Month: December 2014

noirandcandypumpkins:

christel-thoughts:

otherbully1:

otherbully1:

cptainsteverogers replied to your post:DID YALL JUST SEE THE SHIT THAT I JUST SAW ON…

no what??????

Lawrence O’Donnell, an MSNBC dude, just revealed that the prosecutor’s secretary Assistant District Attorney gave the jury an outdated statute that states that police officers can shoot and kill a fleeing suspect simply because they are fleeing. But that was ruled by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in the 1970s 1985.  She gave them an updated copy. When the jurors asked her if Supreme Court rulings override state rulings (for which the obvious answer is yes), she told them “don’t worry about that” instead of saying yes. She told them that they could still use the outdated statute, but that something in it was wrong. She never told them what part of the statute was wrong. She just said “DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT”

SHE GAVE THEM AN OUTDATED STATUTE THAT SAYS A POLICE OFFICER CAN DO EXACTLY WHAT DARREN WILSON DID, AND INSTEAD OF TELLING THEM THAT THAT PART OF THE STATUTE WAS WHAT WAS INCORRECT, SHE TOLD THEM NOT TO WORRY ABOUT IT. 

HERE IS A LINK TO THE VIDEO!!

(corrections added by me, just for accuracy purposes)

Okay this is a very important thing.  The statute distributed to the Grand Jury is Missouri Revised Statutes § 563.046.  This statute CURRENTLY states that a police officer “need not retreat or desist from efforts to effect the arrest, or from efforts to prevent the escape from custody, of a person he reasonably believes to have committed an offense because of resistance or threatened resistance of the arrestee.”  The statute allows the use of such physical force as the officer “reasonably believes is immediately necessary to effect the arrest or to prevent the escape from custody.”

The statute specifically discusses the use of deadly force, which is authorized (1) when authorized by another statute, (2) when the officer “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 is attempting to commit a  felony, (b) is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or © may otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay.”

The statute also provides that “The use of any physical force in making an arrest is not justified under this section unless the arrest is lawful or the law enforcement officer reasonably believes the arrest is lawful.”  Finally, the statute states that it is the defendant police officer’s burden to prove this justification for use of force (meaning, it’s not the prosecution’s burden to show an officer didn’t act in a manner justified by this statute).

So that’s what the statute says NOW, that is what’s on the books TODAY, that’s what I’m looking at on the above link.  After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, (links to a wiki summary and to the Court’s opinion) this statute has to be interpreted a certain way—deadly force may only be used where an officer reasonably believes that a fleeing suspect is armed and dangerous.  Thus, the first part of the statute quoted above, allowing officers to use whatever level of force they reasonably believe is necessary to effect an arrest or stop a fleeing suspect, is unconstitutional.  The parts that allow the use of deadly force simply because an officer believes a suspect has committed a felony is also unconstitutional.  The Garner opinion discussed the importance on limitations to the use of deadly force by police, in light of the fact that when many justification of force statutes were written, most felonies were punishable by death and most police didn’t carry handguns.  Today, the Court found, when most crimes are NOT subject to the death penalty, and officers have access to far more immediately deadly weaponry, there needs to be much more of a basis for a claim by an officer that he acted reasonably in killing a fleeing suspect.  This is because, the Court said, killing someone is obviously the most intrusive deprivation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure that can occur.  So, such a killing needs to be justified by some pretty serious proof that the officer felt the suspect was armed and dangerous.  Also, the “reasonable belief” needs to be viewed objectively—it isn’t a matter of saying the officer truly believed something in his own mind, it’s a matter of saying that the average, reasonable person would have believed it under the totality of the circumstances.  (Please Note: The Court didn’t directly address the Missouri law—this was a case out of Tennessee.  However, the decision, since it is from the highest court in the land, is binding upon all State governments.)

Giving the Grand Jury an outdated copy of Mo. R. S. § 563.046 from before the Garner decision, and failing to explain to the jurors what the law CURRENTLY is in light of the Supreme Court’s decision, and, apparently, suggesting that a police officer can kill a fleeing suspect without proving any of the above quoted circumstances, was an egregious miscarriage of justice.  Grand jury members (and regular jury members at trial) are the vast majority of the time not familiar at all with the nuances of the statutes and case precedents they will be expected to apply to a case they are hearing.  They rely on the attorneys and the judge to craft “instructions” detailing the relevant laws and, most often, to give them a step-by-step guide to each element the prosecution needs to prove to establish an offense or the defense needs to prove to establish a justification.  EVEN IF every Grand Jury member here was, for sake of argument, unbiased and just trying to do their best, it sure as hell looks like even the prosecution was bent on providing inaccurate advice that would ultimately confuse the issues and lead to a refusal to indict here.