NEW YORK TIMES: …The recent decisions to refrain from bringing charges on Staten Island and in Ferguson have sparked protests because, among other things, they seem to defy logic: Shouldn’t the cases be heard at trial, many protesters have asked, and be decided by a full jury?
The questions have strengthened calls for wholesale changes in the grand jury system. Some elected leaders in New York have called for special prosecutors, or the attorney general, to investigate all fatal police encounters. Others say the current process should be stripped of its cloak of secrecy…
Rarely do deaths lead to murder or manslaughter charges. Research by Philip M. Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University, reports that 41 officers were charged with either murder or manslaughter in shootings while on duty over a seven-year period ending in 2011. Over that same period, police departments reported 2,600 justifiable homicides to the F.B.I.… (more)
