Yet how many times have you ever heard of a DA failing to get a grand jury indictment and still pursuing a murder case against the accused? I'm fairly certain that it is NOT the norm in American jurisprudence for the Office of the District Attorney to disregard the findings of a convened grand jury and press ahead with an indictment anyway.
???
A Grand Jury returned an indictment of second degree murder.
That sounds less like pursuing justice and a lot more like advancing an agenda. Too much of that usually finds a DA in the same boat as Mike Nifong.
Do not confuse prosecutorial zeal with wrong doing such as withholding material information.
Lessler made Fish out to be an vigilante assassin of sorts just itching to unload on some unsuspecting Joe because he was carrying a 10mm with JHP rounds.
If you still believe that that is an exception and not the rule, you are not very familiar with the trial process. Prosecutors routinely paint decent citizens who have, through poor judgment, ignorance, or simple oversight, run afoul of a tax filing or accounting classification issue in public financial reporting as evil, greedy, dishonest, people having deliberately committed fraud. And busy people whose recollection five years after the fact differs from or omits a very minor detail somewhere in four thousand pounds of documents are made out to be completely dishonest liars.
That's the way the system works.
And the Muh's defense team will likely portray them as responsible, upstanding, decent citizens of the republic who somehow misjudged what they reasonably thought to be a terrifying invasion by dangerous persons.
If you are ever on trial, you can expect to be described in a manner that you would never expect, and it will likely change the way you are seen by a lot of people.
The thing to take away from the Fish case, in my opinion, is that
absent the existence of favorable evidence or corroborating testimony or both, what is seen by the "good guy" as a "good shoot" (LEO jargon, I think, and I do not like it for civilian application) may not be seen that way by investigating officers, the charging authority, the county prosecutor, a grand jury, or a trial court jury, or perhaps all of the foregoing.
Think about it. One citizen shoots another. That fact is not in question. He then contends that he reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury, and that the use of deadly force was immediately necessary as his only means of protecting himself.
Won't every killer be expected to make that claim? Why should he be believed? Well, under the system, it is his duty to provide evidence showing that his actions were justified under the law. His version of what happened is unlikely to suffice.
That's why Mas Ayoob recommends being the first to call the police, pointing out the evidence and the witnesses, and making no statements at the time.
And if there are no witnesses? Well, it just might be--probably will be--best to run, not walk, from trouble, even if no retreat is legally required in the jurisdiction at hand.
