Shadow Trial: Prosecutors in Ferguson violated our right to an open criminal justice system.

[JonLP24]

54. Grand juries are usually required to secret by law

If there was an indictment, none of this information would have been released to save it for trial.

Like I said in another thread this is above my area of expertise but if prosecutors are telling juries to ignore Missouri state law then the law needs to be changed.

Even though legal experts agree that this subsection of the law has been at odds with the U.S. Constitution for almost three decades, the language is still in state law. In fact, the new criminal code that takes effect in 2017 retains the language.

That is the language that Flanders, Goldman and Sen. Jamilah Nasheed want to change.

Continuing confusion

Even though the legislature had not changed the law, the Missouri Supreme Court adopted a new jury instruction that complies with Garner. It does not allow a police officer to claim he was entitled to shoot an unarmed fleeing felon.

But Flanders and other legal experts think that Garner and the jury instruction don’t solve the problem.

Flanders said the prosecutors in the grand jury actually were wrong to say Garner trumps the law. Garner was the constitutional standard for a civil lawsuit. Missouri does not have to criminalize all police action that is unconstitutional. So, Flanders and other lawyers believe the state law still is in effect.

If Wilson had been indicted using the Garner rule against shooting an unarmed fleeing felon, he could have challenged any conviction by relying on the Missouri law that permits an officer to shoot an unarmed suspect.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/grand-jury-wrangled-confusing-instructions

Its not so cut-and-dried as it appears but in any case, it is hard to argue misconduct when they were told to disregard it -- maybe poorly but told to do so at any rate.