Well yeah, all of them who said that he put his hands up to surrender lied, but there's nothing you can do about it.
Fair enough, it still stands that those people were lying as well. It just adds to why eyewitness testimony is bogus quite often, that's why hard evidence should hold more weight.
The prosecutor knowingly put a witness on the stand who would commit perjury... I'm not surprised because he probably did the same with Wilson. Hard to expect the grand jury to indict when receiving fabricated information.
The grand jury isn't the place to judge who is lying and telling the truth anyway. The grand jury is just supposed to determine if there is enough evidence for a trial so that all of the evidence and witnesses can be evaluated by a jury. Wilson would have been exonerated in a trial, given the forensics, which makes the process the prosecutor engaged in for the grand jury that much worse.
Read my post again... I said nothing about the grand just has to figure out who's lying. I said it's hard for them to indict with the witnesses the prosecutor put on the stand. Wilson has a shady story, witness 40 has a shady story, shady forensics, and a shady prosecutor... Of course he would have been exonerated because Wilson's attorney and the prosecutor would pretty much be working hand and hand.
The sad thing is that this "eyewitness account" that was touted to be the truth of what 'really' happened fueled a lot of peoples' rage that swayed opinions and arguments that ultimately lead to unrest and possibly violence because they believed they were standing up against unjustice. Even sadder thing is they probably don't give a damn that their protesting and rioting was all based on BS...nobody wants to admit that they did something really stupid like that without knowing all the facts...which is exactly what happened. They risked their lives and the lives that depend on them for a lie.
I don't see how this isn't grounds for misconduct for the prosecutor to present a witness who he knew had fabricated testimony. [rquoter]"Witness 40" submitted diary entries containing racist remarks that later appeared to have been fabricated after the fact. There is evidence the person lied about witnessing the shooting by piecing together information based on the officer's already-published account, according to a report by The Smoking Gun.[/rquoter] This isn't a case of a mistake in eyewitness testimony but clearly one where a witness was deliberating fabricating testimony to sway the case. If the prosecutor believed that witnesses weren't credible both for and against the defendant he shouldn't have included them. If the defense wants to introduce them in trial then they could've have and made them subject to Cross examination rather than just let them tell their stories to a jury.
Yes, the fault lies with the prosecutor, the evidence he put forth, and the instructions he gave to the grand jury.
I don't see why people are so wrapped up about there not being a trial despite the fact that most people acknowledge that the officer didn't do anything wrong and was defending himself. If you can't even get a grand jury to say that there should be a trial with a very low burden of proof requirement, why get so hung up on wanting the state to fit the bill for an obviously futile trial? What would that do other than waste money?
Provide people with the knowledge that the people policing their communities are held to the exact same standards of conduct as the ones they police.
Well we have proof that the officer was held to a higher standard already actually. If it was a civilian, there probably wouldn't have even been a grand jury case. They wouldn't have wasted their time at all. In an effort to appease a brain dead community, they went through the extra step of a grand jury.
No, he was held to a much lower standard, if the reports about the grand jury are accurate. The prosecutor actually had them review evidence in a way that the trial jury normally does. Bullsh!t. The coroner ruled it a "homicide," there were defensive wounds on Brown's extremities, and a man was shot dead in the street. Your assumption that a civilian wouldn't have had the case sent to a grand jury doesn't change the facts of the case and doesn't change the fact that the procedure used by the prosecutor was a dramatic departure from the normal workings of a grand jury. I don't believe Wilson would have been found guilty, there was plenty of evidence exonerating him. However, the place for that evidence to be presented is at trial, not at a grand jury hearing. It's like the PI penalty being picked up in the Cowboys game. It isn't that it clearly was or was not PI, the problem was the process used when they picked up the flag AFTER announcing the penalty.
But Rowdy, isn't that the whole point of the grand jury? If it's obvious there is enough evidence that the defendant will be not be found guilty, why go ahead and have a trial? The system is there to find people guilty or not...not to provide a person or group of peoples' peace of mind. If it was we'd have a hell of a lot more trials in this country then we all ready have.
No, the grand jury is there to determine whether there was enough evidence for a trial to take place. It seems, given the facts, that enough such evidence did exist. The place to evaluate the evidence and judge the believability of witnesses is at trial. The grand jury is not the right forum for a prosecutor to do some of the things that the prosecutor in this case is supposed to have done. We'll learn more about that process if the grand juror who sued to tell his story is actually afforded his first amendment rights.
