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Missouri Governor declares emergency ahead of grand jury announcement

Missouri Governor declares emergency ahead of grand jury announcement

By Virginia Young, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Citing “the possibility of expanded unrest,” Gov. Jay Nixon today declared a state of emergency and prepared to send the Missouri National Guard to help maintain order in the St. Louis region when a grand jury decision is announced in the Michael Brown case.

Nixon’s executive order puts the St. Louis County Police Department in charge of security in Ferguson “in areas of protests and acts of civil disobedience, should such activities occur.”

The order also establishes a unified law enforcement command consisting of the county police, the St. Louis Police Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol. The agencies will operate together “to keep members of the public safe and protect property while allowing citizens to exercise their constitutional rights,” Nixon said in a news release.

Nixon authorized Stephen Danner, adjutant general of the National Guard, to call portions of the guard into service as needed. The order will expire in 30 days unless extended.

The governor said the National Guard will provide security at command posts, fire stations and other locations, and will also take on duties that free up local officers for community policing.

In a written statement, the county police department said the National Guard “will be used in a support role, therefore allowing uniformed police officers assigned to the unified command to further focus on preserving life, property and allowing all citizens to express their constitutional rights.”

A grand jury has been hearing evidence in the shooting of Brown, 18, who was killed by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. The shooting sparked months of protests.

St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch has said the grand jury’s decision whether to charge Wilson is expected in mid- to late November.

Nixon’s spokeswoman, Channing Ansley, said the governor had no detailed knowledge of when to expect the grand jury decision, other than McCulloch’s public statements.

Ansley said the three agencies in the unified command would operate as “co-equals,” the same way they operated during the recent weekend of resistance that drew protesters from around the country.

“It’s consistent with how they’ve been operating … very effectively in the governor’s view,” she said.

AFP Photo/Michael B. Thomas

DSK Case Dismissal Leaves Few Satisfied

As the dramatic saga that was the Dominique Strauss-Kahn scandal reached its anticlimactic conclusion, people were left without a sense of justice — or definite answers.

Prosecutors filed court papers Monday recommending the case be dismissed, with Assistant District Attorney Joan Illuzzi-Orbon saying, “Our inability to believe the complainant beyond a reasonable doubt means, in good faith, that we could not ask a jury to do that.”

On Tuesday, an appeals court judge rejected Nafissatou Diallo’s request for a special prosecutor, thereby bringing a conclusion to the case and dismissing the charges of attempted rape and a criminal sexual act.

The charges might be going away, but they are poised to have a lasting impact on those involved. As Clyde Haberman wrote in The New York Times:

Fairly or not, Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s career has unraveled. Fairly or not, Ms. Diallo has been labeled a woman of dubious integrity; for all anyone knows, she may yet face deportation. … Fairly or not, the justice system itself has been criticized by an assortment of groups, including representatives of women’s advocacy organizations who protested Monday evening outside the Criminal Courts Building in Manhattan.

The end of the months-long ordeal does not necessarily mean that Strauss-Kahn is innocent; rather, the case fell apart because prosecutors began to doubt Diallo’s testimony as several inconsistencies came to light.

Even with these concerns about Diallo’s testimony, many are left dissatisfied with the charges being dropped instead of proceeding with a trial. Diallo might have lied in the past, but that doesn’t mean that she was not sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn. The main inconsistencies with her testimony involved her description of the encounter itself, whether or not she had been previously raped in her native Guinea, a controversial phone call, and a failure to disclose bank transactions. But many of these perceived inconsistencies could have been the result of poor translations rather than outright dishonesty: The damning phone call in which Diallo supposedly said, “Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money” was incorrectly interpreted, and she actually did not bring up Strauss-Kahn’s wealth at all in the phone conversation. Even so, the original misquoted phone call was far more publicized than the retraction, so the damage to her reputation was done.

Additionally, the DA’s reasons for requesting that the charges be dropped are spurious. As William Saletan wrote in Slate, the DA’s office has made Diallo’s inconsistencies seem more egregious than they actually were: “Having exaggerated the case against Strauss-Kahn, prosecutors are now exaggerating the case against Diallo.”

No person is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. That doesn’t mean they don’t have the right to a fair trial. Whether or not Strauss-Kahn was falsely accused, his future political career has been ruined, and he will forever be stigmatized by the charges. Whether or not Diallo was sexually assaulted, she will not receive justice through a trial by jury. And whether or not the general public believes that the judge was correct in dismissing the charges, very few people are satisfied with the end result here.