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]JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)assistant prosecutor made. She did not shepardize the case law she presented to the grand jury. The law she presented to the grand jury considering the authority of a police officer to shoot a suspect that was running away had been overruled by the US Supreme Court. Some ways into the trial, apparently, the assistant prosecutor advised the jury to fold the paper with the overruled law on it and forget it. She handed out a new version of the law. But really, that grand jury should have been dismissed at that moment.
Shepardizing case law is Law School 101. If a judge or an opposing attorney had been there, that jury might even have been dismissed but most likely the correction would have been made more effectively. Besides, in the period before the trial, the attorneys submit proposed jury instructions to the judge and the attorneys and the judge argue and discuss and decide what the actual instructions will be. Unfortunately, the authority that Wilson had to continue shooting at Brown when Brown was fleeing might have been an important issue in the case.
So McCulloch and his staff made a huge error in their presentation of their case.
You really should watch the Lawrence O'Donnell program on that.
That's not saying that Wilson would have been convicted in a trial. But the grand jury should maybe have been dismissed. And I think a trial would have been important for Wilson and everyone else in this case.