General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I think Wilson is a bad cop, quite possibly a racist, but I also think this was an unwinnable case. [View all]unblock
(52,216 posts)this sort of thing to be the norm for grand jury proceedings. why wouldn't a prosecutor handle *every* case like that?
most grand jury proceedings are completely one-sided. the prosecutor presents their base, there is no defense, and the job of the grand jury is to determine if there's enough there to go to trial, to force the accused to mount a defense. the whole idea of the grand jury/indictment process is to determine if the accused should even be bothered to with a trial.
the grand jury is not, and was never intended to be, a mini-trial in an effort to see if a real trial would be winnable. it's only to determine if the prosecution has a case that could win *in the absence of any defense*.
the normal procedure, if the prosecution thinks the case is not winnable, is simply not to even bother the grand jury with it.
far, far more likely is that the prosecutor didn't want to alienate the police. remember, prosecutors and the police are natural allies. a prosecutor very much needs active support from the police on a daily basis in order to accomplish just about anything. it's not at all surprising that a prosecutor would protect the police. that's an institutional problem and completely explains how he could be "cop-loving" yet "weirdly" a democrat.