Several grand juries have recently considered whether to charge white police officers with killing black men. We’ve already discussed the case in Ferguson, Missouri on this blog. Wednesday, a Staten Island, New York grand jury declined to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner. The New York Times has the story here. Then a South Carolina grand jury indicted officer Richard Combs for murder in the fatal shooting of Bernard Bailey, as Time reports here. Is it a small sample? A historic moment? A coincidence? An epidemic? Some or all of the above, depending on your point of view. I saw many thoughtful pieces this week related to these events. (I also received many thoughtful comments on my blog post about the Ferguson grand jury process, and I would again like to thank those who took the time to contribute to the conversation.) One of the pieces that caught my eye this week was this WSJ Law Blog post, discussing the possibility of using “inquests” to investigate police shootings. The idea is a sort of advisory, preliminary proceeding conducted by a judge with subpoena power. A finding of responsibility wouldn’t carry any official consequences or even require the bringing of criminal charges, but might be a barometer that a prosecutor could use in assessing whether charges were appropriate. I also thought this piece by Eugene Robinson was provocative. It notes that the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports counted 461 justified homicides by police last year, but that departments aren’t required to report [...]
Faculty Coordinators
