All eyes are on the U.S. Department of Justice after last week’s announcement that a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict a police officer in the death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.
Brown was shot and killed Aug. 9 by Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson. The Justice Department launched a criminal inquiry into Brown’s death and a broader civil rights probe into the Ferguson police department.
With the grand jury proceedings over, the Justice Department faces added pressure as the public waits for the outcome of its investigations, said William Yeomans, a former attorney in the department's Civil Rights Division who serves on the faculty at American University Washington College of Law.
“They are the last game in town,” Yeomans said.
But Yeomans and other former federal prosecutors said they didn’t expect the grand jury’s decision to affect how the Justice Department carried out its investigations.
“These are complicated, difficult cases, and the Civil Rights Division will do the kind of thorough and thoughtful investigation that they usually do. That will be true independent of the grand jury’s decision,” said Edward Siskel, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr who served in the White House Counsel’s office and as an associate deputy attorney general.
Read more: http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202677433779/In-Ferguson-Justice-Department-is-Last-Game-in-Town#ixzz3KBnYiqjX
