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It’s Incredibly Rare For A Grand Jury To Do What Ferguson’s Just Did

Source: FiveThirtyEight.com

9:30 PM Nov 24 By Ben Casselman

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A St. Louis County grand jury on Monday decided not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police Officer Darren Wilson in the August killing of teenager Michael Brown. The decision wasn’t a surprise — leaks from the grand jury had led most observers to conclude an indictment was unlikely — but it was unusual. Grand juries nearly always decide to indict.

Or at least, they nearly always do so in cases that don’t involve police officers.

Former New York state Chief Judge Sol Wachtler famously remarked that a prosecutor could persuade a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” The data suggests he was barely exaggerating: According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.

Wilson’s case was heard in state court, not federal, so the numbers aren’t directly comparable. Unlike in federal court, most states, including Missouri, allow prosecutors to bring charges via a preliminary hearing in front of a judge instead of through a grand jury indictment. That means many routine cases never go before a grand jury. Still, legal experts agree that, at any level, it is extremely rare for prosecutors to fail to win an indictment.

“If the prosecutor wants an indictment and doesn’t get one, something has gone horribly wrong,” said Andrew D. Leipold, a University of Illinois law professor who has written critically about grand juries. “It just doesn’t happen.”



Read more: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/ferguson-michael-brown-indictment-darren-wilson/

the whole world is watching

Here in Snoqualmie, I can easily pick up signals from the CBC and CTV stations in Vancouver, BC. I've also been watching BBC on satellite, as well as Al Jazeera English and the Australian Brouadcasting Corporation.

They're shitting all over us, and they're a hundred percent right in doing so.

NOTE: The picture below was not a photo of Ferguson last night. I googled "upside-down US flag on fire" to communicate my rage, and this is the closest to that I could find. My sincere apologies to those to got the wrong idea: I should have been more clear.

And what a MARVELOUS choice of the time to announce the Ferguson Grand Jury decision!

Were they hoping for a violent reaction?

Susan Rice for Defense Secretary

Ironically, this would not have been possible if the GOP hadn't made total fucking fools of themselves over the Benghazi bullshit. Dr. Rice, thanks to Darrell Issa, now has experience on military as well as diplomatic affairs. And election win or no election win, Republicans will approve her appointment, because all she has to say is the B-word to shut 'em the fuck up!

On eve of Iran deal, Netanyahu says Israel reserves right to defend itself

Source: Jerusalem Post

On the eve of Monday's deadline for an accord between the world powers and Iran over Teheran's nuclear program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reiterated that Israel would always reserve the right to defend itself, by itself.

Israel, he said in an interview on ABC's This Week, “will always reserve the right to defend itself against any threat with its own power.”

Netanyahu defined as a “bad deal” any agreement “that would allow Iran to remain with thousands of centrifuges which it could use to enrich uranium, which you need for a nuclear bomb, in a short period of time.”

Netanyahu said the “key principle” is to not dismantle sanctions before Iran's capacity to make a nuclear bomb is dismantled.


Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/On-eve-of-Iran-deal-Netanyahu-says-Israel-reserves-right-to-defend-itself-382616