It's easy to focus on Bob McCullough and his past experience with minorities. I could also talk about another major culprit - Assistant DA - Kathy Alizadeh. But what is surprising is how the African American lady on the team seemed to not distinguish herself with her conduct in the grand jury trial. I don't know if she has kids. But what if one of her kids faced such a situation with cops in the future? I don't need her to rig it against Darren Wilson. If the truth is hard to take, that's fine and I would respect Sheila Whirley for not succumbing to race based judgement. But to be part of an effort to rig it against Brown? While in a fair world, she should not be held to a higher standard than Alizadeh, this is not a fair world.
Most of you already know about the way the prosecution team gave the grand jury a state statute giving the cops a lot of leeway in shooting suspects that was deemed unconstitutional by the supreme court. They only issue a correction at the end of the process.Excerpt from a Lawrence O Donnell show.
But in handing the jurors the original statute, O’Donnell said, Alizadeh conveyed the message that Wilson did not feel his life needed to be in danger for him to be legally justified in shooting and killing 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9.
“She was taking the hurdle that Darren Wilson had to get over in his testimony, and flattening it,” O’Donnell argued. “She was making it impossible for Darren Wilson to fail in front of this grand jury.”
Consequently, he said, the jurors listened to Wilson’s testimony while still believing the statute was still in effect. Alizadeh did not correct her error until Nov. 21, telling them that “part of the case law” did not comply with the Supreme Court ruling.
Court records also show that, when one juror asked whether the high court’s decision overrode state laws, Alizadeh did not say yes, and instead gave a non-commital answer.
“As far as you need to know, just don’t worry about that,” Alizadeh told the juror. Alizadeh’s colleague, Sheila Whirley, added, “We don’t want to get into a law class.”
I could dismiss Alizadeh as a racist who is indifferent to the injustice that happened and not be perplexed by her behavior. What is Sheila Whirley's deal? A coward who wanted to keep her job so badly that she compromised not only her morality but her legal ethics with her complicity in setting the tone for misleading the jury on that statute, among other things? A traitor to her fellow minorities? How hard should we be on her? How does she show her face in the community?
I don't know enough about Whirley . My judgement is just based on her participation in this travesty. THis is where DKOS readers weigh in with the unvarnished truth about her and let me know if we need to give her a break or be harsher on her.