At approximately noon on Saturday, August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department ("FPD") shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old. The Criminal Section of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") subsequently opened a criminal investigation into whether the shooting violated federal law. The Department has determined that the evidence does not support charging a violation of federal law. This memorandum details the Department's investigation, findings, and conclusions. Part I provides an introduction and overview. Part II summarizes the federal investigation and the evidence uncovered during the course of the investigation, and discusses the applicable federal criminal civil rights law and standards of federal prosecution. Part III provides a more in-depth summary of the evidence. Finally, Part IV provides a detailed legal analysis of the evidence and explains why the evidence does not support an indictment of Darren Wilson.

At approximately noon on Saturday, August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department ("FPD") shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old. The Criminal Section of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") (collectively, "The Department") subsequently opened a criminal investigation into whether the shooting violated federal law. The Department has determined that the evidence does not support charging a violation of federal law. This memorandum details the Department's investigation, findings, and conclusions. Part I provides an introduction and overview. Part II summarizes the federal investigation and the evidence uncovered during the course of the investigation, and discusses the applicable federal criminal civil rights law and standards of federal prosecution. Part III provides a more in-depth summary of the evidence. Finally, Part IV provides a detailed legal analysis of the evidence and explains why the evidence does not support an indictment of Darren Wilson.

The Department conducted an extensive investigation into the shooting of Michael Brown. Federal authorities reviewed physical, ballistic, forensic, and crime scene evidence; medical reports and autopsy reports, including an independent autopsy performed by the United States Department of Defense Armed Forces Medical Examiner Service ("AFMES"); Wilson's personnel records; audio and video recordings; and internet postings. FBI agents, St. Louis County Police Department ("SLCPD") detectives, and federal prosecutors and prosecutors from the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office ("county prosecutors") worked cooperatively to both independently and jointly interview more than 100 purported eyewitnesses and other individuals claiming to have relevant information. SLCPD detectives conducted an initial canvass of the area on the day of the shooting. FBI agents then independently canvassed more than 300 residences to locate and interview additional witnesses. Federal and local authorities collected cellular phone data, searched social media sites, and tracked down dozens of leads from community members and dedicated law enforcement email addresses and tip lines in an effort to investigate every possible source of information.

On August 9, 2014, Officer Darren Wilson of the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department (FDP) shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old. The Criminal Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) (collectively, the Department) subsequently opened a criminal investigation into whether the shooting violated federal law. The Department has determined that the evidence does not support charging a violation of federal law. This memorandum details the Department's investigation, findings, and conclusions. Contents: Introduction; Summary of the Evidence, Investigation, and Applicable Law; Summary of the Evidence; Legal Analysis; Conclusion. This is a print on demand report.

Criminal Procedure and Racial Injustice brings a sustained emphasis on race to the traditional content of criminal procedure. Rather than a wholesale revision of the standard criminal procedure fare, it amply covers all the familiar subject matter areas while integrating into those topics the roles that racial prejudice and racial disparities have played and continue to play in the criminal justice system. For example, the Investigative volume of the book looks deeply into the role that race—mostly implicitly—played not only in the Court’s written decision of Terry v. Ohio but also in the trial and appellate advocacy that produced that decision, including the direct and cross-examinations in the suppression hearing. The Adjudicative volume looks closely at the role that race has played in the makeup of juries in criminal trials, including defense counsel’s ability to pursue voir dire questioning of potential jurors to screen for racial bias; the historical use by prosecutors of peremptory challenges to eliminate Black potential jurors, and the attempt to eliminate that practice by the Supreme Court in Batson v. Kentucky; and the perils of cross-race eyewitness identification in criminal trials. A secondary focus of the book is lawyering—the decisions and tactics of the prosecutors and defense lawyers that undergird the cases in the book. To that end, the plentiful Notes and Questions following the cases provoke thought and discussion not only on the relevant legal doctrine and the racial implications of the doctrine, but also on the choices made by the prosecutors and defense counsel. Benefits for instructors and students: Flexible organization Interesting, timely cases Sophisticated, robust notes and questions following each case Investigative chapters: Police Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment—the scope of the Fifth Amendment privilege; the backdrop for and decision in Miranda v. Arizona; the implementation of Miranda’s custody; interrogation and waiver/assertion components; and the durability of Miranda The Fourth Amendment—the definitions of search and seizure; the “warrant requirement” and its exceptions; and the landmark case of Terry v. Ohio and its legacies for racial profiling, traffic stops, etc. The Exclusionary Rule—the origins of the rule and its exceptions (good faith, attenuation, standing, etc.) and including a section on suppression hearings The Grand Jury—its purported independence, informality, and secrecy; its virtually unlimited power to subpoena witnesses and documents; and grand jury abuse Addressing Police Misconduct—an unconventional chapter exploring the Supreme Court’s resurrection of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as a private remedy for civil rights violations, the victims of which are disproportionately members of minority groups; the Court’s subsequent weakening of that remedy through doctrines such as qualified immunity; and the Department of Justice’s administrative remedy to address a “pattern and practice” of police misconduct under 42 U.S.C. § 14141. This subject has become increasingly important in the Criminal Procedure realm as recent Supreme Court decisions rejecting application of the exclusionary rule have sometimes cited § 1983 as an adequate alternative remedy. Adjudicative chapters: The Right to Counsel and Criminal Defense—including claims for ineffective assistance of counsel and the chronic underfunding of public indigent defense The Prosecution Function—the enormous discretion, power and ethical responsibilities of that office Pleas and Plea Bargaining—which account for the resolution of over 95% of criminal cases without a trial or any substantial judicial involvement The Right to a Jury Trial—including a glimpse at the surprising results generated by an “originalist” perspective on the right Eyewitness Identification—the fallibility of which has become even clearer in the era of demonstrably wrongful convictions Incarceration—including a look at bail/pretrial detention and the racially unequal impacts of the death penalty and the legislative crack/cocaine disparity Two unconventional chapters—Discriminatory Enforcement, which considers, among other things, the high hurdles in making such claims; and The Department of Justice and the Prosecution of Civil Rights Crimes, which broadly examines DOJ enforcement policies from Reconstruction through notable police violence cases of the 21st century

Young people have long used popular culture to explore, define and express who they are. For many, popular culture is also a tool of survival. Gone are the days when proscriptive programs were needed for young people to transition to adulthood. Today, youth culture is communicated through information technology, particularly social media, enabling young people to engage the world. Yet, as always, youth culture is often a cause of concern for adults and policy makers. This collection of new essays focuses on modern youth popular culture. There are such topics as social justice and youth mobilization in Ferguson, Missouri, social media and sexual literacy among LGBT youth, and youth culture's influence on children's sports.

Most murderers and rapists escape justice, a horrifying fact that has gone largely unexamined until now. This groundbreaking book tours nearly the entire criminal justice system, examining the rules and practices that regularly produce failures of justice in serious criminal cases. Each chapter outlines the nature and extent of justice failures in present practice, describing the interests at stake, and providing real-world examples. Finally, each chapter reviews proposed and implemented reforms that could balance the competing interests in a less justice-frustrating manner and recommends one—sometimes completely original—reform to improve the system. A systematic study of justice failures is long overdue. As this book discusses, regular failures of justice in serious criminal cases undermine deterrence and the criminal justice system’s credibility with the community as a moral authority. The damage caused by unpunished crime is immense and, even worse, falls primarily on vulnerable minority communities. Now for the first time, students, researchers, policymakers, and citizens have a resource that explains why justice failures occur and what can be done about them. Confronting Failures of Justice is accessible for use by college freshman through graduate students and law students and is designed to be main text for a course on justice failures, but it could be used in conjunction with other texts in a broad range of courses touching on criminal justice. It presents arguments in a highly-organized fashion and provides dozens of case studies, many with photographs, to gain student interest and to bring the academic discussions to life.