Ferguson Grand Jury No Bill Documents

[BGIF]

I opened a new thread to discuss the grand jury findings and not the demonstrations, burning, and the status of race relations. If you want to comment on those topics take it back to the Rioting thread. Let's see if we can comment on the grand jury findnings, evidence, procedures etc without the name calling and baiting.

Some documents (I don't know how many) have been released and examined by the networks. Here's the first article I found. It's by CNN. Add more as you find them.

 

[BGIF]

Darren Wilson's grand jury testimony released - CNN.com

Michael Brown shooting: What Darren Wilson told the Ferguson grand jury
By Rachel Clarke and Mariano Castillo, CNN
updated 1:45 AM EST, Tue November 25, 2014

 

[IrishinSyria]

Full transcript of the proceedings Hope people were in the mood for 4,000 pages of light reading.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Really good idea BGIF. Thanks for starting this thread. For those wanting to gain knowledge of the events through eye witness testimony, forensics, pics, etc., it is available at the link irishinsyria provided with the NYTimes.

Those that are really interested in understanding the events, I would highly recommend reading through as much as possible. For those wanting to fan the flames of controversy, don't bother clicking on the link.

For the record, I am saddened that most do not care about the truth in this case. I am even more saddened that a family lost their son, a police officer lost his career, and a community is burning. There are no winners in this... only losers. It is time for us to come together as a nation of brothers - not white, not black, not hispanic, not asian,not Christian, not muslim, etc - but as Americans and start to take honest looks at what is polarizing our great country. It starts with us as individuals called to a greater good.

 

[wizards8507]

Someone asked this last night and I gave my best guess, but do we know what the vote needed to be to indict? I assume a simple majority, but I'm not positive.

 

[Irish Insanity]

Someone asked this last night and I gave my best guess, but do we know what the vote needed to be to indict? I assume a simple majority, but I'm not positive.

I asked. I believe it was answered with 9.

 

[Whiskeyjack]

This thread was created to objectively discuss the grand jury findings. Feel free to cite to the transcript itself, or link to reputable news outlets, but tweets and other less reliable sources should be confined to the Riots thread.

 

[magogian]

And Michael Brown was 6'5" and 289 pounds. 2014 5143 Autopsy Report

Damn facts . . . .

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

Posted without commentary.

 

[pkt77242]

The thing I find troubling was the prosecutor's behavior during the grand jury. I have almost never heard of a prosecutor presenting some evidence that incriminates and some evidence that exonerates the accused.

McCulloch also took the unusual step of presenting both incriminating and exculpatory evidence, she said.

Grand jury call not the end for police officer

Link is from USA Today.

 

[NDohio]

Someone asked this last night and I gave my best guess, but do we know what the vote needed to be to indict? I assume a simple majority, but I'm not positive.

EDIT: Irish Insanity beat me to it.

 

[tussin]

Yes, it's 9/12 I believe

 

[wizards8507]

The thing I find troubling was the prosecutor's behavior during the grand jury. I have almost never heard of a prosecutor presenting some evidence that incriminates and some evidence that exonerates the accused.

That is interesting. The ordinary process of things is that the prosecutor absolutely believes the defendant to be guilty. The first hurdle is probable cause to make an arrest, the second hurdle convincing the grand jury to send it to trial, and the final hurdle proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's possible that the prosecutor never wanted this to go to trial because the belief in guilt was never there.

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

Don't know if this is applicable for this thread or not but it's background on the prosecutor.

 

[woolybug25]

Don't know if this is applicable for this thread or not but it's background on the prosecutor.

It's not. Did you even read BGIF's post?

I opened a new thread to discuss the grand jury findings and not the demonstrations, burning, and the status of race relations. If you want to comment on those topics take it back to the Rioting thread. Let's see if we can comment on the grand jury findnings, evidence, procedures etc with the name calling and baiting.

Please... for the love of God... stay in the other thread.

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

 

[Emcee77]

I thought this graphic from WaPo was really helpful as a sort of summary:

What happened in Ferguson - Washington Post

 

[pkt77242]

That is interesting. The ordinary process of things is that the prosecutor absolutely believes the defendant to be guilty. The first hurdle is probable cause to make an arrest, the second hurdle convincing the grand jury to send it to trial, and the final hurdle proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's possible that the prosecutor never wanted this to go to trial because the belief in guilt was never there.

I agree with that, but is that really his job? I am not a lawyer but it seems that his job as the prosecutor would be to present evidence that supports indictment not evidence that could be beneficial to the accused. His actions seemed out of the ordinary to me. I know that we have many lawyers on this board maybe one or more can shed some light on if it is normal for a prosecutor to do this during a grand jury?

 

[wizards8507]

I agree with that, but is that really his job? I am not a lawyer but it seems that his job as the prosecutor would be to present evidence that supports indictment not evidence that could be beneficial to the accused. His actions seemed out of the ordinary to me. I know that we have many lawyers on this board maybe one or more can shed some light on if it is normal for a prosecutor to do this during a grand jury?

I think "normal" would be: don't go to the grand jury in the first place if you believe the guy to be innocent. The theory there would be that the only reason it went to the grand jury is because of pressure from outside forces, but I don't want to get too deep into speculation.

 

[IrishinSyria]

-edit: Emcee's answer was better and came from more experience.

 

[Emcee77]

I agree with that, but is that really his job? I am not a lawyer but it seems that his job as the prosecutor would be to present evidence that supports indictment not evidence that could be beneficial to the accused. His actions seemed out of the ordinary to me. I know that we have many lawyers on this board maybe one or more can shed some light on if it is normal for a prosecutor to do this during a grand jury?

It is not normal in my experience. The Supreme Court has specifically held that the prosecutor has no duty to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. But that doesn't mean he can't, and I wouldn't say that it is outside the prosecutor's job duties to present evidence that might suggest that there was no crime. He can do that if he wants.

I am not licensed in Missouri and there may be some nuance to Missouri law that I don't know, but historically grand jury proceedings have not been thought of as adversarial. They are investigatory or inquisitorial. The grand jury's job is to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether there is evidence to charge a particular person with committing it, and the prosecutor is there simply to help the grand jury with that task, really as a sort of a legal adviser and facilitator. So theoretically there is no reason why the prosecutor can't present evidence that there was no crime.

Now, as a practical matter, prosecutors aren't generally going to do that; if they don't think there was a crime, why present the matter to the grand jury at all? This was a special case, of course; the matter had outraged the community and there were large, powerful societal forces at work, and there had to be an investigation.

 

[TheOneWhoKnocks]

My question doesnt fit either topic. Cant he just take his money, and family to Switzerland or whatever and avoid 1 being known really and 2 a civil lawsuit.

 

[GATTACA!]

I thought this graphic from WaPo was really helpful as a sort of summary:

What happened in Ferguson - Washington Post

That one lays it out nicely

 

[pkt77242]

It is not normal in my experience. The Supreme Court has specifically held that the prosecutor has no duty to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. But that doesn't mean he can't, and I wouldn't say that it is outside the prosecutor's job duties to present evidence that might suggest that there was no crime. He can do that if he wants.

I am not licensed in Missouri and there may be some nuance to Missouri law that I don't know, but historically grand jury proceedings have not been thought of as adversarial. They are investigatory or inquisitorial. The grand jury's job is to determine whether a crime has been committed and whether there is evidence to charge a particular person with committing it, and the prosecutor is there simply to help the grand jury with that task, really as a sort of a legal adviser and facilitator. So theoretically there is no reason why the prosecutor can't present evidence that there was no crime.

Now, as a practical matter, prosecutors aren't generally going to do that; if they don't think there was a crime, why present the matter to the grand jury at all? This was a special case, of course; the matter had outraged the community and there were large, powerful societal forces at work, and there had to be an investigation.

Thank you Emcee for clearing that up.

 

[Emcee77]

The general rule is that the grand jury serves as an advisory panel: theoretically, they could be unanimous in their vote to not indict and the prosecutor could still go ahead and press charges.

This also explains why the prosecutor presented both sides of the case. His goal is not to convict the suspect in front of the grand jury, but rather to get its feedback on whether or not a trial is worth having in the first place.

Despite it's awe-inspiring name, the grand jury is a lot less formal than a trial jury, and its decisions carry less theoretical weight.

I think that's right. In some states, all felony prosecutions have to be commenced by indictment, but in most states they can be commenced either by a grand jury indictment or by an "information", a written accusation that originates with the prosecutor alone. I believe Missouri is in the latter category.

 

[T Town Tommy]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgr...ce/assets/interviews/interview-witness-10.pdf

This particular eye witness account is exactly the same as Officer Wilson described the incident.

1. The encounter at the police car.
2. The shots fired in the police car.
3. Brown running away.
4. Wilson getting out of the car.
5. Brown turning around towards Wilson never raising his hands and ignoring Wilson's commands to get on the ground.
6. Brown charges towards Wilson.
7. Wilson firing his weapon at a distance of five to ten yards.
8. Brown stops running toward Wilson and Wilson stopped firing.
9. Brown then starts charging Wilson again and Wilson opens fire on Brown who then dropped to the ground.

The eye witness goes on to say that once the incident was over and everyone started showing up, he stated that all of a sudden people started saying the cop just killed the guy for no reason. He even went on to state that he obviously knew that wasn't true, felt uncomfortable because his eye witness account was not fitting the narrative of others, and went back to the place where he was working.

Pretty clear account with exceptional details.

 

[BeauBenken]

Deleted posts that seemed to veer off topic from the intent of the thread.

 

[pkt77242]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/newsgr...ce/assets/interviews/interview-witness-10.pdf

This particular eye witness account is exactly the same as Officer Wilson described the incident.

1. The encounter at the police car.
2. The shots fired in the police car.
3. Brown running away.
4. Wilson getting out of the car.
5. Brown turning around towards Wilson never raising his hands and ignoring Wilson's commands to get on the ground.
6. Brown charges towards Wilson.
7. Wilson firing his weapon at a distance of five to ten yards.
8. Brown stops running toward Wilson and Wilson stopped firing.
9. Brown then starts charging Wilson again and Wilson opens fire on Brown who then dropped to the ground.

The eye witness goes on to say that once the incident was over and everyone started showing up, he stated that all of a sudden people started saying the cop just killed the guy for no reason. He even went on to state that he obviously knew that wasn't true, felt uncomfortable because his eye witness account was not fitting the narrative of others, and went back to the place where he was working.

Pretty clear account with exceptional details.

I will say that from reading the eyewitness testimony (all of them not just his) that they are all over the place. Heck even Wilson's testimony doesn't fit all the facts as we know it. Emcee had a really good link earlier that showed in what steps there was discrepancies amongst the witnesses.

 

[T Town Tommy]

I will say that from reading the eyewitness testimony (all of them not just his) that they are all over the place. Heck even Wilson's testimony doesn't fit all the facts as we know it. Emcee had a really good link earlier that showed in what steps there was discrepancies amongst the witnesses.

Agree. But that's always the case with eye witnesses. I just thought this particular witness' testimony was actually closer to Wilson's than most.

 

[BGIF]

Ferguson decision: What witnesses told the grand jury - CNN.com

By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN
updated 2:09 AM EST, Wed November 26, 2014

The panel of nine white and three black members heard 70 hours of testimony from 60 witnesses and three medical examiners before declining to indict Wilson Monday in Brown's death. Their decision touched off riots and looting in the streets of Ferguson and St. Louis, and protests nationwide.
After the decision was announced, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office released transcripts of the proceedings, offering a rare glimpse into the closed-door hearing. It may have been a gesture of transparency, but the conflicting witness accounts, redacted police statements and contradictory autopsies only seemed to leave a murkier picture of what happened.

"My concern is that everybody is saying 'hurry up, hurry up, hurry up,' from what I'm hearing. Hurry up, make a decision, hurry up and get this done, hurry up and get that done," one juror said on September 30.

"I think everybody needs to ratchet it down a little bit and let us do what we can do. I have faith and trust in everybody in here, to make the decision that's appropriate. I'm not saying it is the right decision, I'm not saying it is the wrong decision, but make the decision that's appropriate based on the facts. But is that being disseminated by these groups or whatever to the people there?"

"Do they not understand the process?" another juror said. "Is that the problem, or is there a way to bypass this because it seems to me that we're doing what needs to be done and we're doing what's right and people are not seeing that."