I'm infuriated by news that a host of lying, perjuring 'witnesses' during the Michael Brown shooting inquiry are likely to get away with their criminal conduct.
In its report detailing why Officer Darren Wilson will not face federal civil rights charges for the killing of Michael Brown, the Department of Justice recounts an investigation that was marred by lying witnesses, none of whom apparently will face charges for their perjurious conduct.
The parallel state and federal investigations into the August 2014 death of the 18-year-old Brown became Perjuryfest ’14, a free-for-all of fabricated claims, exaggerated accounts, and delusional tales.
According to the DoJ report, federal investigators dismissed versions of the Brown-Wilson confrontation provided by 24 separate witnesses, who are identified in the document by a witness number and their respective ages, sex, and race. However, despite that limited information, some of the discredited witnesses are easy to identify.
The testimony from these witnesses was alternately branded inconsistent, not credible, unreliable, incoherent, and based on rumor and hearsay.
There's more at the link.
Perjury is a crime. Why are these perjurers not being tried, convicted and punished?
Peter
From SmokingGun:
ReplyDelete"Five of the witnesses are convicted felons, with two having convictions for “crimes of dishonesty.” “Witness 137,” a 40-year-old convicted murderer, claimed that Wilson stood over Brown and “finished him off” with a shot to the head, “execution” style. The felon also claimed to have heard Brown tell Wilson, “Don’t shoot.” The man, who eventually recanted most of his claims, “was untruthful to the FBI during his initial interview,” noted federal investigators. "
What is the statute of limitations on Perjury? This is where the acceptance of "narrative" led us. Truth is no longer objective. "Truth" is now a fluid thing, it is whatever you can gull credible people into accepting.
I figured from the start that they would face no charges. That doesn't make it less maddening.
ReplyDeleteAs you well know, Peter, folks are all the time in the news for calling 911 for idiotic reasons--someone at a fast-food place shorted them on fries, etc. That is a misdemeanor, & it drives me crazy that it's almost never prosecuted. These people tie up a lifesaving resource for trivialities, & it costs them nothing?
This is far more serious. We all know that some people will lie under oath, inconceivable as that is to me, but when you're caught, the punishment should be swift & heavy; after all, honesty in testimony is one of the foundaton stones of our justice system.
Perhaps, in the final accounting before the Ultimate Judge, that litle "so help me God" thing may come up for consideration. The Christian in me tries not to enjoy the thought, but the honest man in me fails.
--Tennessee Budd
Every since Bill "Never had sexual relations with that woman" Clinton took the stand and walked on perjury, it's been effectively a non-crime (unless you are on the political right).
ReplyDeleteIt's lead to a massive devaluing of the integrity of the legal system, because it's no longer "what's the truth?" but "what can you get away with?" I don't expect it to get any better before it gets a lot worse, and we start seeing "street justice" against DAs and lawyers in significant numbers. I'd love to be wrong, and have an administration really put the hammer down on it, but I don't see anyone in the political wings eager to do so.
Charging eyewitnesses with perjury for saying something that's at odds with the eventual consensus is probably not something we want to encourage. Were some of the witnesses consciously lying? Probably. Can we prove it, given the notoriously unreliable nature of eyewitness testimony? That's a completely different question.
ReplyDeleteThen there's the issue of, do the local or federal authorities want to open that particular can of worms? Even if we assume that no level of Authority deliberately manipulated the situation to make the poor blacks in Ferguson feel 'oppressed' (and some Authorities have a lot of use for people who feel 'oppressed'), the fact remains that a large number of those people will never be convinced that Brown WASN'T 'executed'. Trying those witnesses would be a great way to provoke a whole bunch more riots.
In fact, if the witnesses WERE charged, I would take that as strong evidence that The Authorities WANTED a riot.
It's a whole new ball game.
ReplyDeleteWe now live in a nation where half of the population is non-working, non-tax paying parasites and leeches, losers that have no morals, ethics or values.
If the police are actually trying to hold the line for the other half - the law-abiding citizens, tax-payers and families trying to survive in a decaying and collpasing civilization - perhaps it is time to understand that the police are under extreme pressure 24/7, being fully aware that society is collapsing before our eyes, watching helplessly as our government fuels the fires of hatred between the races, the classes, the haves and the have nots... everybody and everything.
Give the cops a break. They are facing a tidal wave of lawlessness unseen in history. They watch helpless as millions upon millions of diseased, uneducated and America-hating illegals swarm across our borders, taking our jobs and wrecking our safety nets in the process. They watch as indescribable hatred for all things American oozes out of the barrios and ghettos.
If the police toss in the towel, we are all lost. If the SJW's and the politically correct actually manage to shut down our police to the point of total ineffectiveness, this nation will go up in flames.
To be truthful, I believe we are already past the point of no return.
The Constitutional America of the founders is gone - finished - wiped out by the very people sent to Washington to protect and defend. Traitors all, and deserving of the highest punishment.
Perjury has not been prosecuted as a general rule for generations now, and has become one of those crimes only enforced when they cannot get you with anything else. The political leadership (all of them) isn't interested in changing this back, which makes sense as they are the worst offenders.
ReplyDeleteThe pendulum is swinging back, but slowly. the mainstream media has all but unprofitable because of their lies, more people are seeing the puppeteer behind the curtain. We'll see.
I will worry about citizens committing perjury after they start arresting every cop that lies on the stand or in a police report.
ReplyDeleteGovernment employees need to be reined in. Disarm the lot of them.
Bob, I have never needed a cop and would only see benefits if they all disappeared tomorrow.
Peter, shame on you!!! You need to remember:
ReplyDelete'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.'
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI faced the same issue here when trying to find out why we weren't charging people who filed false complaints or lied in court on these complaints. I was told that the policy of our department and courts was not to pursue such issues, as that might "discourage people from coming forward with complaints."
Another case of public perception being viewed as more important than doing what was right by both the law and the officers involved.
They will not be charged for the same reason that false rape claims aren't charged and prosecutorial misconduct isn't charged. The justice system ain't about justice anymore. All about politics......
ReplyDelete- WS1835
Chris Mallory:
ReplyDeleteFor starters, taking the cops off the road would make us all safer. The .gov's own data proves that. Every time a police force stops writing tickets, the accident and fatality rates go down. That's been documented since at least the 70's. And it stays down, until they go back to handing out tickets. Then the numbers rise to the same point it was before they quit.
They also impede the flow of traffic. Which may be part of the cause for why it gets safer. It's not all of it by a long shot, but it does have some influence on the subject.
Yeah, it's a shock when you first encounter a cop lying to the judge. Makes me wonder if the judges know how often they lie.