On December 4, 2014, St. Thomas Law Professor Jay Silver’s opinion piece was published in the Washington Post. The piece proposed a law requiring the appointment of special prosecutors to handle cases against police. This is in light of recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island, NY in which grand juries ruled against indicting police officers whose actions, in both incidents, had deadly consequences.
Professor Silver argued, “there is an inherent conflict of interest in giving local prosecutors so much control over the decision whether to charge police for allegations of bias or excessive use of force – and a compelling need for an independent special prosecutor to handle such cases from start to finish.”
