Justice Dept. Moving to Clear Ferguson Officer of Civil Rights Charges

[branford]

6. Holder cannot change the federal law or many decades of common law jurisprudence.

A federal charge is not simply another bite at the apple when you don't like what happened in state court.

In order to bring a federal charge, no less secure a conviction, the Justice Dept. would have to meet a much higher standard of proof than at the state level, including specific intent to violate the victim's civil rights. If Wilson even unreasonably believed that he was defending himself, which some forensic evidence supports, a federal charge would, as is now evident, be impossible to prove.

No one with any knowledge of federal civil rights law really expected federal charges here unless new and damning evidence was discovered. Since the FBI was involved in the case from the beginning, it was unlikely that anything new would be discovered.