The Youtube video police investigation into the shooting of Oscar Grant concluded that Grant was restrained with both arms behind his back when Johannes Mehserle shot him. The reason Mehserle is being charged with murder is that his actions meet the California definition in that the killing was a "deliberate unlawful act." Or in other words, when you fire a gun at someone who is lying restrained with his face in the ground, what else do you expect to happen? The taser argument is the kind of longshot that would only work with the substantial weight of racial bias leveraging in Mehserle's favor, tasers these days are smaller and more lightweight than guns. The Chronicle lists the possible charges the DA could have/will go with:
First-degree murder: A premeditated, intentional killing without provocation. Sentence: 25 years to life in prison, with up to 25 additional years for use of a gun. If racially motivated, punishable by death or life in prison without parole.
Second-degree murder: An unplanned but intentional killing without provocation. Sentence: 15 years to life, with up to 25 additional years for use of a gun.
Voluntary manslaughter: A killing committed because of a sincere but unreasonable belief that the victim was about to inflict death or serious injury. Sentence: three to 11 years in prison, with up to 10 additional years for use of a gun.
Involuntary manslaughter: A killing committed by grossly negligent acts that show a disregard for human life. Sentence: two to four years in prison, with up to 10 additional years for use of a gun.
They also go through a number of arguments for the defense, but all of them, excepting the possibility that Mehserle accidentally pulled the trigger, rely on the implicit presumption that Grant was so black and scary that Mehserle just didn't know what to do.
What makes this case really extraordinary though, is that it's being prosecuted at all. The police in California kill 100 people a year, but charges happen so rarely that none of the law enforcement officials interviewed by the Chronicle could actually recall a time when an officer was actually charged with anything after shooting someone in the line of duty. California is a state with more than 35 million people, so statistically speaking, the likelihood of being killed by a police officer in California is not very high. Still, it seems odd that out of a hundred killings a year, no officer in recent memory has ever been criminally liable until now.
At the same time, that makes the argument that prosecuting a police officer for killing a restrained, unarmed man lying face down on the floor would not have a negative deterrent effect on policing. These guys get a lot of leeway to do their jobs, and I'm guessing it's only because of the extraordinary circumstances of this case -- particularly the Internet video, that Mehserle is being charged in the first place.
-- A. Serwer
