Anyone seen this? Police use of force in Missouri

...the grand jury was given a certain statute regarding the use of force for police officers. That happens on line 8 of page 5 of the transcript for September 16th.

Some housekeeping notes to start. I'm going to pass out to you all, you all are going to receive a copy of a statute.

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It is section 563.046, and it is, it says law enforcement officers use of force in making an arrest. And it is the law on what is permissible, what force is permissible and when in making an arrest by a police officer.
This all seems pretty normal, though I was a little surprised when reading the transcripts over on Monday that the statute was not read into the record.

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Maybe that's not unusual for fact-finding hearings, but it didn't sit well with me. The video above alleges that they were given a copy of an unconstitutional law. I can't know for sure what the statute they were given said exactly, since I have yet to find it among the evidence.

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But, one thing that you can know for sure is that she gave the jurors something that wasn't right. From line 11 of page 134 of the transcript for November 21st:

MS. ALIZADEH: Previously in the very beginning of this process I printed out a statute for you that was, the statute in Missouri for the use of force to affect an arrest. So if you all want to get those out. What we have discovered, and we have been going along with this, doing our research, is that the statute in the State of Missouri does not comply with the case law.
Ok. It only took you 66 days to tell the jurors that. Her instructions regarding said documents aren't awesome, though. From line 7 of page 135:

So the statute I gave you, if you want to fold that 1n half just so that you know don't necessarily rely on that because there is a portion of that that doesn't comply with the law.
Am I wrong to think that she should have maybe stated the difference? If I'm wrong, a whole lot of folks are wrong too. But, this ADA doesn't seem to have clarity in her list of priorities. Let's take a look at how she handles juror questions, shall we?

Beginning on line 24 of the same page:

GRAND JUROR: So we're to disregard this.

MS. ALIZADEH: It is not entirely incorrect or inaccurate, but there is something 1n it that's not correct, 1gnore it totally.

GRAND JUROR: It is because of the federal?

MS. WHIRLEY: Of a Supreme Court case and we must follow Supreme Court of the United States. It is Tennessee v. Garner, not that that matters much to you.
She doesn't tell them what's not correct in the original statute, and she doesn't collect them, or instruct the jurors to get rid of the misleading information. No, this is not a person who is doing their job well.

Also, am I an idiot to think that if any juror wanted to consult the specific case law, it should have been provided to them?

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Am I some kind of ****** for thinking it might be a good idea to have such things on hand, especially considering, here we are, almost 70 days of proceedings later, and they've been going on inaccurate information all this time?

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GRAND JUROR: The Supreme Court, federal Supreme Court overrides Missouri statutes.

MS. ALIZADEH: As far as you need to know, just don't worry about that.
I don't know, that seems like the kind of thing that maybe those jurors should have been concerned with

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It does Justice no favors to dismiss a legitimate concern out of hand.

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Mind you, this correction happened at the end of the day. There aren't 10 full pages left in that day's transcript before the jurors headed out to deliberate. She could have passed along that information much sooner, but she chose to wait until all the testimony had been given. Either these DA's were deliberately attempting to confuse the jurors, or they are incompetent as all get out (and in that case, they need to get out.).

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The Truth said:

Unconstitutional law from 1985 cited to grand jury in Darren Wilson case:

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/shocking-mistake-in-darren-wilson-grand-jury-364273731666

I'm still reading through this muck, but I happened upon this.

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SouthernBoy said:

But the autopsy report does not show any entrance wounds to Brown's back so wouldn't this be a moot point? Besides, it is MSNBC so that has to enter the picture.

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The Truth said:

Unconstitutional law from 1985 cited to grand jury in Darren Wilson case:

http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/shocking-mistake-in-darren-wilson-grand-jury-364273731666

I'm still reading through this muck, but I happened upon this.

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skidmark said:

Nozzo fast, fella.



It appears that the Asst. DA gave a printed copy of the old law to the Grand Jurors. Remember this - there will be a pop quiz later.



Get out your pencils - here's the pop quiz: since the document given to the Grand Jurors was part of the record what need is there to "read it out"? Isn't a hard copy easier to check back on than a recollection of what was said?



Exhibits. Look at them.



The Grand Jurprs had no difficulty in asking for all sorts of stuff that they thought they should know even if the Asst. DAs did not present it to them. What support is there for the supposition that 1) a Grand Juror wanted to read the case law; abd 2) that if they had asked for a copy it would have been denied to them?



Well, yes. See above if you don't already know why.



And yet the Grand Jurors, by their actions, disagree with you. Does that mean the wrong Grand Jurors were picked?



Whose concern? And why does a Grand Juror need a lesson in Constitutional Law as it relates to the various levels of deciding once and for all what is or is not constitutional?



And if the correction had never been made you would have been all over that fact. But the correction was made. There is nothing I have found yet that identifies when the Asst. DAs discovered they screwed up.

Were the Grand Jurors such dolts that they could not figure out, at least in simplistic terms, what to consider and what to disregard?

It seems both of you are setting this up as a non-win situation no matter what was done - or not done in the way that you would have preferred.

Like you I am still wading through the material. But I'm looking to see how the Grand Jury reached the conclusion they came to, as opposed to trying to expose every time things did not happen the way you would have preferred it to happen.

-end-

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The Truth said:

http://groupthink.jezebel.com/get-damn-mad-assistant-das-make-big-mistake-in-ferguso-1664054640

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Jack House said:

Jezebel is a garbage website, full of lies, misinformation and just plain regurgitated horse manure. I don't even need to read it to know whatever garbage it is spewing is patently wrong.

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The Truth said:

Well next time let me know your favorite media outlet and I'll post a link from them so you'll read it.

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Jack House said:

Well if you're going to insist on linking Jezebel, might as well cite Al Sharpton as a credible source while you're at it.

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Until December 31, 2016Beginning January 1, 2017--Law enforcement officer's use of force in making an arrest.
563.046. 1. A law enforcement officer need not retreat or desist from efforts to effect the arrest, or from efforts to prevent the escape from custody, of a person he or she reasonably believes to have committed an offense because of resistance or threatened resistance of the arrestee. In addition to the use of physical force authorized under other sections of this chapter, hea law enforcement officer is, subject to the provisions of subsections 2 and 3, justified in the use of such physical force as he or she reasonably believes is immediately necessary to effect the arrest or to prevent the escape from custody.
2. The use of any physical force in making an arrest is not justified under this section unless the arrest is lawful or the law enforcement officer reasonably believes the arrest is lawful.
3. A law enforcement officer in effecting an arrest or in preventing an escape from custody is justified in using deadly force only:
(1) When suchdeadly force is authorized under other sections of this chapter; or
(2) When he or she reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest and also reasonably believes that the person to be arrested:
(a) Has committed or attempted to commit a felony; or
(b) Is attempting to escape by use of a deadly weapon; or
(c) May otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay.
4. The defendant shall have the burden of injecting the issue of justification under this section.

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Held:

The Tennessee statute is unconstitutional insofar as it authorizes the use of deadly force against, as in this case, an apparently unarmed, nondangerous fleeing suspect; such force may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. Pp. 7-22[SIZE=-1].[/SIZE]

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