Imagine you were on Officer Darren Wilson's grand jury; could you understand these instructions?

“Real quick, can I interrupt about something?” interjected (Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kathi) Alizadeh (addressing the members of the grand jury).  “Previously, in the very beginning of this process, I printed out a statute for you that was, the statute in Missouri for the use of force to affect an arrest.

“So if you all want to get those out. What we have discovered, and we have been going along with this, doing our research, is that the statute in the State of Missouri does not comply with the case law.

“....And so the statute for the use of force to affect an arrest in the state of Missouri does not comply with Missouri Supreme Court, I'm sorry United States Supreme Court cases....

“So the statute I gave you, if you want to fold that in half just so that you know don't necessarily rely on that because there is a portion of that that doesn't comply with the law.

“…I don't want you to get confused and don’t rely on that copy or that print-out of the statute that I've given you a long time ago.”

A grand juror asks, “So we’re to disregard this?”

Alizadeh answers: “It is not entirely incorrect or inaccurate, but there is something in it that’s not correct, ignore it totally.”

When a grand juror asks more questions,

(Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Sheila) Whirley chimes in, “We don’t want to get into a law class.”

WTF?!

This was how the two prosecutors, um, allegedly attempted to explain to the grand jury that a copy of a Missouri state law known as Section 563.046 is unconstitutional:

To understand the importance of the last minute clarification, one needs to understand the 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Tennessee vs. Garner.

A 15-year-old African-American youth in Memphis was shot and killed by a white officer as he fled a burglary.  The boy was unarmed and had taken a purse.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a civil case that police violate the 4th Amendment by using deadly force to stop an unarmed, non-dangerous fleeing felon. It is an unreasonable seizure.

But Missouri never changed its law to conform with Tennessee vs. Garner.

The Missouri law is Section 563.046 of Missouri’s revised statutes – titled “Law enforcement officer's use of force in making an arrest.”  It provides an officer with a justification defense protecting him from criminal prosecution.

The law states that an officer is justified in the use of deadly force if he or she “reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested (a) has committed or attempted to commit a felony; or (b) is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or (c) may otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay.”

The problem is section (a). Contrary to Tennessee vs. Garner, that section authorizes the use of deadly force to stop an unarmed, non-dangerous fleeing felon from escaping.

Even though legal experts agree that this subsection of the law has been at odds with the U.S. Constitution for almost three decades, the language is still in state law.  In fact, the new criminal code that takes effect in 2017 retains the language.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/grand-jury-wrangled-confusing-instructions

So again, based on the exchange above, would you have had any idea you were being informed that a portion of the state law that would allow police to kill fleeing purse snatchers had been ruled unconstitutional 30 years prior?

No, of course not.  But that is only incidental to the greater question of due process of law.  What is the prosecuting attorney doing acting as the defense lawyer, and putting on the defense's case?

The Anglo-American legal system depends upon an adversarial proceeding.  In other words, since philosophically none of us know what 'truth' is, we stage courtroom proceedings as adversarial.  We give the prosecutor a lawyer and we give the defense a lawyer, we give them a set of rules and they have a contest of sorts.  It's called a trial because it is a testing, in which there is "examining and deciding of the issues between parties in a court of law".  That is the process...or, in other words, due process of law.

Now, obviously each side is allowed time and resources to prepare his/her side of the case.  And that part is supposed to be confidential.  In a criminal proceeding, the client being "The People" a Grand Jury is convened to determine what 'the people' want to do.  If they want to bring a person to trial, they hand down a bill of indictment.

But the whole process is perverted if the lawyer is working with the other side, giving away all the secrets.   Prosecutor Bob McCulloch  allowed Wilson to testify for hours before the grand jury and presented them with every scrap of exculpatory evidence available. In his press conference, McCulloch said that the grand jury did not indict because eyewitness testimony that established Wilson was acting in self-defense was contradicted by other exculpatory evidence.  Utter bullshit, but it was the defense case...put on by the prosecutor!!!

The US Supreme Court prohibited this in a case titled, US .v Williams (1992):

US Supreme Court wrote:"It is the grand jury’s function not ‘to enquire … upon what foundation [the charge may be] denied,’ or otherwise to try the suspect’s defenses, but only to examine ‘upon what foundation [the charge] is made’ by the prosecutor. Respublica v. Shaffer, 1 Dall. 236 (O. T. Phila. 1788); see also F. Wharton, Criminal Pleading and Practice § 360, pp. 248-249 (8th ed. 1880). As a consequence, neither in this country nor in England has the suspect under investigation by the grand jury ever been thought to have a right to testify or to have exculpatory evidence presented."

Emphasis added.

The US Supreme Court is the highest law of the land.  Not even Southern states can deny that.  In this case Robert McCulloch is depending upon your ignorance to put this one over.  He's not denying the rights of the accused; he's denying your rights as a citizen.  He's hoping you won't know enough to realize it.

Any chance this grand jury debacle goes before a higher court on this issue?

Ben_Reilly wrote:Any chance this grand jury debacle goes before a higher court on this issue?

No, it's not an adversarial proceeding.  That's the very issue, ironically.

You go before a higher tribunal only to have a contest.  Since the prosecutor is the one who threw his own case, there's not even anyone with the motive to appeal.

This is a clear case of conflict of interest.  The Police and the Prosecutor are on the same side.  So...why is one pitted against the other?  They pulled the wool over the public's eyes.

McCulloch pulled off a tremendous public relations hoax.  He turned an pre-adversarial proceeding into a public hearing, and then touted the eminent fairness of it all by presenting both sides.  He perverted the process.

He congratulated himself for being 'fair and balanced', when the very premise of the system is that he should be an advocate.

You see how clever these people are?  They depend upon you, the public, not paying attention.  

It's like a magic act.  While you were looking over there, he switched the cards on you over here.