The power to indict or not indict Darren Wilson—the police officer who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—is completely in the hands of St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch. I think this because, in 2007, I served on the St. Louis County grand jury overseen by McCulloch himself.
My time on the St. Louis County grand jury is probably very much like that of current jurors. Here’s how it worked when I was there, and what I learned that is influencing how I look at the case against Darren Wilson:
The summer session of the St. Louis grand jury met every Wednesday for 16 weeks, starting in May. The jury consisted of 12 people. We started as members of the general jury pool. None of us was selected for a regular jury, but at the end of the day, a group of about 50 of us were asked if we would consider volunteering for the grand jury.
A judge explained to us that the St. Louis County grand jury is not an investigative body. [Those kinds of grand juries are usually convened separately, he said.] Rather, the jury we would be on would serve as an alternative to preliminary hearings, to take on part of the load otherwise handled by judges in courtrooms. We had to be available for all [with some excusable absences] of the 16 sessions, from 8:30 am to 5 p.m. The judge then asked for volunteers, and he briefly interviewed each of us. About a week later, I received notice that I had been empaneled.
On our first day, after meeting the judge who would supervise our work [but not be present in the room], McCulloch came into the grand jury room and briefed us on the importance of our work as grand jurors. He explained that our job was to listen to witnesses and to decide—not whether the accused were guilty or innocent—but whether the prosecutor had presented enough evidence to merit a trial, where a trial jury would rule on guilt or innocence. If there was enough evidence, we would vote for a bill of indictment. Neither the prosecutor nor the witnesses [nor a judge] were in the room when we deliberated and voted. After we’d reached our decision, the jury foreman signaled the prosecutor—by pressing a button—to come back in and get the result.
On some Wednesdays, we heard as many as 50 cases. That is not a typo. In many instances, there was one witness—the arresting officer—and the presentation took 10 minutes or less. Defense witnesses and those accused of crimes were not invited. And in most cases—I’d say 95 percent of them—it took just a few minutes of discussion for us to conclude [via voice vote] that an indictment was justified. Occasionally we turned down the indictment. In one case, when we voted against indictment, the prosecutor came back into the room and said that he pretty much knew that’s what we’d do, because even he thought the evidence was flimsy.
And that is why I’m pretty sure that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch can make the Darren Wilson grand jury go whichever way he wants.
Remember: the vast majority of witnesses that McCulloch’s prosecuting team brings to the grand jury are police officers. He relies on them to make his cases. They are his allies. It seems clear that he has to be reluctant to piss them off by indicting a police officer for what Darren Wilson purportedly did. [By the way, unlike some people, I don’t believe that the fact that McCulloch’s father was a cop–killed in the line of duty–presents a conflict of interest. But I do wonder if there’s a question of loyalty here, because of McCulloch’s reliance on cops as witnesses in other cases.]
McCulloch has options: He can present the case against Wilson any way he wants, to get the outcome he wants. Depending on who testifies, and what evidence is brought in, he can make it look like excessive force by Wilson, or he can make it look like a justified shooting in the line of duty. He can present the case in all its nuanced details, or he can streamline it. He can bring in eyewitnesses—or not. He can show the infamous convenience-store videotape—or not. The length and tone of the case is entirely up to him. [We hear, in news reports that McCullough is saying that the case will take more than one day to present. If that’s true, it could mean that he is preparing a thorough and even-handed case–which is what citizens should expect.]
The grand jury can ask as many questions as it wants, and I’m sure they will, if they are doing their jobs as directed. But, as it has been said many times, a good prosecuting attorney can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich. However, that assertion also implies the inverse, as well: If the prosecutor doesn’t want an indictment, he or she can make that happen, too.
So, I’ll be watching closely. If there is no indictment in the Darren Wilson case, it could be because the prosecutor himself didn’t want it and presented the weakest possible case. [We will never know, as St. Louis County grand jury deliberations are secret—you’re not supposed to talk about them outside of the jury room. If there is a subsequent trial, the case presented by the prosecution will be indicative of what transpire in the grand jury hearing, as prosecutors often practice their court cases on the grand jury.]
Personally, I’m hoping for the indictment, so that there is a public trial, where a jury can decide what should happen—or not happen—to Darren Wilson.