Haven't followed the "true crime" of this story, but what do people make of the claim that the prosecution/grand jury was peculiar in that it dumped mountains of evidence and testimony?
The short answer is that the venue was legal and proper, followed tradition and the presentation at least seems from my probably 500/4000-page reading straightforward.
The long answer depends on how you are using the word
peculiar.
In Missouri (as much of the southern US at least) grand juries are the lawful venue to investigate both official wrongdoing and circumstances where there is dispute if a crime was committed.
Missouri Revised Statute Chapter 540 defines the duties of a grand jury:
540.031. A grand jury may make inquiry into and return indictments for all grades of crimes and shall make inquiry into all possible violations of the criminal laws as the court may direct. The grand jury may examine public buildings and report on their conditions.
A grand jury may make inquires for all grades of crimes.
It's hard to kind of document a tradition in the context of a social media discussion but having a grand jury investigate a suspicious death is very normal absent evidence to charge someone with a crime. For instance:
Google search [grand jury investigates death -ferguson]
If you follow US media, you might recall a stock car racer killed a young driver when he ran over him after an in-race argument. That case was investigated by a grand jury and no indictment was returned.
As discussed during our previous incarnation, a police officer shot a young man holding an air rifle facsimile of a popular semiautomatic firearm. That case was investigated by a grand jury and no indictment was returned.
In fact, grand jury investigations of official misconduct that they have become a kind of enumerated right in the Missouri Constitution:
Section 16. Grand juries—composition—jurisdiction to convene—powers.— That a grand jury shall consist of twelve citizens, any nine of whom concurring may find an indictment or a true bill: Provided, that no grand jury shall be convened except upon an order of a judge of a court having the power to try and determine felonies; but when so assembled such grand jury shall have power to investigate and return indictments for all character and grades of crime; and that the power of grand juries to inquire into the willful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments in connection therewith, shall never be suspended.
So in that way
[i.e. the power of grand juries to inquire into the willful misconduct in office of public officers, and to find indictments in connection therewith, shall never be suspended] it moves from
potentially peculiar to
constitutionally protected.
If one accepts the grand jury as the legitimate venue to "make inquires" into the shooting, then
all the available evidence is the only rational approach.
The subject really branches off wildly outside the basics...
Could the prosecutor have Nifonged Darren Wilson to appease the angry mob? Probably yes, but there's also a cautionary tale there.
Is the grand jury venue a statistical peculiarity? Very -- but so are jury trials. For the subset that are
police officer admits killing a person in the line of duty after that person robbed a corner store and assaulted the cop trying to detain him cases -- I don't know.
Probable cause simply doesn't exit - to the county prosecutor, to the state government and to the federal government. Oh yea, also a regularly-constituted grand jury said it didn't either.
