In 1985, Sol Wachtler, then the chief justice of New York’s Supreme Court said, “Any good prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.” If anything, in the 30 years since he uttered those very accurate words, the situation has gotten worse, not better. Grand juries — as they were initially designed to do — no longer serve as a bulwark between overzealous prosecutors and the citizenry. Jurors are constantly being lead around by their noses whenever the prosecutor has a mind to.
That’s why the dog-and-pony show Cuyahoga country prosecutor Tim McGinty is putting on in regards to the Tamir Rice case is such total, unadulterated bullshit. Anyone with an ounce of brains knows that McGinty — with his diabolically honed and polished manipulative skills — can get the grand jury to indict the two cops that were involved in the killing of the 12-year-old if he so desires. The decisions will be his, not theirs, and to suggest otherwise passes neither the smell nor straight-face tests.
To put it more bluntly, McGinty is, in essence, pissing on the black community and trying to convince us it’s only raining. Everyone who believes in justice knows that a trial jury should hear the accumulated evidence against the cops, in spite of the fact that — this still being America — there is little chance of them ever being convicted.
And here’s why: At trial, a skilled defense attorney needs only to subtly remind jurors (who, in Cuyahoga County, will primarily be white) that these fine officers of the law put their lives on the line to protect them from that mythical black male menace that would break into their homes at night, shoot the husband, rape the wife and bash their children’s heads in. Put that way, what else is a juror going to do but find the cops not guilty, give them a pat on the back and send them back out into the streets to teach those demented black thugs a lesson they won’t forget — that is if they are still alive.
This is the real America we live in folks.
Nonetheless, the worm is turning, albeit so very slowly. As the spotlight remains on cases of police brutality and misconduct, laws are gradually changing and the feds are paying closer attention. Recently Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the Justice Department will conduct a probe of the Chicago Police Department (which is widely known as one of the most corrupt in the United States) over the cover-up of the execution of a black teenager by a cop who fired 16 rounds into his body, 15 of them after he was on the ground. Actions like this are what will eventually change how America is policed.
Now, no sane person should want cops to put their lives in danger by hesitating when they are faced with a clear and legitimate threat. But, as a society, we want them to exercise better judgment — something that requires better training and a mindset of “protector” rather than “warrior.”
But most of all we should want accountability. When a shooting of a civilian is in any way tainted (as it is in the Tamir Rice case), the facts of the case must be placed in front of a trial jury. Period.
For Tim McGinty to manipulate this process is reprehensible. Given the climate in the country, our sordid national history of denying justice to minorities, and indeed, the clouded and controversial facts of the case at hand, any fair-minded prosecutor would use their influence to have the grand jury return a true bill.
The problem is, if we change prosecutors at the ballot box and fail to change the process, the person who might take McGinty’s place would probably do the exact same thing as the current prosecutor is doing, but with a bit more finesse. In other words, he’d simply use some lubrication as he sticks it to the public, but we still would be just as screwed.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.