As much as some facts are in dispute in the Ferguson case, the facts are not in dispute, at all, in this one. Cop used an illegal chokehold and killed a man. His intention is irrelevant to the of criminality of his action, only relevant to the severity of the criminality.
Incidentally, from a right-wing sight that would cause most on this board to burst into flame:
While there will be welcome debate about these and other points of agreement, there is a measure of consonance across all political dispositions that some of these conditions need to be addressed. And immediately:
• The use of excessive force by police: This is something which may be addressed by the insistence that law enforcement be required to wear body cameras at all times, a measure which New York City is beginning to implement. While it did not prevent undue force in this case or lead to an indictment when that force was applied, it will nevertheless impose some restraint on officers encountering a similar situations in the future.
• The state-level reformation of the grand jury process: The fact that a grand jury could not find probable cause to go to trial when an illegal hold resulted in a homicide, but could find sufficient evidence to indict the person who filmed this incident (on a gun charge) shouldn’t sit well with anyone. The fact that evidence presented in a grand jury proceeding is not made available to the public unless there is sufficient outcry is a subjective and problematic determination.
• Unrealistic evidentiary burdens: While police should be and are subject to levels of protection for doing their jobs that are not extended to civilians, there are limits. It is possible that the bar for criminality is set a tad too high in some cases, particularly when the circumstantial evidence is as damning as it is in this case.
• Contraband laws and the criminalization of the nonviolent: There is no reason why a person should be subject to arrest for selling loose cigarettes when that same person would only be subject to a ticket for carrying up to two ounces of marijuana. No law enforcement officer can decline to perform his or her job, which was in this case to execute an arrest on a nonviolent offender that went horribly wrong. But should police have to be put in this position?
I'd like to make the point here that all these positions have ZERO to do with race. Even if you think race didn't play a role in this case, and I certainly think it had a huge role and it was minimized in the last point, these positions listed show how much a travesty this case is even with the race aspect ignored.
Again:
Sean Davis said:
New York’s statutes on manslaughter are pretty unequivocal. Just going on the plain language of the law, the police officer who killed Garner certainly appears to be guilty of second-degree manslaughter at the very least:
§ 125.15 Manslaughter in the second degree.
A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when:
1. He recklessly causes the death of another person; or
2. He commits upon a female an abortional act which causes her death,
unless such abortional act is justifiable pursuant to subdivision three
of section 125.05; or
3. He intentionally causes or aids another person to commit suicide.
Manslaughter in the second degree is a class C felony.
Frankly, I all the attention on the police is letting these Prosecutors off the hook for using the Grand Jury not as their usual rubber stamp, but as a half-assed scapegoat to put forth an equally half-assed argument of why they couldn't indict and do their job. I don't think Wilson would have been found guilty based on the evidence shown, but how could one argue a Prosecutor couldn't have taken that to a jury? I did find it a nice change though that the Prosecutor in the Ferguson case got called out so loudly. He clearly didn't want to indict and did everything he could to avoid it.
