I'm curious of just what would happen to Ferguson if everyone just performed a mass exodus.
I always say that people in shitty places should just move. Whenever people suggest that, they think I'm crazy and don't take the idea seriously.
It turns out that moving is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive, which means it's basically not an option for people with demanding jobs and not a lot of money, i.e. the people you think should move.
In other news, Darren Wilson was not indicted, to nobody's huge surprise, because it doesn't count when a white person kills a black person in America. I'll just be over here flipping tables.
In other news, Darren Wilson was not indicted, to nobody's huge surprise, because it doesn't count when a white person kills a black person in America. I'll just be over here flipping tables.
I see you have presented a very thorough examination of the evidence and a persuasive argument in favor of indictment.
Seriously, did any of you hear the charges or the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury? Because if you did, and you weren't ON the Grand Jury and sworn to secrecy, then I want to hear them.
That's the ONLY way to make an educated argument one way or the other, and most people who are bitching about this being "wrong" on the internet have NO CLUE what evidence was presented.
The Grand Jury doesn't decide whether the killing way right or wrong. They decide ONLY whether the evidence presented could satisfy the charges presented. If not, they do NOT indict.
Fucking learn how our legal system works before you guys go off yelling about how this is supreme injustice and the jurors should all be shot. I can't even deal with all the Sudden Legal Experts on social media right now.
I just herd an interview in which a woman was dissatisfied that a grand jury was given all the facts and not given suggestions on what they should do with them. This makes me feel that people don't really care about the justice system, just getting the outcome they want. I can see why people would be dissatisfied with the grand jury's decision, but am I the only one who sees reasonable doubt in this situation?
Rioters saying police plants are stirring the shit in Ferguson. I won't discount anything, but that's a little far-fetched considering several businesses are burning and there have been reports of explosions.
In other news, Darren Wilson was not indicted, to nobody's huge surprise, because it doesn't count when a white person kills a black person in America. I'll just be over here flipping tables.
I see you have presented a very thorough examination of the evidence and a persuasive argument in favor of indictment.
Seriously, did any of you hear the charges or the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury? Because if you did, and you weren't ON the Grand Jury and sworn to secrecy, then I want to hear them.
That's the ONLY way to make an educated argument one way or the other, and most people who are bitching about this being "wrong" on the internet have NO CLUE what evidence was presented.
The Grand Jury doesn't decide whether the killing way right or wrong. They decide ONLY whether the evidence presented could satisfy the charges presented. If not, they do NOT indict.
Fucking learn how our legal system works before you guys go off yelling about how this is supreme injustice and the jurors should all be shot. I can't even deal with all the Sudden Legal Experts on social media right now.
Well, I'll just throw this out here.
On another forum I'm on, it's pretty densely packed with lawyers (Like, the place is actually run by lawyers and the rules have articles and sub-articles and I serve on a goddamn judicial review panel for moderator action), and the Actual Lawyers there are of the opinion that this is a sick fucking joke.
The running gag is "You can indict a ham sandwich." because the burden of proof needed to get someone to trial is way less than what you need to actually convict them of anything, so almost every case goes through. A Grand Jury is basically just a quick check to ensure that charges make any kind of sense at all and basically serves to deter the use of a trial itself as extralegal punishment. Stuff like "Are you charging this guy with a crime you have no evidence was even committed." or whatever. There's a body and nobody is disputing that Darren Wilson fired, so for anyone not wearing a uniform, there ought to be enough to take this shit to trial where a proper accounting can be made of stuff like self-defense, appropriate use of force, etc.
But there's not even that. Your legal/policing culture is so fucked they can't bring a guy to trial for shooting a man in the street, just because the guy has a certain hat. Not convict him, not punish him, just get him to trial.
Do we know what charges they tried to indict him on or is that secret too? I do have to agree that this feels like a load of bull shit. Darren Wilson shot unarmed Michael Brown 6 times killing him and we can't get an indictment? It feels the prosecutor didn't want the indictment and purposely fucked this up. But as Nuri says we don't know what was presented, so we can't prove gross incompetence or malice.
On another forum I'm on, it's pretty densely packed with lawyers (Like, the place is actually run by lawyers and the rules have articles and sub-articles and I serve on a goddamn judicial review panel for moderator action), and the Actual Lawyers there are of the opinion that this is a sick fucking joke.
FYI, Nuri is also an Actual Lawyer.
I can also find forums full of doctors who tell pregnant women to drink raw milk. Does that suddenly give the idea merit? This is the problem with the appeal to authority.
The running gag is "You can indict a ham sandwich." because the burden of proof needed to get someone to trial is way less than what you need to actually convict them of anything, so almost every case goes through. A Grand Jury is basically just a quick check to ensure that charges make any kind of sense at all and basically serves to deter the use of a trial itself as extralegal punishment. Stuff like "Are you charging this guy with a crime you have no evidence was even committed." or whatever. There's a body and nobody is disputing that Darren Wilson fired, so for anyone not wearing a uniform, there ought to be enough to take this shit to trial where a proper accounting can be made of stuff like self-defense, appropriate use of force, etc.
Since we're also going to stand on tenuous expertise, I've served on a grand jury. No, "you can indict a ham sandwich" is not the way it works. Yes, the burden of proof is less, but you also get to see prosecutors trying to throw every possible charge at a suspect. I've heard murder cases, and very often the evidence brought to the trial is very very thin. You are voting to take people to trial, in most cases, based solely on unreliable eyewitness testimony from a handful of people. It's incredibly rare that they have hard evidence to present, and so it comes down to a jury deciding whether or not they've got enough to go on.
You don't have prints, weapons, DNA, or any other type of evidence in most cases. None. Many of those things come later, because gathering and curating that evidence takes time. They want to know that they will be able to get to a criminal trial before investing resources in building a more substantial case.
And then you add in the job of a uniformed police officer. Maybe you can "indict a ham sandwich," but indictments of police officers are incredibly rare - precisely because of the nature of their job and the nature of the evidence presented at a grand jury case. If it's "he said she said" and one of the sayers is a cop, that gives their testimony additional weight. It's just how it works.
And to reiterate Nuri's point - you have no fucking idea what evidence was given there, and no idea what discussions were had. What the media reports is often skewed. You have no basis for assessment because you were not party to the evidence, the charges, or the discussions. Period. Full stop.
Your forum full of lawyers knows that too. Or at least, they should. Prosecutors get butthurt when a jury doesn't indict their case, because the prosecutor is convinced of their case. We have the system we have precisely to prevent people from being bullied by the justice system.
From the leaks I have been able to read (of obvious dubious quality), the general argument is that all of the available forensic evidence follows or does at least not preclude the officer's version of events.
The eyewitnesses were (as expected) extremely unreliable and contradictory, both to the forensic evidence and to eachother.
But again, this is based on leaks and other people's summaries. I have not read anything official from the grand jury.
12 person grand jury? Do grand jury procedures differ from state to state? In NY, a grand jury is 23 people, and a simple majority is required for indictment.
Cameras would let us see what actions happened, but many crimes require deciphering intent. That's hard as balls, and it will likely always be that way. The problem we run into is that our criminal justice system relies on flawed human reasoning to decipher other potentially flawed human reasoning.
Cameras would be an improvement.
So would removing lethal force from the majority of officers.
From what I understand, the main crux on why the grand jury failed to indict is whether or not Mike Brown was running towards Wilson or in the process of surrendering. It would also be pretty cut and dry whether or not Mike Brown assaulted the officer. This is clearly something cameras would have shown.
It also hinges on how you interpret the information you're seeing. If I see a large man running towards me, how do I react? How do I interpret what he is intending as surrender? Body language is read differently by different people. That's part of the reason the eyewitness accounts all vary. All a camera would do is let different people see the same events - their interpretations will still vary.
It goes back to those fuzzy human reactions like "intent" that are part of many criminal charges.
Audio recording would be required, I think, as well as video recording. Get as much information as possible so we can figure out what would be a reasonable reaction.
Yes Andrew, a camera would have helped in this specific case, but not all or probably even the majority of cases will the camera make things as cut and dry.
Officer Wilson says he was punched twice by Mike Brown. I really don't think you need to auger the gods to divine intent from that.
Maybe Mike Brown felt threatened. Not that punching a cop is ever really a good idea, but if a situation created an irrational panicked state - well, it'd be a bit like a panicky cop discharging a firearm because he felt threatened. And then you might ask how reasonable it is to discharge a firearm in response to getting punched.
It would help, no doubt. You could build a more convincing case, but it will not reveal full intent. Believe me, I've sat in deliberations with what appeared to be clear intent, and perspectives from other people force you to consider alternative scenarios. Separating different scenarios by varying plausibility is the goal, and it's a lot harder than you think.
There does seem to be a fairly extraordinary amount of evidence for this indictment though. I didn't see what he was being charged with. I assume murder?
There does seem to be a fairly extraordinary amount of evidence for this indictment though. I didn't see what he was being charged with. I assume murder?
They were running the gamut from Murder 1 to negligent homicide to see if anything would stick.
Yes Andrew, a camera would have helped in this specific case, but not all or probably even the majority of cases will the camera make things as cut and dry.
Police cameras have a secondary effect of reducing complaints to police departments.
Maybe Mike Brown felt threatened. Not that punching a cop is ever really a good idea, but if a situation created an irrational panicked state - well, it'd be a bit like a panicky cop discharging a firearm because he felt threatened. And then you might ask how reasonable it is to discharge a firearm in response to getting punched.
Cameras will never be able to answer the question on why something happened, but they definitely will tell you what happened.
There does seem to be a fairly extraordinary amount of evidence for this indictment though. I didn't see what he was being charged with. I assume murder?
Charges ranged from first-degree murder to second-degree involuntary manslaughter.
I really hate reading through the commentary on these kinds of cases. Regardless of whether or not this specific case is in favor of Mike Brown or Darren Wilson, the anomisty between the black community and the police is a real thing and must be addressed. Making Mike Brown a martyr or Darren Wilson a hero falls into the same trap of talking about the individuals instead of institutions. That makes it easy for white America to just dismiss each individual case instead of seeing it as a systemic problem. Does the evidence seem to indicate that Mike Brown was in the wrong? Yes, but it doesn't invalidate the overall thesis of why the black community is angry.
Comments
In other news, Darren Wilson was not indicted, to nobody's huge surprise, because it doesn't count when a white person kills a black person in America. I'll just be over here flipping tables.
Seriously, did any of you hear the charges or the evidence that was presented to the Grand Jury? Because if you did, and you weren't ON the Grand Jury and sworn to secrecy, then I want to hear them.
That's the ONLY way to make an educated argument one way or the other, and most people who are bitching about this being "wrong" on the internet have NO CLUE what evidence was presented.
The Grand Jury doesn't decide whether the killing way right or wrong. They decide ONLY whether the evidence presented could satisfy the charges presented. If not, they do NOT indict.
Fucking learn how our legal system works before you guys go off yelling about how this is supreme injustice and the jurors should all be shot. I can't even deal with all the Sudden Legal Experts on social media right now.
On another forum I'm on, it's pretty densely packed with lawyers (Like, the place is actually run by lawyers and the rules have articles and sub-articles and I serve on a goddamn judicial review panel for moderator action), and the Actual Lawyers there are of the opinion that this is a sick fucking joke.
The running gag is "You can indict a ham sandwich." because the burden of proof needed to get someone to trial is way less than what you need to actually convict them of anything, so almost every case goes through. A Grand Jury is basically just a quick check to ensure that charges make any kind of sense at all and basically serves to deter the use of a trial itself as extralegal punishment. Stuff like "Are you charging this guy with a crime you have no evidence was even committed." or whatever. There's a body and nobody is disputing that Darren Wilson fired, so for anyone not wearing a uniform, there ought to be enough to take this shit to trial where a proper accounting can be made of stuff like self-defense, appropriate use of force, etc.
But there's not even that. Your legal/policing culture is so fucked they can't bring a guy to trial for shooting a man in the street, just because the guy has a certain hat. Not convict him, not punish him, just get him to trial.
That's what is happening here.
I can also find forums full of doctors who tell pregnant women to drink raw milk. Does that suddenly give the idea merit? This is the problem with the appeal to authority. Since we're also going to stand on tenuous expertise, I've served on a grand jury. No, "you can indict a ham sandwich" is not the way it works. Yes, the burden of proof is less, but you also get to see prosecutors trying to throw every possible charge at a suspect. I've heard murder cases, and very often the evidence brought to the trial is very very thin. You are voting to take people to trial, in most cases, based solely on unreliable eyewitness testimony from a handful of people. It's incredibly rare that they have hard evidence to present, and so it comes down to a jury deciding whether or not they've got enough to go on.
You don't have prints, weapons, DNA, or any other type of evidence in most cases. None. Many of those things come later, because gathering and curating that evidence takes time. They want to know that they will be able to get to a criminal trial before investing resources in building a more substantial case.
And then you add in the job of a uniformed police officer. Maybe you can "indict a ham sandwich," but indictments of police officers are incredibly rare - precisely because of the nature of their job and the nature of the evidence presented at a grand jury case. If it's "he said she said" and one of the sayers is a cop, that gives their testimony additional weight. It's just how it works.
And to reiterate Nuri's point - you have no fucking idea what evidence was given there, and no idea what discussions were had. What the media reports is often skewed. You have no basis for assessment because you were not party to the evidence, the charges, or the discussions. Period. Full stop.
Your forum full of lawyers knows that too. Or at least, they should. Prosecutors get butthurt when a jury doesn't indict their case, because the prosecutor is convinced of their case. We have the system we have precisely to prevent people from being bullied by the justice system.
The eyewitnesses were (as expected) extremely unreliable and contradictory, both to the forensic evidence and to eachother.
But again, this is based on leaks and other people's summaries. I have not read anything official from the grand jury.
Which is not to say that they won't break that to tell a story.
And then you'd have to question the motivations of someone breaking a sensationalist story centered around a high-profile and controversial case.
People suck at honest objective assessment. It's just not a thing we do.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/25/366507379/ferguson-docs-how-the-grand-jury-reached-a-decision
However, if we had proper police camera laws, we would know.
Cameras would be an improvement.
So would removing lethal force from the majority of officers.
It goes back to those fuzzy human reactions like "intent" that are part of many criminal charges.
Audio recording would be required, I think, as well as video recording. Get as much information as possible so we can figure out what would be a reasonable reaction.
Honestly, if I grab a police officer's gun, I fully expect that I will be shot to death if I do not shoot them first...
It would help, no doubt. You could build a more convincing case, but it will not reveal full intent. Believe me, I've sat in deliberations with what appeared to be clear intent, and perspectives from other people force you to consider alternative scenarios. Separating different scenarios by varying plausibility is the goal, and it's a lot harder than you think.
There does seem to be a fairly extraordinary amount of evidence for this indictment though. I didn't see what he was being charged with. I assume murder?
How "in the wrong" do you have to be until it's acceptable to be shot until dead? Answers in two parts:
A. If you are black.
B. If you are white.