Bob McCulloch: Prosecutor or defense attorney for Darren Wilson?
There are plenty of questions swirling around St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch in the wake of the grand jury's decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson for killing unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. McCulloch's performance last night in announcing the decision prompted some great ones from Mark Sumner, but let's back up a few months to the basic decision by McCulloch in taking this to the grand jury, and how he presented the case there. As more information comes out, it looks more and more like the very unusual process McCulloch kicked off was intended to get the result he wanted—no indictment.
Let's start with McCulloch's refusal to step aside in this case. The people in and around Ferguson gave a vote of no confidence, in effect, to McCulloch when 70,000 of them signed a petition demanding that he recuse himself. McCulloch's history is problematic, at best, and his alignment with the cops unquestioned. His father was a cop, who was killed in the line of duty by an African-American person. When the county police clearly were overreacting in handling the protests immediately following the killing, and Gov. Jay Nixon called in the state highway patrol to try to calm the situation down, McCulloch loudly and publicly criticized him for "denigrat[ing] the men and women of the county police." McCulloch's bias going into this grand jury proceeding was unquestioned, certainly in the community, and his refusal to step aside guaranteed that there would be a high level of distrust in the proceedings.
As for the proceedings, they were highly unusual and in the view of at least these two legal experts, deeply flawed. The lawyers, St. Louis University law professor Susan McGraugh and Jerryl T. Christmas, a defense attorney and former prosecutor in St. Louis lay out their problems in interviews with Phillip Johnson, a "filmmaker, writer [and] community engager." First and foremost, McCulloch's decision to present every bit of evidence he had—with no culling and no presentation—to the grand jury was a strong signal he was trying to avoid a prosecution. A prosecutor normally gives the grand jury only the evidence necessary to establish probable cause. Then McCulloch allowed Wilson four full hours to present his testimony, an opportunity McGraugh says is never allowed her criminal suspects. In summary:
In October, the Washington Post reported a number of leaks in the case, nearly all in support of Wilson's story. The leaks seemed like such a transparent attempt to influence public opinion that the Justice Department said, "There seems to be an inappropriate effort to influence public opinion about this case." The DOJ itself has also had leaks indicating that Wilson would not face civil rights charges.
Then there's Wilson's testimony. Missouri law gives deference to police when they say that they were in fear for their lives in a police-involved killing. Wilson had four hours to present his case—his unbelievable and hyperbolic case—that the unarmed teenager turned into some sort of monster before his very eyes. Four hours.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/25/1347403/-Bob-McCulloch-Prosecutor-or-defense-attorney-for-Darren-Wilson?detail=twitter
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