Upon reading Michael Smerconish's commentary on startribune.com ("Grand jury result in Ferguson was just," Dec. 8) many who are deeply disturbed by the death of another young black man at the hands of police were appalled and offended that the author would attempt to label as moral one of the most unjust set of legal maneuverings in the history of US jurisprudence.
In fact, unless "just" has a different meaning than the common understanding, the grand jury outcome was in fact not "just" but the fulfillment of a grave "injustice," which began when Mike Brown Jr was killed.
Mr Smerconish's assertion is tantamount to dousing those who disagree with him, with sewer water and calling it rain.
The word "just" is defined as that which is "based on what is morally right and fair."
Clearly Mr Smerconish has the right to express his opinion. But he is not allowed to buttress his opinion by claiming a morality that clearly does not exist in this case. Nothing about this case was moral, right or just: from Wilson accosting Brown, to the biased prosecutor Robert McCullough presenting evidence as if he was Wilson's defense attorney, to the misleading instructions to the Grand Jury from an assistant D.A., to police allowing him to take his weapon home, to failing to take notes or even record Wilson's initial statements, to the failure to file an incident report, to the police investigating its own.
Furthermore the author — who should know better — claims that the grand jury has the burden to decide to indict based on the likelihood of conviction. That is simply not true. The grand jury's job is not to decide guilt or innocence, but to decide if there is enough evidence to charge someone. Clearly there was enough evidence to have charged Wilson with, at the very least, reckless endangerment. Michael Brown Jr. was shot while running from the police and then he was killed while possibly "falling" forward.
It's also not true as the author claims, that the physical evidence, "is what it is." The physical evidence, like all other evidence, has to be interpreted and in this case it could have easily been used to indict him.
In truth, Mr Smerconish's attempt to stretch the truth to justify the grand jury process and outcome borders on the immoral.
"I thought I was listening to the lawyer for Wilson and not the prosecutor. There was no consideration of how incredible Wilson's story sounds, which is what the petit jury could decide," wrote author and writer, Junious Williams. "Only a runaway grand jury would indict after that skillful manipulation of the process. In order to avoid trying Wilson for the killing of Brown, the prosecutor simply staged a show trial to set him free."
Moreover to claim that anything about that decision was just right or moral is an absolute insult to the Brown family and much of America that also sees the decision for what it was, and that is the system covering for its own. The process from which this decision was made indeed may have passed legal muster, but it falls far short of being right!
The laws in this country have allowed for much immorality. Slavery and Jim Crow segregation were legal. Because something is lawful does not make it just!
Continuing to defend the indefensible, what everybody knows was a concerted effort by the prosecutor to let a cop get away with killing an unarmed black man — in essence legal murder — only infuriates black people and lovers of justice and casts doubt on Smerconish's intention.
On the one hand, the author in his commentary acknowledges that the system is flawed and even that the way in which the decision was reached was flawed. However, on the other hand, he arrogantly and condescendingly reserves the right to be the final arbiter of what is just. We vehemently disagree with the grand jury decision and Smerconish's claim that he and his ilk alone know what's just right and moral.
Mel Reeves is a political activist, community organizer, writer and columnist.
