Police are rarely indicted for misconduct, Wilson decision illustrates

sigh….

Criminal prosecution of a police officer for killing someone in the line of duty, if no corruption is alleged, is extremely rare. Even when officers are convicted, the charges are often minimal.

True story.

Typically, prosecutors make a short presentation to the grand jury in which they call for specific charges to be considered and then put on their best show of the evidence to see if it passes muster. Indictments occur in more than 90 percent of cases, owing to the low threshold of probable cause and the one-sided nature of the proceedings. In Wilson’s case, however, the DA said he planned to provide the grand jury with all the evidence and allow them to decide, without any prompting, whether an indictment was justified and for what offense.

…First, this approach allowed him to absolve himself of any responsibility for the outcome. Second, it served to confuse and undermine the confidence of the grand jury. …By giving the jurors a wide variety of conflicting evidence and little framework in which to evaluate it, the DA is opening the door to a he said/he said dynamic in which they may err on the side of caution and avoid an indictment.

Nice to hear I’m not the only one this occurred to.