CAUSE Files Amicus Letter with Supreme Court
Issue Concerns Prosecution of Special Agent
Immediately subsequent to the shooting, CAUSE Legal Defense Fund (LDF) arranged for a panel attorney to respond to the scene to represent Agent Walker. The panel attorney continued to represent Agent Walker through the criminal investigation and grand jury proceeding.
When an indictment was returned, LDF appointed Craig Brown, a Stanford Law School graduate with nearly thirty years of experience in criminal law to represent Agent Walker in the trial court. Ultimately, based on the Attorney General's assessment of the criminal case, the State of California agreed to pay for Agent Walker's defense. However, CAUSE continues to provide support to Agent Walker and today filed a friend of the court brief with the California Supreme Court on his behalf.
The Petition for Review seeks to set aside the indictment and concerns the refusal of the prosecuting attorney to allow the grand jury to hear expert evidence on the the training of peace officers and its effect on the split-second decision to use lethal force. The prosecutor also instructed the grand jury to use a reasonable person instead of a reasonable officer standard in determining whether the use of force was proper and to consider whether they, as reasonable people, would have used lethal force.
Should the Supreme Court in its descretion accept review, the issue to be decided will be whether the grand jury proceedings were flawed as a result of the failure to allow in evidence and provide appropriate instructions which require the use of force by peace officers be reviewed from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene where force was used.
A copy of the amicus letter is attached below.
Issue Concerns Prosecution of Special Agent
Source: Kasey Christopher Clark, Chief Legal Counsel
Date: 3/21/2005
Immediately subsequent to the shooting, CAUSE Legal Defense Fund (LDF) arranged for a panel attorney to respond to the scene to represent Agent Walker. The panel attorney continued to represent Agent Walker through the criminal investigation and grand jury proceeding.
When an indictment was returned, LDF appointed Craig Brown, a Stanford Law School graduate with nearly thirty years of experience in criminal law to represent Agent Walker in the trial court. Ultimately, based on the Attorney General's assessment of the criminal case, the State of California agreed to pay for Agent Walker's defense. However, CAUSE continues to provide support to Agent Walker and today filed a friend of the court brief with the California Supreme Court on his behalf.
The Petition for Review seeks to set aside the indictment and concerns the refusal of the prosecuting attorney to allow the grand jury to hear expert evidence on the the training of peace officers and its effect on the split-second decision to use lethal force. The prosecutor also instructed the grand jury to use a reasonable person instead of a reasonable officer standard in determining whether the use of force was proper and to consider whether they, as reasonable people, would have used lethal force.
Should the Supreme Court in its descretion accept review, the issue to be decided will be whether the grand jury proceedings were flawed as a result of the failure to allow in evidence and provide appropriate instructions which require the use of force by peace officers be reviewed from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene where force was used.
A copy of the amicus letter is attached below.
Downloads:
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