There has always been something extremely fishy about the shooting death of Michael Brown (18) in Ferguson, Mo., by police officer Darren Wilson (28) and what happened in the aftermath. I noticed there was little mention that Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, is tucked neatly in the South with many of its prides and prejudices.
Of course unless members of the press have lived in the very red state, they might miss this important point. Gov. Jay Nixon (D) heads a heavily Republican state government. Maybe he was playing to this audience when he refused to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the grand jury. Maybe.
The whole Ferguson experience was a debacle. But fortunately one of those grand jury members is courageous enough to demand justice by suing.
So what does this case look like? The AP says:
“The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of the unnamed juror, who wants to be allowed to talk publicly about the case but could face charges for doing so because of a lifetime gag order.
The juror also says he or she came away with the impression that evidence was presented differently than in other cases, with the insinuation that Brown, not Officer Darren Wilson, was the wrongdoer. No grand jurors have spoken publicly about the case.
“In Plaintiff’s view, the current information available about the grand jurors’ views is not entirely accurate ? especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges,” the lawsuit says.
Governor Nixon was supposed to be a name to balance out a presidential ticket if not to run for president. Yet he handled the entire Ferguson incident poorly. Nixon had a perfect opportunity to show leadership in Ferguson. He blew it.
The governor was indecisive. He was slow to employ the National Guard. He didn’t go to the center of Ferguson. Even Nixon’s speech was hesitant on camera. Local wisdom chalked this up to his regular pattern of speech. But I didn’t hear any hesitancy in his election night address two years ago.
Why didn’t Nixon appoint a special prosecutor? The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, Bob McCulloch, was hardly objective. After all his own father, a police officer, was killed in the line of duty. And McCullough appears to have fully absorbed the local southern bias. Officer Wilson wasn’t even arrested.
The grand jury was three months of farce and ineptitude. But it was not the grand jury’s fault. No the fault lies with the prosecutor.
McCullough’s office totally bungled the case. It buried the jury in all of the legal information and left them to decipher it.?They brought in 60 witnesses, and at least one lied according to McCullough.
At the beginning of the case, McCullough’s people gave the jury the wrong law. That law was supposed to be the foundation of the case against Wilson. Then at the last moment McCullough’s people handed the jury the right law without explaining the legal implications.
McCullough could have recused himself. The presiding judge could have appointed a special prosecutor or done so if the community asked her. It just doesn’t add up.
But now one of those jurors is suing, because the prosecutor wrongly implied all 12 of the jurors found that there was no evidence to support charges. The trial is hardly secret any longer. McCullough released reams of grand jury documents.
And I can’t wait for court to begin.
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