All over the social media “concerned citizens” are speculating about the “truth” of whether Michael Brown was actually properly shot by Officer Wilson. And even main stream media “journalists” are playing this dumb game, as shown in this predictable and irrelevant bit of newsy vomit by Paul Cassell in the Washington Post.
Seems to me like all of this post-sham-grand jury speculation is a complete smoke screen distracting us from dealing with one obvious fact: The people of Ferguson and the family of Michael Brown deserved a competent prosecution at a trial. To my mind, the Wilson grand jury proceedings have finished due process for the black majority in Ferguson and, more broadly, for all criminal defendants in St. Louis County, Missouri. This is the only story worthy of discussion regarding the aftermath of Robert McCulloch’s odious production of Justice Theater.
McCulloch turned the Grand Jury process on its head for this particular case (see HERE for details) and in so doing opened the door to this media nonsense game wherein the public is invited to speculate as to (1) Wilson’s culpability for the gunning down of unarmed Michael Brown, and (2) unarmed Brown’s culpability for being gunned down (i.e., was Michael Brown actually a thug?).[1]
Both questions should have been placed before a jury in open court, with all the evidence and an actual prosecutor vigorously working to prove #1 and a defense attorney working just as vigorously to disprove it–probably by raising the possibility of (thus reasonable doubt arising from #2); Each bit of testimony cross-examined by an advocate, physical evidence tested by adverse experts, with a judge presiding to make sure that the far more stringent rules of a trial (cf. a grand jury ) were adhered to.
That’s all the family of Michael Brown sought. Had that happened, none of these silly other silly arguments would make any difference because we would have had a verdict that competed the due process of law.[2]
But that didn’t happen so all the “concerned citizen” contemplation of what “really” happened is idle armchair lawyering when the real question of justice lies elsewhere:
Why did McCulloch so blatantly contradict his own office’s practice in dealing with a crime suspect? (Important reminder: Wilson is the crime suspect, not Brown)
And if McCulloch’s approach in Wilson’s case (pointing out inconsistencies of his own witnesses, allowing the accused to testify in his own behalf, etc.) is correct prosecutorial practice (and attorneys throughout the Missouri Bar and indeed the nation wish it were so), why has McCulloch done just the opposite with all his other non-police suspect cases and can we expect that this will be his practice in criminal cases going forward?
Let’s all place our bets on this right now…
The due process guarantees of the Constitution require equal treatment. So, does due process exist any longer in St. Louis County? I say no.
I submit that after what has gone down in Ferguson, and with the case of Tamir Rice poised to become the next flash point over police use of force, the questions regarding how such cases are handled are the ones that deserve actual attention.[3]
I single out liberals as the target of my very real anger at how the post-sham St. Louis Co. grand jury finding has been treated because so many good friends in fact agree with what I am writing here “in principle” but say that “speaking the truth” requires dispassionate analysis of “the evidence” (which they, as good liberals, claim they know how to do). This has put me in a “scolding” frame of mind.[4]
I mean, I expected hideous crowing about “exoneration” by the political, crypto- (and not-so-crypto-) racist right, but I am far more troubled by the distanced, analytic approach my touchingly liberal friends who seem to forget that the reason Brown’s shooting touched off such energy an urgency is precisely because there is and has been a long context of dead young black men shot by police (or self-styled police-substitute vigilantes) under questionable circumstances without any appreciable accountability or consequence. The time, it seems, has finally come when that status quo will no longer stand.
Maybe Michael Brown was not a “flawless victim”, maybe it would have been wise, for PR purposes to await a perfect martyr to call national attention to the palpable devaluing of black lives, but the fact of h the clearly unequal treatment Michael Brown’s shooter received still speaks to the real issue: The ongoing spate of unjustly killed young black men. Meanwhile, the pseudo issue of what “really happened” in the Wilson-Brown shooting speaks to…what? That “The Blacks” and the media are biased and are just “blowing everything out of proportion” ?[5] Or that a portion of the public is reacting to the grand jury finding “emotionally” rather then with the properly dispassionate commitment to “the truth”?
From my perspective the most important truths—the only socially relevant truths—are those spoken to power.
Thus my hope is that when people of goodwill and intelligence take the time to speak truth it will be of the sort that will, in the immortal formula spoken by Finley Peter Dunne and echoed by Mother Mary Jones, comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
[1] While the only question of real significance is: Was Darren Wilson actually a uniformed thug?
[2] It’s certainly possible that people may have been angry, even enraged by a jury verdict of not guilty, but the fact that some, many, or even all people may not accept the outcome of a verdict reached through real due process has never been an excuse to short-circuit or ignore the process.
[3] As to Tamir Rice, the table is already being set for public “ambiguity” to arise in yet another instance of the irresponsible use of force by uniformed thugs. See HERE.
[4] Suck it up, liberals. I and other real left progressives have taking a stomach-full of sanctimonious scolding for the last seven or so decades.
[5] Thus ignoring the fact that the media feels it is more important to write and publish articles like the one in the Washington Post hyperlinked above–articles clearly geared more toward “restoring calm” (and incidentally reassuring a worried public that everything is okay with the official outcome so any further civil unrest is thereby rendered unnecessary and illegitimate).
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