did you expect anything different???? Original Article Posted on Sun, May. 22, 2005 Newspaper: No charges filed in 20 years of Milwaukee inquests MILWAUKEE - In 20 years of inquests into police shootings in Milwaukee County, no officer has ever been criminally charged, a newspaper's review found. As the latest Milwaukee police inquest is set to begin Monday into the death of Wilbert J. Prado, lawmakers, victims' families, and even a veteran prosecutor acknowledge that many of the inquests are futile and in need of change. The review by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found only two inquest verdicts in the past 20 years in which juries did not completely clear officers: _Officer Byron Andrews said 24-year-old Antonio Davis tried to run him down with a car before Andrews accidentally shot and killed him in 1998. Several witnesses called the shooting deliberate. Jurors ruled the death an accident but noted that they believed Andrews showed severe negligence. The district attorney's office declined to file charges. _An inquest jury in June 2003 rejected a self-defense argument by Officer Brian Switala of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police, who shot and killed Joseph Bauschek in the back after a car chase. Switala testified he feared Bauschek would run him over, but the jury said it wasn't an accident. It said there wasn't enough evidence for a charge. In an inquest, unlike at a trial, only the district attorney is allowed to ask questions or give opening and closing statements. Attorneys for the victims' families are not allowed to try to persuade jurors of the need for charges. The only witnesses are those called by prosecutors. Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann convenes more inquests into police use-of-force deaths than any prosecutor in the state. If the family of the deceased asks for an inquest, McCann complies. That is not the case in other counties. But McCann said he often does not rely on the jury's findings in his decision about whether to file charges. "The public has a right to know what happened. To me, that's the absolute way it should be," said McCann, who also believes inquests should be called whenever people die in police custody or in prison. Tom Hammer, a professor at Marquette University's law school and a former assistant district attorney in Milwaukee, said a public airing of facts can benefit the community. "The thoroughness of the presentation can demonstrate the sincerity of the prosecutor in getting to the bottom of the circumstances of a death," he said. But the local lawyers who have represented families in the vast majority of police brutality cases - and who have won millions in judgments - say that isn't happening. "I've never seen a prosecutor make a righteous attempt to arm a jury with the information they would need to reach the difficult conclusion that a police officer committed a criminal act," Merrick Domnitz, who has been practicing for 28 years, told the newspaper. Added attorney Mark Thomsen: "Too often, the district attorney's office is trying to justify the shootings. The district attorney's job isn't to cover up and protect the department, it's to protect all the citizens of the county." Janice Thurman, the mother of Clarence Michael Thurman III, who was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer after he tried to steal the officer's lawn mower, believes the inquest into her son's death only served to protect the Milwaukee Police Department. Officer Keith B. Miller testified that he feared for his life when he fired the fatal shot after chasing Thurman, 25. He hit him in the head with his gun and kicked him in the groin before he said his gun dropped on the ground and Thurman picked it up. Miller said he got the gun back, then fatally shot Thurman in the chest. The jury did not recommend charges and none were filed. The family questioned why Miller drew his weapon over a lawn mower and why he didn't call for on-duty officers to arrest Thurman. The city settled a civil suit for $150,000. Attorney Willie Nunnery tells his clients not to bother seeking inquests. Nunnery represents the family of Larry Jenkins, who was unarmed when he was fatally shot by Milwaukee Police Officer John Bartlett in September 2002. "All of them have come back the same way. Justifiable. Police justification," said Larry's mother, Debra Jenkins. "Why put myself through that? Why put his children through that? I've been through enough." Two Milwaukee Democrats, state Reps. Annette Polly Williams and Pedro Colon, are drafting legislation that would give victims' families more say in the inquests and require that they be run by special prosecutors who don't work with the officers involved. McCann supports the proposal. "The concern in Milwaukee is that there's a lot of police shootings, and some of them are marginally justified," Colon said. "I think Mike McCann has been as fair as he can be within the system, but the statutes don't allow a truly fair proceeding." Similar legislation has failed to pass in previous sessions. http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/may05/328221.asp Editorial: Truth as the inquest goal From the Journal Sentinel Posted: May 23, 2005 Inquests should be about the pursuit of truth. But there is reason to believe that, when they involve a police shooting, they are mostly about smoothing roiled waters and perhaps shaming a public agency into making changes. Advertisement In fact, the public can hardly be faulted if it believes that inquests are stacked against a finding that a police officer has committed a crime. On Monday, Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann correctly convened an inquest into the death of Wilbert J. Prado, shot by Milwaukee police officer Alfonzo Glover. Glover alleges that Prado hit him with his car and that he thought Prado was reaching for a weapon. McCann acknowledged in a Journal Sentinel story on Sunday by Gina Barton that he views inquests not so much as investigative tools but as a public airing that may result in policy changes. OK, if such changes are needed, this is indeed a good thing. But the public also needs to be confident that this airing has some more concrete purpose to the matter at hand: In cases involving police, whether there is cause to believe the shooting was criminal. And it needs to believe that such a finding is at least possible. Gnawing at confidence is the fact that an analysis by Barton revealed that no inquest into police shootings in Milwaukee County in the past 20 years has resulted in criminal charges against a police officer. It's entirely possible that this is because no charges were warranted, though two inquest juries have suggested negligence or rejected a self-defense claim. But we believe the track record suggests that improvements in the inquest process are needed. A bill currently under consideration in the state Legislature would do that. The problem is that inquests, strictly speaking, are not adversarial. Only the district attorney's office asks questions and requests subpoenas from the court. The family's representatives cannot. And there is also the perception out there, right or wrong, that district attorney's offices and police departments work so closely together that there is little or no desire to prosecute officers in any case. Two Milwaukee Democrats, Reps. Pedro Coln and Annette "Polly" Williams, introduced a bill that would remedy this. It would remove from district attorneys the authority to convene inquests involving police officers and give that authority to the state attorney general or a special prosecutor appointed by the attorney general. Such inquests could not be held in secret and would have to be heard by a jury instead of just by the court, as is now a possibility. And the family could be represented at inquests by an attorney able to cross-examine witnesses and ask the court to subpoena witnesses. McCann says he supports the basic concept behind the legislation, but has some concerns about the details. We see room for compromise here. We are not predicting here an outcome in the Prado inquest. We're confident facts will get an honest airing before the jury. But we are suggesting that truth can have a better chance of surfacing even in honest airings with reasonable inquest changes.