PROSECUTE THE PROSECUTORS! The only way toward some Justice?!

[Peter Lemkin]

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[TD="width: 84%"]Prosecute The Prosecutors: A Way To Justice In Staten Island, Ferguson, Cleveland

By Robert Weiner [/TD]
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By Robert Weiner an Joseph Abay, Originally Published in The Michigan Chronicle

Solidarity rally and march for Michael Brown in response to the Furguson grand jury decision
(image by Fibonacci Blue)

There is a way to achievejustice: PROSECUTE THE PROSECUTORS. The law provides that victims andfamilies of victims can sue in cases of prosecutorial malfeasance. Prosecutorsare rarely charged criminally, and even more rarely convicted criminally byreluctant courts who work with them, but it can and should happen whenmerited. The families should not befaced with a brick wall of prosecutors they think are immunized from actionwhen lawsuits are in fact possible especially in glaring circumstances. Civilsuits against the prosecutors are another route for damages for Eric Garner,Michael Brown and Tamir Rice's families.
The three cases would be verydifferent from one another but the most glaring is the Staten Island case,where a video shows store-owner Eric Garner first rationally asking what he haddone and then gasping during a choke hold barred for over 20 years, saying manytimes before dying, "I can't breathe." Daniel Panteleo, the officer who chokedEric Garner, has several complaints of false arrests and unwarranted andunlawful strip searches, and police have had to settle.
People believe a grand jury'sproceedings are totally secret but in fact, witnesses who testify are free tocome out and say what happened inside. Ramsey Orta, the Staten Island videographer, told the press that he wasmade to testify in only a cursory way, for 10 minutes, and during histestimony, the grand jury members were tweeting and texting, paying littleattention. The prosecutor, who runs the show, essentially blew off Orta,clearly wanting to get rid of him as soon as possible.
This man had likely the mostimportant onsite evidence proving murder. It was the Zapruder film of thecase. The coroner had five options from"undetermined causes" on down but branded the situation specifically the mostforceful--"homicide" -- and stated that the "choke hold" and "pressure" onthe chest killed the victim. The man who was there, shot the video, sawit all unfold, saw the angles, saw the time durations, and saw the result -- wasblown off.

Ten minutes? The jury playingaround, ignoring it? The prosecutor not asking the jury to focus, and theprosecutor not asking this witness penetrating questions for severalhours? This seems a preeminent potential case of holding prosecutorsaccountable.
In Ferguson, there was no videoevidence (revealed to date), other than Mike Brown lying unattended for fourhours after the shooting, and the case was muddied by some conflicting witnessesregardless of veracity. However, Prosecutor Bob McCulloch has asserted on manyoccasions he would have joined the police force if not for medical issues. Hisfather, who was a police officer, was allegedly killed in 1964 by a black man. Regardless, he claims it was "not something that clouds my judgment."
But the Assistant Prosecutor, Kathy Alizadeh, openedthe door wide to a malfeasance case. The Assistant Prosecutor told the jury andhanded out an old state law, right before the policeman testified, that it waslegal for him to shoot a fleeing suspect, a law that was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1985, making it NOT legal. Twoweeks later the assistant prosecutor told the jurors that "the information wasincorrect" and did not explain to the non-lawyer jurors WHAT wasincorrect. The assistant prosecutor also told the jurors thatneither the difference between what they were told initially nor the Supreme Court's power tooverride the earlier state law were significant. The assistant prosecutor told the jurorsthese were "not important," and said this is not "a law class." Here "fraud against the court" is aprosecutable offense -- that has been won against prosecutors.
It wasn't relevant that thepoliceman committed likely illegal acts if you know the right law? ObviouslyBrown got from the car to 35 feet away as he was shot further. Let alone thatthe policeman was never confronted about why, regardless of the earlier fight inthe car, when Brown was later 35+ feet away and he then knew he was unarmed,even if Brown was running toward him (in doubt, but say it's true), thepoliceman didn't shoot the final shots at legs to disable rather than the headto kill? Both the Assistant Prosecutor and Chief Prosecutor are culpable herefor not aggressively penetrating these issues, as well as the intentionaldisinformation and obfuscation of the law.
In the Cleveland case, the meritswere also strong--the 911 caller SAID it appeared to be a toy gun and a youngboy (he was 12).
When my (Bob's) wife and he were subpoenaed,and Bob as White House staffer brought in as a witnesses (who knew nothing) forKen Starr's Monica Lewinsky-Whitewater Grand Jury prosecution of Bill Clinton,we knew it was simply harassment by Starr to send a message to intimidatefederal employees. He couldn't havepicked a worse couple for that. Right after the testimony, Bob and his wife wentout on the courthouse steps and said, "This is Big Brother at its worst." His wifeadded, "This isn't Nazi Germany." There were 60 TV cameras, live CNN, and everymajor newspaper outside on the steps. The statements were the lead of Brokawand Jennings that night. The upshot was that the New York Times credited Bob for being the first Starr grand jurywitnesses to call out Starr, the prosecutor, for "overreach." After that,all the Clinton witnesses went out on the steps and expressed similar outrage,and Starr's popularity fell.
Mickey Kantor, Clinton's TradeRepresentative and campaign chair, called to suggest Bob sue Grand JuryProsecutor Starr for overreach under the law. That was a "right."However, in this case, we believed the strategy of ongoing media embarrassmentof Starr for what he was doing was better and maintained a higher credibilitysince everyone would believe a lawsuit was political. So whatever works,but at least challenge the prosecutor.
The Prosecutors (and assistantprosecutors, who should also be named) in Staten Island, Ferguson, andCleveland were dealing with life and death, and blew the deaths off bydisinterest, laying blame anywhere other than on the police in order tomaintain cozy relationships with the police and courts they deal with in therest of their cases. They were not acting like a prosecutor at all butmore like a defense attorney confusing the jurors to lay doubt.
There are a lot of good ideas beingput forward: police body cameras, better training, more communitypolicing, less militarization of police equipment, use of federal civil rightscases, civil cases against the policeman involved, moving cases away from thenlocality, and of course, massive public protests These are all excellentapproaches. But each process may take months or years to achieve results.
All these approaches leave theprosecutor off the hook in not obtaining justice. The prosecutor should feelthe pressure of the law for not executing it, for malfeasance, for disinterest,for crtitical legal disinformation, for fraud against the court, for confusingthe jurors, for not making the case with strong questions to achieve themission of the truth.

While prosecuting prosecutors is noteasy, a search for "prosecutorial misconduct remedies" shows that victims canwin and even if overturned, evidence comes out. Moreover, judges can overturn cases because of prosecutorial misconductand fraud against the court, and prosecutors can be disbarred.
The prosecutors themselves are"getting away with murder." Families andthe government both have an opportunity to go after them, make them feel theheat, bring out the truth by the depositions and testimony, and possibly, justpossibly, win and achieve justice.