the board, as long as they're used well.

[Gormongous]

The thing is, the idea of taxes are that you shouldn't have that student debt in the first place. Or at least, it should be way lower. Taxes are supposed to drive down cost of living for people across the board, as long as they're used well.

 

Yeah, the whole push for low taxes is the widespread assumption that everyone knows best how to spend their own money and that a little money being spent in a lot of places is best for economic development. The converse, rarely argued in American politics anymore but no less true in my mind, is that people are very bad at spending their own money intelligently and that the collective action of a single entity, namely the government, with a little of everyone's money, almost always produces a net positive effective (military-industrial spending aside, which is a fucking huge problem of its own).

[Twig]

Guys my point was that it's very easy to get yourself in that mindset and my point was not that there wasn't a way to prevent it in the first place.

[SuperBiasedMan]

I know, and it's not easy to just dump the added taxes on people now and assume it'll be fine. I was just pointing out the irony in thinking when people uncompromisingly feel that way about wanting low taxes.

[Twig]

Yeah I am aware of it. I don't think it's fair to hold people responsible for that at all, though, considering they've had a lifetime of people telling them to think that way...