Leid Stories - Immunity: The Ferguson Prosecutor’s Thanksgiving Gift to Killer Cop? - 11/17/14

Indictment or no, Darren Wilson, the Ferguson Police Department officer who shot dead 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, gets a valuable Thanksgiving gift from the grand jury—immunity.

If there’s no indictment, Wilson immediately will return to active duty, says Police Chief Tom Jackson. If the grand jury does indict, he adds, the officer “most likely” will be terminated, “if it is a felony.”

Under immunity deals typically agreed to by prosecutors, Wilson’s four hours before the grand jury, touted by prosecutor Robert McCullough as an earnest desire to lay bare all the facts of the fatal encounter with Brown, possibly have shielded the officer from prosecution in the current case and in any future cases in which his testimony could substantiate new charges.

Our guest today, “Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr., has litigated and won some of the most contentious criminal and civil-rights cases in New York City in recent years. He explains why a key element in the grand jury’s decision is the immunity deal McCullough might have given Wilson in exchange for Wilson’s testimony.