Andrew McCarthy: ‘Rabble-Rousers’ Wanted Wilson Charged …

Twitter is full of comments about the Ferguson grand jury decision that show many writers have no idea about a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution.

Those commentators argue that the grand jury should have charged Police Officer Darren Wilson with a crime for killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown, even if the jurors believed the evidence failed to support an indictment.

Typical of the comments were:

But the first part of the amendment is a requirement that a grand jury issue a legitimate indictment before any defendant is brought to court.

A number of commentators have argued that even if the evidence was insufficient to indict Officer Darren Wilson, justice would have been better served if the grand jury had indicted anyway, former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy wrote Tuesday for National Review.

That way, the reasoning goes, we could have had a public trial in the light of day where everyone could have seen that the case was insufficient. That, we are to believe, would have made it easier for the community to accept the result.

McCarthy, the New York federal attorney who prosecuted the terrorist convicted of trying to destroy the World Trade Center in 1995, added that rabble-rousers wanted Wilson charged with a crime despite the lack of probable-cause evidence.

The Fifth Amendment holds that a person has the right not to be subjected to a public trial i.e., the right not to be indicted unless the state can prove to a grand jury that there is probable cause to believe he committed a crime, McCarthy wrote.

Officer Wilson had a constitutional right not to be indicted in the absence of sufficient evidence. That right to individual liberty outweighs the medias abstract claim that a public trial would serve the public interest.

Arthur Aidala, a defense lawyer and commentator on Fox News, noted that the prosecutions case would never have survived a public trial.

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Andrew McCarthy: 'Rabble-Rousers' Wanted Wilson Charged ...