Quote:
Originally Posted by microbet
PROSECUTORS, yeah, prosecutors say that they heard on the dash cam footage the cop saying he was going to kill the guy right before he killed the guy. I don't care whether you feel sorry for the guy or not, this is bull****. Prosecutors don't go charging cops with murder on flimsy evidence. We live in a God damned police state and most of the people, at least most of the white people in this country seem to like it that way.
A couple of thoughts based on my experience:
1. This was a bad verdict. The judge's comments in his decision are troubling, particularly the comment that he found it very unlikely that there was an inner city drug dealer who wouldn't have a weapon based on his experience, especially given that as the finder of fact he should base his decisions on the evidence in front of him, and not on his "anecdotal" experience that inner city drug dealers usually have guns;
2. The DNA evidence is a red herring. Having prosecuted numerous cases where DNA testing was done, in my experience so-called "touch" DNA is rare and the lack of it is not dispositive. If you don't have someone bleeding or leaving bodily fluids behind, its rare to get a DNA hit. You have to remember that in order to get a touch DNA match, all of the following must be true: 1. The person touching the object has to shed some skins cells; 2. The skin cells have to be somewhat numerous; 3. The person swabbing the object has to swab in the area that has the skin cells and pick enough of them up; 4. The swab then has to have enough of the skin cells so that when the STR DNA analysis is done (which replicates the DNA so that there is enough of it to test) there is enough there to get a result; and finally 5. the resulting DNA profile has to be strong enough (and if its a mixture profile it makes it more difficult) to generate a result. I have had several stabbing cases where the knife was recovered, and the only DNA on the knife was the blood of the victim on the blade. This does not mean that the victim stabbed himself. So I wouldn't rely on the DNA evidence at all to conclude that the police officer planted the gun, (maybe he did, maybe he didn't) but the whole thing is irrelevant anyway to the homicide charge, other than possibly as "consciousness of guilt" evidence on the part of the police officer, which is of pretty limited value in any event.
3. The dashboard recording evidence recording the police officer that he's "going to kill this guy" should have made this case a slam dunk.
4. There has been a push in my home state of New York by the District Attorney's Lobbying group to change the law such that it requires the consent of both parties to waive a jury trial. Right now in NY (and I assume in MO), only the defendant can decide whether he is tried by a judge or a jury, the prosecution has no say in it. Defendant's in our country have the absolute constitutional right to a trial by jury, they do not have the absolute constitutional right to a trial by judge. One of the reasons for wanting this change in the law is exactly cases like these, police officers on trial often elect a bench trial, and that often makes it much more difficult to convict them. A change in the law such that both parties have to agree to waive a jury would perhaps have changed the outcome here, and I hope that cases like these give more wind to the movement to change the law in this manner.
5. Prosecuting police officers for homicide in general will continue to be an extraordinarily difficult thing to do. It is very difficult to convict a person, beyond a reasonable doubt, based on inferring what is in their head during what is generally a split second decision. It is not often that you get a case (like this one) where the officer actually makes a statement of his intent immediately before committing the act.
Last edited by fxwacgesvrhdtf; 09-17-2017 at 09:26 PM.