Darren Wilson wasn't indicted in the shooting of Mike Brown, a 17 year old unarmed black teenager. Unless you literally live under you rock you've seen the public outrage over the decision, be it the riots in Ferguson, or public rants on social media. Before anybody tries to justify the ruling by the grand jury in the case I want explain the legal aspect of it. Once you understand you simply cannot justify not indicting Officer Wilson.
An indictment is not a trial, an indictment is formally charging someone with a crime. It's a standard procedure before every criminal trial to make sure that the court system doesn't waste its time with a case that doesn't have any backing. How does the jury make this determination? They weigh the evidence presented against a standard of proof.
In a criminal trial, the standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt." It is by far the most difficult standard of proof to meet. Basically, if after hearing all the testimony and evidence, a reasonable person would doubt that the defendant committed the crime then the defendant should be exonerated. A more lax standard is the "preponderance of the evidence." This is used in civil trials and means that the evidence must be more likely than not, a far cry from beyond a reasonable doubt. To put it another way if 51% of the evidence says you're guilty, then you're guilty. Now ladies and gentlemen there is an even lower standard of proof that I'm sure you've heard before: probable cause.
Probable cause is one of the lowest standards of proof, second only to reasonable suspicion. All you need is a reasonable basis to believe a crime MAY have been committed. So to give you an idea, an empty beer can in the passenger seat of a car, is probable cause for an officer to search you on suspicions of a DUI. It is NOT enough to convict you of the crime, but enough to meet probable cause.
Can you guess which standard of proof is required to issue an indictment? Yup, it's probable cause. Now let's apply that to the Brown case. Let's look at the facts for a minute and see if we have probable cause, not to convict Wilson, but simply to see if we should bother finding out what happened that day.
Do these facts make you believe that maybe, just maybe, Mike Brown's killing wasn't justified self-defense? If so then we have met the burden of probable cause, Wilson should have been indicted and the trial should have moved forward. Ask any attorney how blatantly absurd it is for a person not be indicted after putting 6 bullets into a kid and you'll see why everybody is so outraged.
It would be one thing if Wilson wasn't convicted after a trial, then you could make the argument that the evidence wasn't there for a conviction under "beyond a reasonable doubt" but that didn't happen. He was let off scott-free without any effort to find out what happened, and that's the worst part of this. The system proves time and time again that black people's lives are worth less than a white person's. No supposed petty-crime deserves being executed without a trial, yet Darren Wilson is free, and a lot richer because he killed a young black boy.
I'm not even going to get into riot aspect of it except by saying all my Maryland readers should remember in 2002 when Maryland won the national championship how much destruction was caused by drunk rioters over a college basketball game. And yet people want to complain about rioting when the justice system let's a murderer walk free without a trial? If you're complaining about the riots then you just don't get it. There's no other way to put it. Maybe it'll take another 50-100 years but right now, post-racial America is nothing but a child's fantasy.
An indictment is not a trial, an indictment is formally charging someone with a crime. It's a standard procedure before every criminal trial to make sure that the court system doesn't waste its time with a case that doesn't have any backing. How does the jury make this determination? They weigh the evidence presented against a standard of proof.
In a criminal trial, the standard of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt." It is by far the most difficult standard of proof to meet. Basically, if after hearing all the testimony and evidence, a reasonable person would doubt that the defendant committed the crime then the defendant should be exonerated. A more lax standard is the "preponderance of the evidence." This is used in civil trials and means that the evidence must be more likely than not, a far cry from beyond a reasonable doubt. To put it another way if 51% of the evidence says you're guilty, then you're guilty. Now ladies and gentlemen there is an even lower standard of proof that I'm sure you've heard before: probable cause.
Probable cause is one of the lowest standards of proof, second only to reasonable suspicion. All you need is a reasonable basis to believe a crime MAY have been committed. So to give you an idea, an empty beer can in the passenger seat of a car, is probable cause for an officer to search you on suspicions of a DUI. It is NOT enough to convict you of the crime, but enough to meet probable cause.
Can you guess which standard of proof is required to issue an indictment? Yup, it's probable cause. Now let's apply that to the Brown case. Let's look at the facts for a minute and see if we have probable cause, not to convict Wilson, but simply to see if we should bother finding out what happened that day.
- Brown was unarmed
- Brown was shot six times
- Brown was 17 years old
- Brown is dead
- Officer Wilson suffered no serious injuries
Do these facts make you believe that maybe, just maybe, Mike Brown's killing wasn't justified self-defense? If so then we have met the burden of probable cause, Wilson should have been indicted and the trial should have moved forward. Ask any attorney how blatantly absurd it is for a person not be indicted after putting 6 bullets into a kid and you'll see why everybody is so outraged.
It would be one thing if Wilson wasn't convicted after a trial, then you could make the argument that the evidence wasn't there for a conviction under "beyond a reasonable doubt" but that didn't happen. He was let off scott-free without any effort to find out what happened, and that's the worst part of this. The system proves time and time again that black people's lives are worth less than a white person's. No supposed petty-crime deserves being executed without a trial, yet Darren Wilson is free, and a lot richer because he killed a young black boy.
I'm not even going to get into riot aspect of it except by saying all my Maryland readers should remember in 2002 when Maryland won the national championship how much destruction was caused by drunk rioters over a college basketball game. And yet people want to complain about rioting when the justice system let's a murderer walk free without a trial? If you're complaining about the riots then you just don't get it. There's no other way to put it. Maybe it'll take another 50-100 years but right now, post-racial America is nothing but a child's fantasy.
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