Submitted by poliscijunki t3_yyxrep in nyc
Comments
tyen0 t1_iwziwj1 wrote
> Mr. Bragg said that he could not allow the case to go forward. He said that he had “reasonable doubt of whether Ms. McCarter stabbed Mr. Murray with the requisite intent to support a conviction of murder in the second degree.” > > He wrote that he could not in good conscience “allow a prosecution to proceed to trial and ask a jury to reach a conclusion that I have not reached myself.”
Am I missing something? He is acting as the jury himself?
> Mr. Bragg does not have the power to dismiss the indictment himself. He recommended that the judge do so
At least he is not pretending to be the judge, also.
JonasQuin42 t1_ix06192 wrote
You are missing something. The DA’s job is to argue that the person on trial did a particular crime. Are you seriously suggesting that if that office does not think that crime happened, they should have to try and prove it anyways? One of the core functions of the DA is to look at the evidence collected by police and then make an assessment as to what charges are appropriate.
The DA looking at a situation as more information becomes available and deciding that the charges don’t actually hold up seems like the system working out in the end.
tyen0 t1_ix0l6e5 wrote
I guess I was conflating it a bit with defense attorneys that have to defend the client regardless of what they believe the truth is. But I am struggling with your line of reasoning that the prosecutor has to believe they are guilty beyond reasonable doubt to even argue the case. If they are unsure, wouldn't it make sense to have a trial to get to the truth - or as close as possible?
JonasQuin42 t1_ix0raf6 wrote
On mobile so please take the suggestion to Google “prosecutorial discretion” as me honestly just trying to give you the info.
The basic concept is that a prosecutor/DA is supposed to be able to look at the full scope of the facts, and adjust the states response to a violation of the law. In this case that means that the DA is looking at the case and does not believe that there is a good case for arguing that the accused committed Murder 2. If that is the case, then is is both a waste of time and effort to bring a trial for that charge, and a an injustice to continue the trial.
To use a more absurd version of this, this is the same feature of the system that would be use if for instance, a cop randomly arrested the first person they found at the scene of a murder and accused them. It is intended as a filter for all sorts of reasons where we don’t want or need the full expense of a trial.
This is also happening on a broad scale all the time. I remember years ago cities started passing laws to deprioritize enforcement and prosecution of personal use quantities of weed.
tyen0 t1_ix0ycw2 wrote
Thanks for the explanatory effort. Obviously a part of our world I'm not familiar with aside from tv/movies. I always get kicked out at voir dire.
sysyphusishappy t1_iwyar56 wrote
> but that minutes after he choked her, she held a knife in a defensive posture and he charged
Literally the "I was just holding the knife and he ran into the blade!" "Your honor I was just holding my fist out and he smashed his face into my fist level and over again!" defense. Leftist identity politics are now requiring everyone to not question obvious lies.
Compare this to the way Bragg treated the bodega worker who was getting the shit kicked out of him by someone and stabbed him in self defense. Bragg tried to throw the book at him. A criminal justice system that treats people differently based on immutable charactierics is evil.
StrngBrew t1_iwzsliv wrote
> Compare this to the way Bragg treated the bodega worker who was getting the shit kicked out of him by someone and stabbed him in self defense. Bragg tried to throw the book at him.
Actually no, Bragg did exactly the same he did in this case. He asked a judge to dismiss the case.
> In a motion to dismiss the case filed Tuesday morning, the district attorney’s office said that it would be unable to “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was not justified in his use of deadly physical force.” The case will not be presented to a grand jury.
GoPikachuGo1 t1_ix14eq7 wrote
After massive public backlash, sure.
StrngBrew t1_ix178nq wrote
Again, public reaction to the case in this story also played a part. Always does
GoPikachuGo1 t1_ix17kig wrote
Bragg is a slug.
sysyphusishappy t1_iwzxoll wrote
He only dismissed the case against the bodega worker after massive public pushback. He initially tried to charge him with murder.
StrngBrew t1_iwzygnl wrote
This case garnered public backlash as well.
But either way that’s how the Justice system works. The police arrested the man and the DA made the decision not to charge him.
Both cases were treated the same and had the same outcome. You said to compare them.
GoPikachuGo1 t1_ix149zg wrote
So he was choking her, he stopped choking her, she grabbed a knife and he...ran onto the blade and got himself stabbed to death?
sutisuc t1_ix0by81 wrote
Finally. Long overdue. If Bragg was half as radical as this sub makes him out to be he would have moved to dismiss the case upon being sworn in instead of waiting almost a year to do so.
Honest_Ice_7239 t1_ix4wi1g wrote
This is a very bad precedent. So a woman can kill a man and just claim that he was attacking her. Awesome
poliscijunki OP t1_iwwve17 wrote
The Manhattan district attorney’s office will halt the prosecution of Tracy McCarter, a woman charged with murder in 2020 after her estranged husband died in a confrontation with her, according to a letter sent to the judge presiding over the case.
Ms. McCarter’s lawyers have maintained that she did not stab her husband, James Murray, but that minutes after he choked her, she held a knife in a defensive posture and he charged. Her case has become a cause célèbre for activists seeking to draw attention to the perils of domestic violence.
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, had tweeted in support of Ms. McCarter while he was running for the office. But activists were furious when, upon being sworn in, he continued with the prosecution.
In Friday’s letter to the State Supreme Court judge, Diane Kiesel, which was shared with The New York Times by Ms. McCarter’s defense team, Mr. Bragg said that he could not allow the case to go forward. He said that he had “reasonable doubt of whether Ms. McCarter stabbed Mr. Murray with the requisite intent to support a conviction of murder in the second degree.”
He wrote that he could not in good conscience “allow a prosecution to proceed to trial and ask a jury to reach a conclusion that I have not reached myself.”
Mr. Bragg “righted a grievous injustice,” said Sean Hecker, a lawyer for Ms. McCarter, in a statement.
“Tracy McCarter is an innocent survivor of domestic violence who has suffered mightily from a criminal justice system that demands change,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment, other than to say the next court appearance in Ms. McCarter’s case is Nov. 28.
It is highly unusual for a prosecuting office to say that it will not move forward with a murder case after a defendant has been charged, and the move may renew criticism of Mr. Bragg from skeptics who say that his office has been too lenient. The Republican candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin, had pledged to remove Mr. Bragg from office on the basis of that criticism before losing to his Democratic rival, Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Mr. Bragg’s office had attempted to reduce the charges against Ms. McCarter. In May, prosecutors pursued an unorthodox arrangement under which Ms. McCarter would have pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and to menacing, while not admitting responsibility. Under the terms of that deal, Ms. McCarter would have been allowed to have the manslaughter plea vacated after a year.
But Justice Kiesel said that plea arrangement was barred by law and rejected it. And in August, she denied prosecutors’ more straightforward request to dismiss the indictment and charge Ms. McCarter with manslaughter. She instead ordered a trial on the murder charge.
That left Mr. Bragg with few choices, he said in his letter.
“At this stage — with the proposed plea and reduced charge foreclosed — the options remaining available to me as district attorney are stark: to proceed or decline to proceed to trial on a charge where I have reasonable doubt. Given those options, I decline to proceed with prosecution of the indictment.”
As his letter acknowledged, Mr. Bragg does not have the power to dismiss the indictment himself. He recommended that the judge do so, though it is unclear how she will respond.