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Eugene

(61,595 posts)
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 02:00 PM Aug 2015

North Carolina policeman won't face retrial in fatal shooting of black man

Source: Reuters

North Carolina prosecutors said on Friday they have decided against seeking a retrial for Randall Kerrick, a white police officer whose manslaughter trial in the killing of an unarmed black man ended in a hung jury last week.

The North Carolina Attorney General’s office said it would move to dismiss the case after a jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict, with eight of the 12 panelists favored acquittal.

“In consideration of the jurors' comments, the evidence available to the state, and our background in criminal trials, it is our prosecutors' unanimous belief a retrial will not yield a different result,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Robert Montgomery wrote to District Attorney Andrew Murray.

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Kerrick, 29, shot and killed 24-year-old Jonathan Ferrell in the early morning hours of Sept. 14, 2013. Ferrell, a former college football player, had wrecked his car and sought help from a nearby home, but the woman who lived there feared a home invasion and called 911.

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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/28/us-usa-police-north-carolina-idUSKCN0QX25020150828



US | Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:36pm EDT
CHARLOTTE, N.C. | BY GREG LACOUR
13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
North Carolina policeman won't face retrial in fatal shooting of black man (Original Post) Eugene Aug 2015 OP
Ahhhh.... Charlotte! AlbertCat Aug 2015 #1
And what Nirvana do you hail from? nt B2G Aug 2015 #4
And what Nirvana do you hail from? AlbertCat Aug 2015 #5
Been there many times B2G Aug 2015 #7
Criticism of A does not imply praise of B. LanternWaste Aug 2015 #6
You can damned well believe that if the situation was reversed Kelvin Mace Aug 2015 #2
This ^. surrealAmerican Aug 2015 #11
we don't even need to know the facts....we just know Supersedeas Aug 2015 #13
No words.... GitRDun Aug 2015 #3
Also creates a climate where people won't trust christx30 Aug 2015 #10
Do you have any additional evidence? Igel Aug 2015 #12
Karma Randall Karma Dont call me Shirley Aug 2015 #8
No justice. Rose Siding Aug 2015 #9
 

AlbertCat

(17,505 posts)
5. And what Nirvana do you hail from?
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 03:32 PM
Aug 2015

One less troubled by TV evangelists and dueling bankers....

but certainly has its problems.... Greensboro.


I live on the coast now, on Topsail Is.

Come on down for a weekend at the beach!

 

Kelvin Mace

(17,469 posts)
2. You can damned well believe that if the situation was reversed
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 02:18 PM
Aug 2015

and a black man was accused of shooting a cop, he would re-tried until they got a guilty verdict.

surrealAmerican

(11,340 posts)
11. This ^.
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 07:49 PM
Aug 2015

We have two different standards of justice here. Wasn't our constitution supposed to keep that from happening?

GitRDun

(1,846 posts)
3. No words....
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 02:19 PM
Aug 2015

These kinds of verdicts are exactly what creates a climate where some police feel very comfortable shooting first and asking questions later.

We have lost our right to be upset when a BLM group blocks a road we're driving on, takes a mic at a political rally...there is no moral high ground for us.

I see these articles and I'm enraged...yet my anger is just a drop of water behind the Hoover dam full of racist acts committed against POC in this country in the name of "the law".

christx30

(6,241 posts)
10. Also creates a climate where people won't trust
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 06:58 PM
Aug 2015

the police. It furthers the divide between the cops and the people they protect. The DAs need to stop protecting the police. They need to do their jobs and get the bad cops out of there.
And the good cops need to stop protecting the bad ones.

Igel

(35,197 posts)
12. Do you have any additional evidence?
Fri Aug 28, 2015, 09:01 PM
Aug 2015

Or maybe the DA should stack the jury to try to get the verdict that the public wants?

8-4 deadlock in favor of acquittal. If the DA thinks he did the best he (or his proxy) could, if there's no additional evidence, then it's unethical to continue to prosecute. It punishes a person who's presumed innocent with state resources, which usually are greater than the individual's; it wastes state executive resources (which are still limited) with a prosecution conducted to placate those who don't or won't presume innocence when there are others to prosecute and convict or exculpate. And it helps to clog an already clogged judiciary with what would be a pre-failed case, with the effect of denying somebody else a right to a "speedy trial." (Which is already a joke in the US system in most places.)

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