Deputy assistant general and members of my staff. They are overseeing the federal investigations into the shooting of Michael Brown as well as the investigation we are doing of the Ferguson Police department. I would emphasize we have two investigations ongoing. As i have said many times before and reiterated in my Statement Last night, the departments investigation will continue to be thorough. They will continue to be independent. They remain ongoing. They will be conducted rigorously and in a timely manner so we can move forward as expeditiously as we can to restore trust, to rebuild understanding, and foster cooperation between Law Enforcement and community members. Host joining us to talk about this issue on our set, william yeomans, the former Deputy Attorney general and former acting attorney general for civil rights. He is also a professor at the American UniversityWashington College of the law. Thank you for joining us. Guest it is a pleasure to be here. Ost why two investigations . Guest one is criminal and one is civil. The first is the possibility of federal civil rights charges. That investigation is roceeding. The attorney general has set it up to be independent of the local investigation. It is an investigation into the possibility of a federal charge that would require the government to show officer wilson shot Michael Brown with a specific intent to use more force than reasonably necessary under the circumstances. That is a fairly difficult standard to satisfy. Not impossible, but difficult. The attorney general gave no suggestion of when that investigation might be omplete. You never know where an investigation might lead. That is the first investigation people think about. The second is a civil investigation. That means it would not result in putting anyone in jail. But it could result in significant reform of the Ferguson Police department. It will look at whether ferguson has engaged in a pattern of practice of violating individuals federal rights. That can include a wide range of ctivity. From the way the Ferguson Police department uses force, how they train officers, how the discipline officers, how they relate to the community, whether there is racial profiling involved in how they decide to stop people on the street, all of that. The outcome that will probably happen is the department will complete its investigation. It will sit down with ferguson and try to negotiate an agreement that will address the need for change across the board for the Ferguson Police department. If they reach an agreement, that will probably be entered in court as a dissent decree. Host will department of justice investigators look at the same evidence the grand jury look that . Is there other evidence added to that . Guest we dont know what they might find. They will start with the evidence the ferguson grand jury looked at. All of that has been made available to federal investigators. Much of that was developed with the fbi working alongside with the local investigators. Whether there is more, we dont now at this point. Robert mcculloch, the prosecutor, put all of the evidence they had before the grand jury, which was an unusual procedure. But all of that evidence is now available. He has made it public, another unusual step. How that affects the federal investigation is unclear. It is not certain the federal government will take its investigation to a grand jury. It could decide to do so if it thinks it has enough evidence. Now that all of the evidence from the local grand jury is out there, that means every witness that went into the federal grand jury would have the evidence of the witnesses before, which is not an ideal circumstance for conducting a grand jury. Usually you want the witnesses to come in and have to testify about what they saw, heard, and know about the case. There is a natural tendency to adapt ones testimony to what you think others are saying. It is not that people are intentionally misleading. But sometimes there is a natural tendency. That is not ideal. Host is the criminal investigation done on the ground in ferguson or out of washington . Guest the lead will be the Civil Rights Division in washington. There is a section in the Civil Rights Division as the criminal prosecutions. They will work with the u. S. Attorneys office in st. Louis. The fbi will be involved. The investigation takes place on the ground in ferguson. The final decision as to whether or not to go forward will be made in washington. Host the criminal investigation has a high bar. What kind of evidence would they have to look at to make a ifferent conclusion . Guest it is impossible to say what might make the difference. Let me say about these investigations that they are difficult. Eyewitness testimony is invariably conflicting because these are conflicting circumstances that unfold rapidly. It is helpful if you have a videotape. Successful prosecutions have turned on videotape. We dont have a videotape. Federal investigators will be looking at forensic evidence. They will be looking at the blood, the distances, how people were moving. They will try to reconstruct exactly what happened. They will examine all the witnesses, all of the eyewitnesses, and all of the experts predict will talk to the people that did the autopsies. There were three autopsies. They will probably bring in some of their own experts to evaluate the forensic evidence. The fbi is expert in doing that. It is impossible to say there might be one piece of evidence they could come up with. They will look at the whole situation and decide whether they think there is evidence that would lead a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that officer wilson reacted with the intent to use more force than necessary. Host bill yeomans is here to talk about federal civil rights investigations in light of the ferguson decision. If you have questions about the process, here is your question to ask them. The line for democrats, the line for republicans, the line for ndependents. What is the timeline for these investigations . Guest wise prosecutors never put a time limit on their investigation because you dont know where the evidence will take you and what steps you will have to take. We know a substantial amount of work has been done. The federal government has the advantage of building on that. There has been some suggestion the federal investigation is far along. Beyond that, it is hard to say. I would not think it would go on for many months more. Host as an attorney general, they dont want to prejudge evidence. What processes are in place . Guest you have very expressed prosecutors doing these cases, people who deal with allegations of Excessive Force by police all the time and are familiar with how these investigations proceed. They bring a very experienced and wise eye to the evidence. They will be making the judgment as to whether the evidence is there. Host bill yeomans is our guest. Questions from you. We start with new jersey on the independent line. Caller good morning. I hope you dont cut me off because there are a few comments i would like to make. First of all, i would like to distinguish between social justice, equal justice, and a pretense at justice. To have these civil rights investigations is nothing more than an act of placating. If attorney general holder was really interested in seeking equal justice under the law, he would not have established a too big to jail policy. He would not have engaged in fast and furious. He would not be complicit in the Human Trafficking going on at our borders. As far as president obama is concerned, if he were really concerned and interested in solving the problems in the africanamerican community, he would not be using executive orders to allow the streaming of Illegal Immigrants into our inner cities. Host ok, thanks. Guest i am not here as an administration official. I will say it is hard to fault attorney general holders performance on civil rights. He has been a vigorous supporter of enforcement of the civil rights laws. If you look at the obama administrations record on these cases, the number of prosecutions has increased. What has also increased as the number of civil investigations into Police Conduct. I think it is a fairly strong record. I am not sure what more the caller would have them do. Host pennsylvania, tom, republican line. Go ahead. Caller i think these types of investigations inevitably cloud the facts. The facts of the case are this individual committed a crime and compounded it by trying to assault a Police Officer trying to arrest him. It is disingenuous for people like al sharpton to be making political mincemeat out of the situation because that is ridiculous. We have societal problems that start at the top, one of them being the greed of those that dont want to pay minimum age. When people call in to comment on issues like this, i wish cspan would get in the habit of asking them first, are they registered to vote and do they vote . Host the assertion of clouding effects of these investigations . Guest what i think is important is to recognize what is going on. We all understand the difficult job Police Officers have. They are put in danger on a regular basis. They have to make quick judgments about difficult decisions. We authorize them to use force and give them weapons. That means there has to be imits on the use of force. What cases like this are about is trying to figure out where those limits are. It is important we police the limits or things can get out of control. We have too many shootings in this country, too many police shootings. I think most people would agree. One thing policing experts has done in recent years is do a lot of work on ways to defuse situations, ways to prevent this buildup of tension and anxiety that results inevitably in an outburst of violence. Whether it is on the side of the community or on the side of the police, who pull their weapons too quickly. I think this investigation and the other investigations into Police Conduct are an exercise in trying to make this balance between our need for a safe society, our need to give Police Officers discretion may need to do their jobs, and the need to impose limits on the use of force. Host north carolina, democrats ine, robert. Go ahead. Caller this whole thing about ferguson and the policeman, the policeman created this whole thing himself by going along hollering at someone walking long the road. Dont come holler at me to get the f off the road. There is a negative and a ositive. When two negatives get together, you will get friction. The cop created the friction himself. Guest i think the caller suggests an important point. One of the Police Techniques that has gained a lot of attention and has been fairly successful as Community Oriented policing. That is the notion that officers need to be part of the community. They need to be known to the community. They need to be in the community and not in the community as an occupying force. If you have that kind of policing, i think you are far less likely to have the situations arise. They tend to get defused. People have noted one of the problems with ferguson is the Police Department is overwhelmingly white, and it is policing a majority minority community. Majority africanamerican community. I think there are only three africanamerican officers on the force of over 50 officers. That sets up a situation where there is a lack of community trust. One of the things the Justice Department will be looking at is the lack of diversity in the Ferguson Police department. They will look at the hiring practices that have created that lack of diversity. I think it is important to have a police force that looks like the community it is patrolling in order to win the trust of the community. As a way of preventing crime but also as a way of investigating crime. If the community is more willing to cooperate with police, the police will be more effective. Host the end result of the civil investigation, is that a mandate on the Ferguson Police . Whatever they come up with, they have to do it . Guest yeah, there are various ways to do this procedurally in the end. The traditional pattern is the Ferguson Police department and the Justice Department will sit down at the end of the investigation to engage in egotiations. The department of justice will have specific things they want ferguson to do. They will have lots of experts in policing working on this. They will lay out their demands and talk to ferguson. If they can reach an agreement, the traditional path is to take that to court, have entered as a dissent decree administered by the court. It can last for years while changes are made. Host are you censoring the Police Department for its actions . Guest what youre doing is improving the department. It is based on past actions. The department of justice will have to find ferguson has engaged in a pattern of violating peoples rights. That pattern can depend on any number of things good lack of diversity could be one element of that. The way they engage in patrols on the street. Whether they disproportionally target africanamericans and Law Enforcement activities, whether they adequately train officers on the use of force. Host do Police Unions come into this negotiation . Guest they have to be involved so they will have buyin in the end. The successful implementation of reforms will depend on the cooperation of the police. Host bill yeomans has looked at these things firsthand, not only at the department of justice, but also as a teacher in washington, here to talk about the process of civil rights investigations. Michael from imperial beach, california, you are on next. Go ahead. Caller i was wondering if you could explain to us regular people about grand juries. I have gotten jury duty butters, showed up, got no pay. I have heard grand jury people get paid and are on for months at a time. How does the system figure out who is going to get a letter saying you are able to serve on a grand jury . Thank you, sir. Guest grand jury selection is controlled by state law and varies somewhat. It is the same way people get selected for regular juries in court. The jurisdiction will use voter olls, statistics, all of that, and come up with a list of people available to serve on a grand jury. The selection tends to be andom. If you get one of those letters, it is the luck of the draw. Let me say a couple of words about grand juries. One is grand juries sit for a long time. They can sit for months. They hear more than one case. A grand jury will sit often once a week. The prosecutor will use that same grand jury to present a number of different criminal cases over the course of their service. In the course of one session, they may be hearing evidence about several different cases. The usual grand jury practice is very different from the way this grand jury was conducted. Usually prosecutors are very much in charge. The prosecutor brings in a couple of witnesses, usually Police Officers who summarize the evidence. It is presented to the grand jury. The prosecutor presents an indictment, urges the adoption of the indictment, and the grand jurors vote. In this case, the prosecutor simply presented all of the evidence. Did not take a stand on whether or not there should be an indictment. That process has been praised and criticized. The criticism has gotten less notice. It is a very unusual thing to do. It throws and all the evidence hat my command to a trial, but it doesnt without the advocacy framework we usually have in trials. There is no attorney on one side arguing that side and one on the other side arguing that side. There are no defense lawyers in the grand jury. There is the prosecutor. If the prosecutor is not taking a position, the grand jury can be a little at sea, i think. This is a procedure that is unusual and has come under criticism. Host this is off of twitter. How often does the d. O. J. Find it necessary to investigating officer . Guest i dont have a number of how often d. O. J. Investigates, but there are a lot of shootings. The fbis most recent statistics show 461 Police Killings in the last year. Everyone acknowledges that is underreported because it depends on voluntary reporting from local jurisdictions. The number is probably at least double that. Of that number, the vast majority are justified. It is a fairly small number that get sent through the serious criminal investigation process. All of them are investigated. Every department investigate shootings. The local prosecutor looks to see if theres something that needs to be pursued. The Justice Department is overseeing the process to see if there needs to be further investigation. Host he follows up by saying, is ferguson an outlier . Guest i would not say an outlier. It got a lot of attention. On its face, it looks like a tragedy. It is a tragedy. It is natural for there to be followup by local investigators and the federal government. Host to follow up on your point you were making about the grand jury, the Washington Post said almost 100 of the time grand juries indict people they are investigating. Guest in the overwhelming majority, there is an indictment because the prosecutor is suggesting indictment. The prosecutor will lay the indictment before the grand jury and have them government. Hat did not happen here. Apparently, the prosecutor laid out five possible indictments and did not urge the grand jury to go with any of those. Some said that sent a strong signal the prosecutor did not want an indictment because it differs so radically from the way that grand jury had been dealing with other cases. Host here is ruby in missouri, democrats line. We do have a line for missouri residents. O ahead. You are