<p>“NOW can we all agree that this is why we need jury trials in cases like this??”</p>
<p>No, a jury trial is not always appropriate. I don’t think it is always (or even often) appropriate for a police officer to have a trial by jury when he or she shoots someone in the line of duty.</p>
<p>However, I do agree with the idea of independent, special prosecutors.</p>
<p>Sally, it just blows my mind that the prosecutor would put a person on the witness stand whose testimony he knew was a bald faced lie. </p>
<p>Not only that, but witness 40’s testimony had a big impact on the public’s view since so many supporters of Wilson cited her testimony time after time after time. And it turns out this “witness” wasn’t even there. </p>
<p>IANAL, but it seems tantamount to malpractice for a prosecutor to put testimony before a grand jury when the prosecutor knows in advance the witness is lying. It equated her testimony with the testimony of actual witnesses. </p>
<p>I just said the same to my H re prosecutorial misconduct. </p>
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<p>busdriver, I said “in cases like this.” Not “always.” And by “cases like this” I mean those in which there is not sufficient evidence and credible witness testimony to rule out probable cause to seek an indictment. This case CLEARLY falls into that category.</p>
<p>As an aside, I blame the media in many ways for the way this whole thing unfolded. I recall a few days after the shooting the local media in St. Louis published an interview with an unnamed “friend” of Darren Wilson in which she basically told his story for him. You can be sure people like Witness #40 and others with similar views made up their minds about what happened there and then–because it fit with the narrative they wanted to believe in.</p>
<p>Question for you–in this particular case, do you think a special prosecutor should now be called?</p>
<p>Lying under oath is a punishable offense, last I heard. If the state intends to send a message about this kind of shenanigan, I expect there’ll be more than just witness40 looking at jail time.</p>
<p>Seriously, there must be a pony here somewhere. McCulloch didn’t direct the grand jury to an indictment, witnesses lied, Brown just looks big in pictures, whatever.</p>
<p>It bothers me that the prosecutor says that he has no regrets about presenting a “witnesses” who could have easily been vetted out as not credible from the start. Yes, even actual witnesses will have differing accounts but to put on that stand a random person who really had no standing is just wrong. </p>
<p>So, basically, from now on–whenever any of us hear about a potential crime that upsets us, we should just show up at police HQ, say we were there, tell a half-baked story that supports our “side” and make sure we’re free to testify when the grand jury convenes.</p>
<p>Once he began vetting, wouldn’t McCullough would have had to vet/scrub the entire pool of witnesses? (I’m guessing he’d have been hammered if he’d rejected any scrubbee who came forth later with a beneficial account, but maybe I’m just not looking at it from the right angle.)</p>
<p>Besides, until it comes out that he withheld all evidence from the grand jury that #40 lied, I can’t see why they couldn’t have arrived at that conclusion themselves.</p>
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I’m guessing if anything influenced the grand jury, it wasn’t how the segment of the public that declined to riot felt about the merits of the case. </p>
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<p>No, he would not have had to scrub the entire pool of witnesses. He might have, for instance, scrubbed only the ones who weren’t even in Ferguson on the day of the shooting. Just a thought. </p>
<p>And yes, you are not looking at this from the right angle. You continue to think everyone wants biased testimony and rigged outcomes. Not everyone works from that agenda. Many of us would just like the process to be fair. </p>
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<p>“Until it comes out”? It’s come out already, clearly, in his own words. Just listen to his interview. He said he knew in advance she wasn’t there and decided to put her in as a witness anyway. </p>
<p>This again. So, the hands up/shot in the back lying witnesses were all over television for weeks and they were lying which was rather apparent immediately when they all told the exact same story since that doesn’t happen typically if ever. And the forensics proved that they were at best astonishingly coincidentally all mistaken so basically all of the so-called eye-witness testimony was supported or not supported by the physical evidence. Also, the least credible witnesses by far were his cohort in the crime and the guy who said he was executed while on his knees. They also testified. Is this really still a debate? </p>
<p>Guess I was unclear, hayden.</p>
<p>If McCullough’s expected to predetermine the trustworthiness of witnesses beforehand, why would we expect him to stop w/ #40? Why wouldn’t he chuck all that he concluded to be lying? And why wouldn’t he expect to shot in the back by a liar that he rejected but then went on to find a sympathetic news outlet well after the fact? There seems to a cottage industry that sprang up to push false narratives, so I doubt they’d find it hard to get a megaphone.</p>
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And if he withheld from the grand jury the evidence he concluded that from, I’ll pile on him right along with you.</p>
<p>Special prosecutors in response to public pressure sounds like a great idea:
And how much perjury, from witnesses and the media both, did it take to gin that one up?</p>
<p>Yes, this is still a debate, marie. A young man is dead and the proceedings that followed his shooting have been tainted all the way through. Why anyone would have faith in the system working this case is incomprehensible.</p>
<p>I hope Bob McCulloch is charged with misconduct, at the very least.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct.html”>http://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_8_4_misconduct.html</a></p>
<p>Not a chance. There are, always have been, and always will be controversial cases but this one is not among them.</p>
<p>So says the expert. OK, then!</p>
<p>“If McCullough’s expected to predetermine the trustworthiness of witnesses beforehand, why would we expect him to stop w/ #40? Why wouldn’t he chuck all that he concluded to be lying? And why wouldn’t he expect to shot in the back by a liar that he rejected but then went on to find a sympathetic news outlet well after the fact? There seems to a cottage industry that sprang up to push false narratives, so I doubt they’d find it hard to get a megaphone.”</p>
<p>First, I haven’t seen any evidence that other witnesses, besides #40 were lying and that the prosecutor knew was lying. Just because witnesses don’t agree about what they saw is not evidence one is lying. But he knew for a fact #40 was lying and wasnt even at the scene before he put her on the witness stand. He admitted it in his interview. </p>
<p>That you can defend his action is mind boggling. </p>
<p>I am not sure what you are attempting to say in your third sentence and I have read it several times but if i am deciphering it correctly - I don’t see why any prosecutor should be worrying about what a proven liar says in the press. </p>
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<p>The most damaging “false narrative” was orchestrated by Wilson, his allies, and the media starting shortly after the shooting. First we had his anonymous friend “Josie” calling in to a right-wing talk show with the officer’s version of the story. It is truly astonishing that ANY news source would give credence to such a third-party account. But the mainstream media picked up the story, and support started growing for Wilson despite no one at the time knowing all the facts. Then of course we had the completely botched and biased grand jury proceedings, led by a prosecutor who KNOWINGLY put a witness bearing the “false narrative” on the stand.</p>
<p>And yet people like catahoula think the false narrative is coming from Brown’s supporters, and people like marie have faith that justice was served in this case. Mind-boggling, indeed.</p>
<p>Dorian Johnson spun so much bs, it’s not worth trying to pick out a few representative pieces.
<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/02/why-michael-browns-best-friends-story-is-incredible/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/02/why-michael-browns-best-friends-story-is-incredible/</a>
No… at least one, since you believe there’s a complete lack of evidence that anyone other than 40 is an obvious liar:
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<p>The physical evidence of a +20’ blood trail leaves you to conclude… what, that he’s simply mistaken? Myself, I guess I could go as far as him being a delusional liar, given that he told so many conflicting accounts to so many people. (The 'hands up, don’t shoot" one was the best but he seems to have discarded it as the interviews went by.)</p>
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Yep, you got it. That we don’t see it the same is neither surprising or a problem.</p>
<p>“The most damaging “false narrative” was orchestrated by Wilson, his allies, and the media starting shortly after the shooting. First we had his anonymous friend “Josie” calling in to a right-wing talk show with the officer’s version of the story. It is truly astonishing that ANY news source would give credence to such a third-party account. his is not what happened.” </p>
<p>The level of misinformed in this one sentence is what’s mind-boggling here. First, the “false narrative” which is a phrase I’m really beginning to dislike was the one where a nice black teenager about to begin college and innocently walking to grandma’s house for lunch was randomly grabbed by a mean racist cop who tried to pull him through his car window for no reason and then shot him in the back a few times as he was running away.The media ran with that before Wilson’s friend decided it was time to get the other side of the story into the public realm. And, that story didn’t become a big story until a group of people whose job it is to rewrite these things and publicize them latched onto it.So yeah. </p>
<p>?Myself, I guess I could go as far as him being a delusional liar, given that he told so many conflicting accounts to so many people. (The 'hands up, don’t shoot" one was the best but he seems to have discarded it as the interviews went by.)"</p>
<p>Was Dorian Johnson a witness to the shooting? </p>
<p>Also, to the contrary, his statements to the FBI, county authorities an his grand jury testimony were quite consistent. Interestingly, Johnson’s statement to the FBI was only just released last Friday because…wait for it…the prosecutor “inadvertently” omitted it. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/14/justice/ferguson-dorian-johnson-statements/”>Dorian Johnson consistent in accounts of Brown shooting - CNN;