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)See my post below on why I think that. Trials serve a social purpose. If a defendant in a case that is as controversial as this is exonerated, that is good. If a prosecutor does not get a conviction but the facts are clearly not warranting a conviction, that is also a good thing in a case with this notoriety. It isn't just about winning or losing. It is about a public trial. At trial, the defendant is given the benefit of the doubt. The verdict of guilty must be beyond reasonable doubt.
But as we see from the comments on DU and from the prosecutor's admission that there is contradictory testimony, we do not have a guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And we do not have an exoneration. The case is in many people's minds in a kind of limbo. There is a lot of distrust. There is a lot of confusion and anger. A conviction would have been difficult to get, gut a decision by a jury after an adversarial trial would have been very valuable no matter the result.