Approaching the courtroom door of Division 17 of St. Louis County Court, it was obvious the secrecy that has cloaked every aspect of the legal process related to the killing of Michael Brown Jr. would continue. There standing guard was not one but three St. Louis County sheriffs, politely confiscating the cell phones of all who entered. What was to take place during these proceedings was not going to be leaked by any irrefutable means.
It’s not that recording devices are typically allowed in courtrooms; they’re not. It was the extraordinary means taken to assure these particular proceedings, a Motion to Dismiss a petition for appointment of a special prosecuting attorney in the Darren Wilson case, did not reach the scrutiny of the public the legal system exists to protect.
As was often pointed out by St. Louis County Judge Joseph L. Walsh III, the public, as “any person” the particular empowering Missouri statute references, doesn’t have the intelligence or the training to know the difference between right or wrong.
He assumed the petitioners, like the majority of Missouri residents who are not former prosecutors nor have attended law school, don’t possess the intellect to question the unfettered discretion granted a prosecutor.
Missouri law, as Judge Walsh pointed out in clear support of St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s position, gives prosecutors broad discretion in choosing who to prosecute, what evidence to present and how to present it. No one, he opined with the support of selected quotes from case law, not even another prosecutor or judge, has the right to even question the propriety of those decisions.
And thus the beat goes on. Secrecy in the grand jury process. Secrecy in review of the prosecutor’s conduct. Secrecy surrounding the bar complaint filed by this writer and others. Secrecy that allows our prisons to fill beyond capacity and our black and brown men to be corralled behind bars.
Protected by Missouri law, the prosecutor is free to engage in any degree of indiscretion and speak publicly about those actions, as did McCulloch in announcing the grand jury decision in the case of Darren Wilson and subsequently in a well-crafted radio interview. But grand jurors are precluded by threat of fine and/or imprisonment from doing so.
Prosecutors, as was so aptly pointed out by Judge Walsh, are essentially above the law. Particularly one who has been voted into office multiple times in the absence of any publicly stated wrong doing. Even one who has chosen numerous tactics that give the appearance of impropriety. And an uneducated and ignorant public dare not question the manner in which it’s done.
Christi Griffin, is founder of The Ethics Project, a non-profit organization addressing the impact of crime, injustice and incarcerations. She is the author of “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America.” Visit www.TheEthicsProject.
