Pubdate: Sat, 14 Mar 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Jacob Sullum, Creators Syndicate.

INDEPENDENT PROSECUTORS SHOULD REVIEW POLICE ACTS

A Justice Department report released last week makes a strong case 
that Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson acted in 
self-defense when he shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 
teenager, last August. The report suggests that Robert McCulloch, the 
much-maligned St. Louis County prosecutor, made the right call when 
he decided not to pursue criminal charges against Wilson.

McCulloch nevertheless was the wrong person to make that call. His 
lack of credibility, as illustrated by the upside-down grand jury 
process that he orchestrated to clear Wilson, highlights the need for 
independent prosecutors to review police shootings.

Because they work closely with local police on a daily basis, local 
prosecutors have strong pragmatic and emotional reasons to exonerate 
cops who kill people in the line of duty. In McCulloch's case, that 
pro-cop bias was compounded by his personal background.

McCulloch's mother, father, brother, nephew and cousin all worked for 
the St. Louis Police Department. When he was 12, his father was 
killed while pursuing a kidnapping suspect.

Until he lost a leg to cancer as a teenager, McCulloch planned to 
follow in his father's footsteps. "I couldn't become a policeman," he 
told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "so being county prosecutor is the 
next best thing."

It was not surprising that McCulloch, who declined to recuse himself 
from the Wilson case, decided not to prosecute. But he did not want 
to take responsibility for that decision, so he said he would leave 
it to a grand jury.

Because it would have been unethical for McCulloch to prosecute a man 
he believed was innocent, it is unclear what he would have done if 
the grand jurors had approved criminal charges against Wilson. 
McCulloch's underlings made sure that did not happen, leading the 
jurors by the nose to a predetermined result.

Rather than making the case for criminal charges, as prosecutors 
typically do, McCulloch's assistants seemed intent on discouraging an 
indictment. The transcripts released after the grand jury's "no bill" 
decision last November show that prosecutors misstated the legality 
of shooting at a fleeing suspect, went easy on Wilson while grilling 
witnesses who undermined his case, and, in an effort to explain the 
aggression that Wilson said precipitated his use of deadly force, 
persistently and implausibly suggested marijuana had made Brown 
irrationally violent.

In a lawsuit seeking permission to discuss the case publicly, one of 
the grand jurors says the way prosecutors presented evidence - "with 
the insinuation that Brown, not Wilson, was the wrongdoer" - 
"differed markedly and in significant ways from how evidence was 
presented in the hundreds of matters presented to the grand jury 
earlier in its term." The juror also complains that "the presentation 
of the law ... was made in a muddled and untimely manner."

Not surprisingly, this process, conducted behind closed doors by 
prosecutors acting like defense attorneys, did not do much to 
reassure skeptics or placate McCulloch's critics. The voluminous 
transcripts provided fuel for both sides, and McCulloch's 
characterization of the evidence was easily dismissed as the 
selfserving rationalization of a cop-friendly prosecutor.

The DOJ report carries more weight, not just because it presents the 
evidence succinctly and logically, but also because the FBI and 
federal prosecutors are less cozy with local cops. The latter factor 
is important both in making sure prosecutorial decisions are 
untainted by personal bias and in persuading the public that they 
are. That's why the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing 
recently recommended "policies that mandate the use of external and 
independent prosecutors" in cases involving police shootings or 
deaths in custody.

McCulloch's energetic efforts to avoid an indictment of Wilson 
reinforced the impression that the justice system is rigged in favor 
of cops, who tend to get a much more sympathetic hearing when they 
kill people than ordinary citizens do. Making independent prosecutors 
the standard approach in such cases would not eliminate that problem, 
but it would help balance sympathy with appropriate skepticism.
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