An Alternative Prosecution Strategy !

Justice in the United States is not certain when a police officer shoots a civilian.   The powerful police unions obstruct both the investigation and the outcome and rarely does the offender face a court.   It is nearing six months since Australian woman Justine Damond called the police to investigate suspicious noises behind her Minneapolis home.  A police car with two officers responded, and when - dressed in her pyjamas - she approached to speak to the police, one of them inexplicably fired his weapon and shot her dead.

The prosecutor has complained that " the investigation has not been done to his satisfaction or even to the expected levels of accuracy"  and there is yet no basis for a prosecution.  The officer who fired the shot has invoked the fifth amendment and refuses to be interviewed and his partner in the car was not being helpful.   Neither had activated their body cameras to record the event.  The Minneapolis police chief has resigned over this matter.

This clearly seems to be a case of stone walling.  The investigation is going slowly and it seems unlikely to reach a conclusion.  The officer who fired the shot is protected by his right to the fifth amendment and may remain silent indefinitely.  Without a conclusion to the investigation, the prosecutor will be unable to lay a charge and put the matter to a court for resolution.

Perhaps the prosecution is approaching this from the wrong angle.  The bullet has been recovered from the deceased's  body and matched to the police officers weapon.   The way is open for the prosecutor to lay a charge of  " feloniously discharging a firearm that caused a death ".

Clearly, this is not a murder case.  The deceased and the police officer are strangers to one another and the reason the officer fired  a shot is as yet unknown, but by laying this charge the culprit is obliged to present a defence to a judge and jury because there is clear evidence that it was a bullet from his weapon that caused a death.

No matter whether it is a police officer or a civilian, when a firearm is discharged that causes a death the person who discharged that firearm has a case to answer.  If there are mitigating circumstances that will be taken into consideration in evaluating both the criminality - and the punishment.

This police officer was issued with a firearm which remained in his care, and that firearm brought about the death of another person.  If that firearm was in the possession of another person at that time the name of that person must be revealed and the reason for that possession stated.  The onus of proof is clearly on the person with control of the weapon to explain its use.

The protection of the fifth amendment remains, but instead of the prosecution needing to prove guilt, the defence now has to prove either innocence, or a reason for pulling that trigger.  The sheer logic of such a prosecution is that it eliminates the human factor in evidence evaluation to shield a guilty colleague.

That is perhaps the only way this particular case will reach resolution !