Yesterday a North Carolina grand jury
declined to indict Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer Randall
Kerrick for voluntary manslaughter in connection with the September
14
shooting of Jonathan Ferrell, an unarmed motorist who
apparently was seeking help after an early-morning crash. Kerrick,
who was responding to a burglary report, fired 12 rounds at Ferrell
from a few feet away, striking the 24-year-old former Florida
A&M football player 10 times. Kerrrick said Ferrell was moving
toward him and two other officers and did not stop when instructed
to do so. “The officers gave several verbal commands to ‘get on the
ground, get on the ground,’ at least three commands,” one of
Kerrick’s attorneys
told reporters. “He continued approaching the officers,
advancing toward them.”
Kerrick, who had been on the force three years at the time, was
charged with voluntary manslaughter later that same day. The
Charlotte Observer reports
that Police Chief Rodney Monroe and his top commanders made the
unusually swift decision after watching a 15-second video of the
encounter captured by a camera mounted on a police car.
The grand jurors asked North Carolina Attorney General Roy
Cooper, who is handling the case because the local district
attorney used to work with Ferrell’s lawyers, to “submit a bill of
indictment to a lesser-included or related offense.” That request
is puzzling for a couple of reasons. Assuming the shooting was not
justified (which is for the jury at Kerrick’s trial to determine),
it is hard to see how it would not amount to voluntary
manslaughter, which North Carolina
defines as “the unlawful killing of a human being by an
intentional act.” There is no dispute that Kerrick shot Ferrell on
purpose or that the gunshots killed him. If Kerrick reasonably
believed shooting Ferrrell was necessary to prevent death or
serious bodily harm, the shooting was justified as an act of
self-defense. But if not, how could it be anything but voluntary
manslaughter? It does not seem to meet the criteria for involuntary
manslaughter, which is “the unintentional killing of a human being
by an unlawful act not amounting to a felony, or by an act done in
a criminally negligent way.” In any case, if Ferrell were
charged with voluntary manslaughter (a Class D felony with a
presumptive sentencing range of 51 to 64 months), the jury would
still have the
option of finding him guilty of involuntary manslaughter (a
Class F felony with a presumptive sentencing range of 13 to 16
months).
When police officers are accused of wrongdoing, their bosses
tend to defend them or reserve judgment until an investigation is
completed, which generally takes weeks or even months. The fact
that the police department in this case quickly decided that a
manslaughter charge was appropriate suggests the recording of the
shooting was pretty damning. It is not clear whether the grand
jurors watched the video, which has not been released to the
general public.
Although the basis for the decision in this case is murky, it is
in a sense refreshing to see a grand jury decline to indict someone
for a change. According to Steve Ward, a former prosecutor
interviewed by the Observer, that happens maybe 10 times a
year in Mecklenburg County, where thousands of indictments are
issued each year. Ward said he had never heard of a grand jury
requesting a lesser charge. The rubber-stamp
tendencies of modern grand juries makes it hard to take them
seriously as check against prosecutorial power.
Cooper, the attorney general, now has the option of complying
with the request for a lesser charge or asking again for the same
indictment. Two grand juries are empaneled at any given time in
Mecklenburg County, serving on alternate weeks. Cooper could even
go back to the same grand jury. Twelve votes are needed for an
indictment, and several of the grand jury’s 18 members were absent
yesterday. Cooper said “it would be in the best interest of justice
to resubmit this case to a full grand jury, which we plan to do as
soon as possible.”
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