Comment Re:When 9 votes are required to send it ... (Score 1) 1128
I wanted to know how to votes were cast to see if the GRAND JURY might have made their decision because of racial bias - by either side. This is still very much a factor, even in the 21st century.
As I said before a 12-0, 50-50, or 8-4 in favor of trial or a 9 against (white) vs 3 in favor (black) gives a fair bit of info into how the jury was thinking and their leanings & bias. Lawyers put a lot of emphasis on the jury selection process; since there are no lawyers present at grand jury proceedings, I don't know if the jury is screened at all for bias.
Those people in the street weren't protesting because of being whipped up by the mainstream media or the progressives or the Democrats; they were there because it's a regular part of their reality going back generations. It may be better than the bad old days but it's still very much the norm.
And even if you argue that Mike Brown had it coming, you can't say that about every one of their dead kids & relatives. Did Tamir Rice have it coming? Or Akai Gurley? Or Aiyana Jones? Or Amadou Diallo? Or Sean Bell? At least some of these went to trial even if no officer was ever convicted.
There are thousands of stories like this; citizens want the people they pay to protect & serve to be accountable.
Going to court may not be pleasant but we make hundreds of thousands of innocents submit to it all the time, for things as bad or much less so than ending a life.
Despite what happened or who may be at fault or who had the right to shoot whom, it's Mike Brown who's dead, not Darren Wilson - a fact that the prosecutor forgot when he was supposed to be advocating for the victim.
Let's say, strictly for argument sake's, that Wilson had immediately realized that Brown was the thief and ordered him on the ground and Brown complied.
Then Wilson decides to teach the strongarm thieving thug a lesson about pushing around weaker people and starts kicking the shit out of him.
Brown then bulks up to get through the barrage of kicks & blows and delivers a haymaker with his full Hulk Hogan demon power and kills Wilson with one punch.
How likely is it that Brown doesn't have to go to trial and the case against him is thrown out by the grand jury?
"but it simply doesn't fit history or political reality" - I suspect you're much younger than I.
If you go back and look at the voting on LBJs Civil Rights Act, you'll see that the split on Yea / Nay was very much a North vs South and not so much Dem vs GOP.
That said, at the time, the South was very much a Democrat stronghold. Times have turned and so have cloaks.
