Does he sum up by saying that Birk isn't a criminal because Birk is a white cop and the victim was a native American?

"To punt a controversial decision to a jury is to abdicate my role as prosecuting attorney. Our role is to review the facts as found by the Inquest Jury and the investigation. We then apply the law of our sate and use sound legal judgment to reach our own conclusion about whether a jury would be justified in convicting a criminal defendant."

An interesting interpretation. If the evidence is lacking, then a jury won't convict anyway and due process is served. Perhaps Satterburg would prefer the victims family's only recourse be civil lawsuits against the city. Great.

@2: King County screwing the city? Shocker.

What @1 said.

@2, a trial may also expose the law as written to further scrutiny by the fact that a prosecution could show that as written, offers law enforcement too much room for discretion as to what is a threat and what is not. And so if the legislature was so inclined to take up the challenge of changing the law, the language of that law should include statements regarding proper procedure to individual police department policy on the use of deadly force. If you do not follow those procedures you subject yourself to the laws of normal citizens.

Its a wee hard reading serious news while jenna haze is staring at me.

@2: Such an approach to prosecution would be a serious breach of ethics. If prosecutors pursue people whom they do not believe to have met the LEGAL threshold for a crime, that is legal harassment. That the prosecution is in line with their personal and popular ideas about the MORAL culpability of the defendant makes it worse, not better. If you want police misconduct such as this to be prosecutable as murder, then lobby the legislature to remove the special criteria for police from the law. Scatterberg describes the legal situation quite clearly on page 1 of the letter.

The law should be changed. Birk got away with murder today. The law is flawed and must be fixed to prevent this from happening again.

I seriously think a lot of people in our Legislature and County/City govt don't get how angry Citizens are over this.

What @8 said.

The pot is boiling and the fire is getting hotter.

On the other hand John T-bird Williams was definitely a criminal. He was perpetually drunk on public, used the side walks for a toilet, and exposed himself to women in public. Most baffling is why he wasn't deported back to Canada. He had no right to even be here.

Sorry. "in public" not that it matters.

@7 is right. The rules of professional conduct prohibit a prosecutor from filing charges if he doesn't believe there's enough evidence. That rule generally works in everyone's favor, because it prohibits prosecutors from filing arbitrarily and "just letting a jury sort it out." That especially works in the favor of certain suspects who, by virtue of their appearance, past history, or potential crime (say sex offenses), may be more likely to be convicted based on a jury's emotional response (rather than evidence).

@10, your "judicating from the street" verdict is death by firing squad? Interesting, please tell me more about the hyperviolent society you strive to create. You'll kill the 'mos on sight too right?

@7: Funny, I thought killing an innocent civilian was the breach of ethics in this case.

#14 came up with a real doozy in the attached document.
"This section states that to impose criminal liability on a police officer, the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officer acted with malice OR in the absence of a good faith belief that deadly force was justified under the law." (caps mine)
Problem, officers?

Thank You Susanswerphone, according to the Jay Treaty, "Native Indians born in Canada are therefore entitled to enter the United States for the purpose of employment, study, retirement, investing, and/or immigration." He was entitled to be here.

@17: oh horrors you reality based person you! For shame, clinging to technicalities like treaty rights. Next you'll say something really crazy. Like there should be equal justice or some such shit. What're you anyway, a commie?

And I'm in the odd position of agreeing with David Wright @7. "If prosecutors pursue people whom they do not believe to have met the LEGAL threshold for a crime" they have no business filing a case. I'll go one step further and say that if they don't realistically believe they can secure a conviction they either seek other charges or drop the case.