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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Grand Jury's Role In The Prosecution Of Unjustified Police Killings - Challenges And Solutions, Roger Fairfax
The Grand Jury's Role In The Prosecution Of Unjustified Police Killings - Challenges And Solutions, Roger Fairfax
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
One of the most profound tests of trust in a society is when the state must be relied upon to hold itself accountable for violating the rights of the governed. Nowhere is this more true than in the context of the prosecution of law enforcement officers for unjustified violence against civilians. The reasons for this are twofold. First, it should go without saying that police perform a vital - and extremely difficult and dangerous - function, and bravely serve as the prophylactic between civil society and complete chaos. As President Obama recently wrote, "[p]olice officers are the heroic backbone of …
The Grand Jury: A Shield Of A Different Sort, R. Michael Cassidy, Julian A. Cook
The Grand Jury: A Shield Of A Different Sort, R. Michael Cassidy, Julian A. Cook
Scholarly Works
According to the Washington Post, 991 people were shot to death by police officers in the United States during calendar year 2015, and 957 people were fatally shot in 2016. A disproportionate percentage of the citizens killed in these police-civilian encounters were black. Events in Ferguson, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Charlotte, North Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Staten Island, New York - to name but a few affected cities - have now exposed deep distrust between communities of color and law enforcement. Greater transparency is necessary to begin to heal this culture of distrust and to inform the debate going forward …
Nearsighted And Colorblind: The Perspective Problems Of Police Deadly Force Cases, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Nearsighted And Colorblind: The Perspective Problems Of Police Deadly Force Cases, Jelani Jefferson Exum
Faculty Publications
In dealing with the recently publicized instances of police officers' use of deadly force, some reform efforts have been focused on the entities that are central to the successful prosecutions of police–the prosecutor and the grand jury. Some have suggested special, independent prosecutors for these cases so that the process of deciding whether to seek charges against police officers remains untainted by the necessary cooperative relationship between the police department and the prosecutor's office. Others have urged more transparency in the grand jury process so that the public can scrutinize a prosecutor's efforts in presenting evidence for an indictment. Still …