The Odor Seeping Out of Our Criminal Justice System
September 09, 2014
A Whiff of SCOTUS Skunk
The Odor Seeping Out of Our Criminal Justice System
by JOHN GRANT
First there was Ferguson, Missouri and the gunning down of an unarmed black youth and the ad-nauseum follow-up emphasizing over-and-over the shooting officers fear. Now its the release of two half brothers in North Carolina clearly railroaded into convictions and death sentences by a notoriously remorseless, good-ol-boy district attorney.
Once a fair-minded superior court judge actually looked at the evidence and declared the emperor had no clothes, any eighth-grader could see the criminal justice system in this nice little North Carolina community had cynically set up Henry Lee McCollum and Leon Brown, two intellectually vulnerable African American teenagers, to clear the docket of a sensational, vengeance-demanding child murder case. Until the judges ruling, everyone had simply assumed because they had been convicted and were in prison these men were guilty. In 1994, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia even cited the barbarous natures of McCollum and Brown in defense of the death penalty.
The Ferguson case of a police homicide in broad daylight on a public street has been intentionally placed on a secret, very slow wheels-of-justice track that can only benefit Officer Darren Wilsons expected argument in court that he felt fear, which in the realm of courtroom narrative and reasonable doubt means he walks. In common US jurisprudence, a police officers fear and his or her perception of threat even if shown to be unfounded is sacrosanct and excuses pretty much anything.
On the other hand, fear is never permitted as an excuse when an ordinary citizen responds violently to a police officer. If Michael Brown had had a gun and, with a couple non-lethal rounds in his back, had turned and got off a lethal shot at Officer Wilson, every court in the land would have sentenced him to lethal injection or life in prison. There can be no self-defense against a police officer. Any kind of violence directed at a police officer can only be additional provocation, demanding an escalation of violence from the officer. The Law looks out for its own.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/09/the-odor-seeping-out-of-our-criminal-justice-system/
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)The BAR is set pretty low in this country. "Incestuous" ...much like our corporate government relationship.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Baitball Blogger
(46,745 posts)That's why we need videotape on cops. I think the jury has to decide if the police's fear was reasonable. More likely, law enforcement officers feel that their authority is absolute and if you question that authority by running away, it gives them the motive to kill you. They only make up the fear excuse because cops have been allowed for decades to lie through their teeth in order to win convictions.
Remember Zimmerman's comment? "They always get away." I think this has created a mindset among law enforcement that it's always best to shoot first and save everyone the judicial trouble.
freebrew
(1,917 posts)"They(cops) always get away."