The white Prosecutor who white-washed the grand jury process in the Michael Brown shooting got voted out in favor of a black Dem. opponent in a Tuesday St. Louis County primary.
The grand jury process was handled after the Brown shooting by having the grand jury weigh all evidence prosecuting attorneys presented in secret, where weighing all evidence in an adversarial proceeding is a trial jury function with the grand jury task to decide whether sufficient evidence exists to charge a crime which then would move to an adversarial setting. In the Brown shooting an unarmed black man was shot dead by a white cop, at close range but still about twenty yards apart, with eyewitnesses stating Brown had hands up when shot. Weighing what one lawyer in a room choose to present, not an adversarial situation as with a trial, the grand jury was led to conclude there was no crime by the shooting officer. Nobody but the grand jurors and the prosecutors sat to see how that grand jury proceeding was handled. To have a feel for how unfairly a grand jury can be led about with only one lawyer acting in secret, even Wikipedia weighs in,
New York State chief judge Sol Wachtler was famously quoted by Tom Wolfe in The Bonfire of the Vanities that "a grand jury would 'indict a ham sandwich,' if that's what you wanted.
". . . if that's what you wanted," is the money part of that quote. The coin has another side, with failure to indict in a slam dunk situation arguably the outcome wanted by those staging the Ferguson shooting grand jury.
Chickens came home to roost
Long term, this may be a better outcome for justice in that part of the nation, than if the prosecutor earlier had not used the single lawyer grand jury advantage as happened.
It looks like a true reformer got elected. More of that, nationwide, would be great.
Links: CNN, "Missouri prosecutor who didn't charge officer in Michael Brown killing appears to be ousted in primary;" L.A.Times, "Ferguson underdog, outspent by more than 12 to 1, topples longtime St. Louis County prosecutor; NY Times, a day before primary voting,"Can a Criminal Justice Advocate Unseat Ferguson’s Lead Prosecutor? Wesley Bell Will Try."
A most rewarding part of the story outside of the police shooting - Black Lives Matter - context was the reporting of the challenger being outspend 12 to 1 in a Democratic primary and winning. Hello, Nancy Pelosi and Diane Feinstein, did you read that?
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Jon Oliver - Prosecutors -- YouTube. Salon's analysis of the segment which in turn links to an earlier Jon Oliver - report and video. Both are worth watching. Prosecutors are not always principled civil servants. And in many U.S. counties they seem to be reelected time after time, most often in uncontested elections. Anoka County was like that for decades, Bob Johnson holding the seat until a voluntary retirement, at which time a contest followed with an office top assistant winning, and later reelected.