General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A Startling Admission By The Ferguson Prosecutor Could Restart The Case Against Darren Wilson [View all]TorchTheWitch
(11,065 posts)Even the ones that recanted to the federal agents but still testified to their lies to the grand jury. But in any case it's the jury that has the responsibility of figuring out which witnesses are credible and which aren't and same goes for jury trials.
The biggest problem here is the grand juries, period. They're secret. The Brown grand jury was actually the most fair one I've ever heard of and all the documentation was made public afterward. The public needs to know what ALL the evidence is and why the jury voted as they did. Damn shame both the Brown and Garner cases occurred in states that still use grand juries rather than adversarial preliminary hearings that are public, where a judge oversees the matter, where ALL the evidence is presented to both sides, and there actually IS two sides. The public doesn't understand how the juries in either grand jury came to their conclusion to not indict even though in the Brown case all the information from the grand jury was made public because the media didn't bother to parse that in the Brown case, and has no information in the Garner case, and in the Brown case precious few people were going to slog through all that information.
Frankly, I'd like to know how that one officer in the Garner case wasn't charged with anything though I don't know what he could be charged with, but no one is explaining to the public why the jury found there was nothing to charge anyone for. Is that because of the law, if it is what law, or what else was it? We can't know because grand juries are secret. Is it then any wonder why people can't figure out why in the Garner case no one was charged? At least in the Brown case all that documentation WAS made public except most people aren't going to read all those reams and reams of documents. I did just because that kind of stuff is interesting to me in just about any case and was especially interesting to me in the Brown case because I WANTED to know the truth of what occurred. And I still don't know if that last volley of shots was either reasonable or acceptable under the law, but I also can't figure out a lot of things like distances since the testimony can't SHOW that kind of stuff nor was it explained for anyone not seeing some kind of visual aid that the jury DID have.
And it's because of this lack of any explanation to the public by the media or authorities how and why the juries came to the conclusions that they did why the general public isn't going to understand it and tend to believe something hokey went on.
In all the states that have grand juries they've got to go and be replaced with the FAIR and PUBLIC adversarial preliminary hearing. Grand juries don't serve the public at all and when the public NEEDS to know WHY a grand jury didn't indict.