A grand jury has indicted two former Uvalde school police officers in the botched law enforcement response to the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school that left 19 children and two teachers dead, two Texas state government sources with knowledge of the indictment told CNN Thursday.
Generally speaking, any person can take anyone to court for any reason, and any prosecutor can charge anyone for any reason.
Once it gets to court is where the “but your honor the Supreme Court said X Y Z” comes into it. And in a lot of cases that’ll get you off, and in a lot of cases that will mean the prosecutor won’t even try because the law is so clear that it would just be a waste of everyone’s time to make the attempt. But, the circumstances of the case and a compelling counter argument can make that not the only outcome, and the judge and jury have a lot of leeway up to and including “hey you know what I think the Supreme Court got it wrong as hell in this case, guilty guilty guilty.”
When it’s fairly applied (which is, certainly, not even close to all the time) it’s actually a very good system.
Wasn’t it already decided that police are not obliged to help anyone? How can this go anywhere?
Generally speaking, any person can take anyone to court for any reason, and any prosecutor can charge anyone for any reason.
Once it gets to court is where the “but your honor the Supreme Court said X Y Z” comes into it. And in a lot of cases that’ll get you off, and in a lot of cases that will mean the prosecutor won’t even try because the law is so clear that it would just be a waste of everyone’s time to make the attempt. But, the circumstances of the case and a compelling counter argument can make that not the only outcome, and the judge and jury have a lot of leeway up to and including “hey you know what I think the Supreme Court got it wrong as hell in this case, guilty guilty guilty.”
When it’s fairly applied (which is, certainly, not even close to all the time) it’s actually a very good system.
Even if it’s just a gesture, those people deserve more than they got.