On most Sunday mornings, I watch the TV news. I rotate
between several shows; yesterday, by chance, it was FACE THE NATION on CBS. Substitute
host Norah O’Donnell interviewed Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the family of
Michael Brown.
I was intrigued by many of Crump’s answers:
O'DONNELL: Will it (Officer
Wilson’s resignation) change at all your decision to move forward with
additional legal action?
CRUMP: Certainly not. Norah,
the family greatly wanted to have the killer of their unarmed son held
accountable.
Accountable? Officer Wilson was held accountable, in several ways. Like every cop in every shooting, no matter
the circumstances, he immediately surrendered his gun. He was taken off the
street indefinitely. He cooperated fully in the department’s investigation, and
the grand jury hearing. Then he submitted himself to their authority. Just
because you don’t like the outcome, doesn’t mean that it was wrong, or the
process was illegitimate.
…this grand jury
process needs to be indicted. It's broken. It continues to yield the same
results over and over again where they kill our children and they are never
held accountable.
Mr. Crump is mistaken. According to
the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, prosecutors tried 162,000 federal cases
in 2010, and grand juries returned indictments in all but 11 of them. That’s a
record of about 99.9% success. If the grand jury process is biased, it’s biased
against the defendants. To reform the system, would mean making it easier for Officer Wilson to beat the
rap.
Look at how they let
him (Wilson) testify for four hours…
“Let him testify?”
Like any criminal defendant he’s entitled to do so; no special favors were
granted here, for none were needed. But under the 5th Amendment, he has no obligation to
testify against himself. Yet he voluntarily waived that right. Bravo.
…and never cross-
examined him.
Cross-examine what? In a grand jury hearing, there’s no such
thing. The only people who examine witnesses are the prosecutors. A cross-examination
would have to be by the defense, and in favor of acquittal, the very thing Mr.
Crump didn’t want.
O'DONNELL:
Would you have preferred a trial? And what if he had been acquitted, though?
What if Officer Wilson was acquitted?
CRUMP:
People can accept that more…People think that is fair. People think that is
impartial…
Oh, really? Ever heard of Trayvon?
Rodney King? American history of the past 50 years, has shown that unpopular trial
verdicts spark riots, too.
…But
when you have this secret grand jury proceeding, where there is only one lawyer
in the room and that lawyer is a local prosecutor who has a symbiotic
relationship with the local police department…
OF COURSE a grand jury hearing
needs to be held in secret, to protect it from undue influence by outsiders. OF
COURSE the police have a close relationship with the DA; that’s how they prosecute
crimes. Isn’t that what we want?
I’m confused. Seeing as Mr. Crump
graduated from college and law school and passed the bar, I would expect him to
know a little something about American history, and the workings of the
criminal justice system:
That grand juries favor
indictments;
That defendants are entitled to
defend themselves in court;
That a cross-examination would have
worked against the outcome he
desired;
That an acquittal at trial would not have avoided post-verdict violence;
That grand juries need to be secret,
and that it serves a good purpose; and
That the police need to be friendly
with the prosecutors.
So is he ignorant, or is he
dishonest?
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