Axulus
Veteran Member
I read somewhere that DA's get indictments over 95% of the time, so the chances were certainly greater. And the appearance of impartiality would have bolstered (depending on who the other DA was).
The fact that a number of people disagree is sufficient to warrant a trial IMO.I don't think an indictment is the right thing here. The evidence in this case (what I am aware of) is not strong enough to warrant a trial. I'm not saying there is some questionable judgment here in the shooting and some ambiguous witness testimony, but questionable judgment does not come anywhere near close to having anything like a reasonable shot at a conviction.
So?The evidence in the Zimmerman case, for example, was far stronger and even then I agree still wasn't strong enough for "beyond all reasonable doubt" for a conviction.
I grew up in the St.Louis metro area. I have family who still lives there. They thought Wilson would never be indicted before the grand jury was convened and before the facts come out. Between the screwed up response by the Ferguson police and the failure to get an indictment racial tensions are going to get worse before they have a chance to get better.
The real source of criticism about US justice system in cases like these should stem from the standard of evidence being too high to indict and convict. If the argument was an advocacy of justice reform to lower the standard of evidence needed for indictments or convictions and also pushing for more effective investigations with fewer mistakes, and a weakening of self defense laws, I could respect that as a reasonable point of view. I don't respect people claiming that the case was intentionally thrown by the DA (his heart obviously wasn't in it, so he does seem a bit unethical by not recursing himself, but all the available evidence seems to have been laid on the table) and that everything was due to racism. Do people really believe that the evidence was strong enough to warrant a trail despite all the physical evidence supporting the officer's story, with a handful of eyewitnesses also supporting it?
Do you think that it is reasonable to take a case to trial when none of the physical evidence contradicts the self defense claim? Shouldn't the same standards of evidence to put someone on trial be used for everyone, or should those standards be lowered only for certain cases in response to public outcry?