I was just watching the Brown family's attorney in a news conference and he went right at "the process." That's where he's winning, and that's where the prosecutor lost.
"What scenario can we offer where they finally indict police officers for killing us?" asked Benjamin Crump. A powerful question, the answer to which the prosecutor obliviously short-circuited through the grand jury process. The more I think about it, the more staggering prosecutor Bob McCulloch's decision becomes: To have deprived the Brown family and the citizens of Ferguson a full and public hearing, meaning a jury trial; to have deliberately ignited such raw emotions in a racial tinderbox; and then, just to top it all off, to have staged a whimpering, bellyaching press conference whose self-defensiveness was an embarrassment to watch--a more mishandled "process" would be hard to conjure.
The evidence provided by the prosecutor via grand jury testimony has been characterized by some as "conclusive," which, in legal terms, is essentially meaningless. That is to say, rare is the evidence that can't be credibly disputed by an accomplished attorney, and just as rare is the testimony that can't be cut to pieces by an equally accomplished cross-examiner. But of course grand jury settings don't allow for that kind of adversarial perusal. The process is instead in the controlling hands of the prosecutor, and its results can fairly be deemed to be the prosecutor's wish.
And that's where the Brown family's attorney is winning: In attacking the process, from the dictatorial calling of a grand jury to the prosecutor's inane press conference. Benjamin Crump understands the politics, the emotions, and the seeming unfairness of this case--and he's brilliantly exploiting them all. Bob McCulloch? In the long run he has lost, I'd wager. Crump will get his jury trial, in a federal court of law.