The pro-crime, anti-police lynch mob has a terrible track record in court. The Philando Castile case is its latest loss. And the Philando Castile case is as good as any of its cases got.
1. Philando Castile, unlike virtually every Black Lives Matter martyr, did not have an extensive criminal record.
2. There is some evidence that the death of Philando Castile was a tragic error of judgment. The Latino police officer in question was let go. I imagine he'll probably never work in law enforcement again.
But the case did not support criminal charges. And so the jury did the right thing.
The evidence included squad car video, but its wide view didn't capture exactly what happened inside the car — leaving jurors to essentially decide whether they believed Yanez when he said Castile had his hand on the gun. Prosecutors questioned whether Yanez had even seen it, and witnesses testified that it was in a pocket of Castile's shorts when paramedics pulled him from the car.
In short, there wasn't sufficient evidence. And the justice system requires proof of guilt. Not a presumption of guilt. And that's what the anti-police lynch mob usually brings to the table. The same protections in criminal justice law that the left loves when it protects criminals, will also protect the police officers they accuse of crimes.
This bizarre double standard in which criminals, not police officers, get every benefit of the doubt, doesn't work once they get their way and police officers are being prosecuted.
The media coverage predictably plays up the fact that there were two African-American jurors and two jury holdouts. There's just one problem. They weren't the same people.
He would not identify the two early holdouts, but said they were not the jury's only two black members. The rest of the jurors were white. None was Latino.
Yanez was charged with second-degree manslaughter, punishable by up to 10 years in prison,
And the jury, including its two African-American members did the right thing.