President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

I figure there's a good chance a grand jury won't indict.

 

It's not. It's the practical answer to questions of civil order on mass transit.

As Songbird asked upthread. Are there survival rules on the subway?

Yes.

Get up and move being one of the first.

 

Not the person you asked, but I think it will be extremely difficult to get a manslaughter conviction under the circumstances, and I worry that a jury returning a not guilty verdict will do more harm than if the district attorney declined to prosecute. To me, it's at best a 75/25 case in favor of the defendant.

 

That's not civil order ... That's what I'd do my damnedest to do, mind you, but "let the loon have his way" ain't an attempt to effect civil order.

 

You gonna fight every loud, chesty college kid on the D Train?

 

So apparently in New York the District Attorney has the authority to bring charges without presenting them to the grand jury, first, and that's what Alvin Bragg did in this case. It would be reasonable to assume that he did it that way out of concern the grand jury might not indict.

 

Only when you've softened 'em up.

 

Right, that's as I understand it. You can't try 'em without an indictment, though.

 

Depends on what the investigation turned up.

Part of the problem here - and part of what Ragu and I were arguing about - was the tardiness of the police investigation.

They arrived late enough that many of the witnesses had already left the scene after this happened.

Only after the ME's office deemed it a homicide did the cops issue a wider call for witnesses to come forward. By then the pictures of Penny and Neely on the floor had been circulating for a couple days.

Hence the protests.

 

Which I do generally with my one-two punch of wisecracks and relentless dialectic.

Failing that, I get up and move.

 

Is that right? I don't know New York criminal procedure. We can avoid a grand jury here by having what we call a "probable cause hearing" in front of a judge. About the only time prosecutors use it is when they want a case to get tossed though.

If the case still has to go to a grand jury, I imagine they'll get the indictment since the DA not only controls what evidence gets introduced but New York is one of those jurisdictions - one thing I do know about NY crim pro - where the prosecutor is in the grand jury room during presentation and can make argument.