From KMOV4:
McCloskeys indicted, grand jury adds charges of tampering with evidence
A grand jury indicted Mark and Patricia McCloskey Tuesday on charges of exhibiting guns at protesters in a June incident in their neighborhood and added a charge of tampering with evidence for both members of the couple.
Mark and Patricia McCloskey had previously been charged with felony counts of exhibiting weapons–for pointing guns at protestors outside their central west end home. They have long maintained they were protecting themselves and their property from people hurling threats.
The grand jury also added a count for each of them: of tampering. This, News 4 learned, stems from the pistol held by Patricia McCloskey and later turned over to police by attorney Al Watkins.
That gun, Watkins said, had been rendered inoperable but a report obtained by News 4 from the St Louis Police Crime Lab showed that a prosecutor had instructed the examiners to re-assemble it correctly.
Missouri Statues:
Title XXXVIII – Crimes and Punishment; Peace Officers and Public Defenders
Chapter 571 – Weapons Offenses
Section 571.030 Unlawful use of weapons — exceptions — penalties.
Universal Citation: MO Rev Stat § 571.030 (2019)
*571.030. Unlawful use of weapons — exceptions — penalties. — 1. A person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons, except as otherwise provided by sections 571.101 to 571.121, if he or she knowingly:
(4) Exhibits, in the presence of one or more persons, any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner; or
(5) Has a firearm or projectile weapon readily capable of lethal use on his or her person, while he or she is intoxicated, and handles or otherwise uses such firearm or projectile weapon in either a negligent or unlawful manner or discharges such firearm or projectile weapon unless acting in self-defense
5. Subdivisions (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), and (10) of subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to persons who are engaged in a lawful act of defense pursuant to section 563.031.
IANAL, but it seems pretty cut and dry that what they were charged with doesn’t apply if they were engaged in lawful self-defense.
This means that the grand jury was convinced that the McCloskeys were not engaged in legal self-defense when a mob broke down the gate to their property and marched across their private front walk shouting threats.
The defense was not allowed to make arguments before the grand jury, so I doubt the partisan, Soros funded, hack prosecutor explained this, so I really hope that this is either dismissed by the judge or they are found not guilty at trial.
Armed resistance to the mob must be recognized as self-defense. Blocking that has been the Democrat’s position since Reconstruction when they sent mobs of white supremacists to yards of free blacks. They prohibited armed self-defense against the mob then and now they are trying to stop armed self-defense against the current crop of violent racist mobbing Democrats.
It would seem that the Defense just has to convince the judge, or the jury if it goes forward, that these clearly weren’t “protesters”. And that any reasonable person would feel threatened by 50+ people surrounding their home. Especially since by the time of this incident there had been nonstop news coverage of “protesters” indiscriminately burning down buildings.
And on the tampering charge wouldn’t the burden be on the prosecutor to prove that the pistol was in fact operative at the time of the incident instead of having possibly been inoperable the entire time? Otherwise the prosecutor’s office would actually be on the hook for tampering with evidence and filing a false report.
Everyone seems to forget the old saw that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich. In function a grand jury does what the prosecutor asks. There is no defense given, except in special circumstances. Therefore this is a expected result.
Government governs with the consent of the governed, even if it’s only implicit consent.
Should the governed lose confidence in the government, that consent can be withdrawn. Incidents like this are an example of how that confidence can be shaken, specifically, when people stop believing deep down “the system” may make mistakes but it tries to be fair to all.
Well…
(IANAL warning)
Technically, if you follow the letter of the law, a crime was committed. The flow goes something like this:
1. Did they brandish firearms? That is illegal.
2. Unless… their actions were justified or excusable under the following (a.b.c.) exceptions.
The problem here is that no one bothered moving to question #2.
From the statute:
1. A person commits the offense of unlawful use of weapons,…
Boom! Right there, violation of the law because this subparagraph
(4) Exhibits, in the presence of one or more persons, any weapon readily capable of lethal use in an angry or threatening manner; or
was in fact what happened.
However, the rest of paragraph 1 has not yet been considered.
…except as otherwise provided by sections 571.101 to 571.121,…
which means you have to go to those sections of the law to find out exactly what the exceptions are.
Got this bit of wisdom from the attorney (DA’s office) briefing during my latest CCW class. Brandish a deadly weapon, and you have broken the law, UNLESS… Since the Grand Jury likely did not hear about the reasons why a couple might have displayed their firearm in a threatening manner, the jury had to assume this was done without a reasonable justification.
When this goes to trial (if it goes to trial), the defense lawyer will shred the arguments, and if they have any balls, they will get the lawyer arguing the case in front of the grand jury censured or disbarred.
CBMT is right. However, the State Attorney has to sign the charging affidavit. At the bottom of that affidavit, there is a clause there that reads the following (or similar wording):
Based on my investigation, including review of the documents obtained by subpoena and testimony from the witnesses, it is the belief that Your Affiant has probable cause to believe and does believe that (defendant) committed the violations of Count 1 – (list offense and State Statute) Count 2 – (List offense and State Statute)
Deliberately leaving out exculpatory evidence is malfeasance at least, and perjury at worst. Too bad no one ever does anything about it.
I’m looking forward to the pardon promised to them.
There’s an easy answer to corrupt Grand Juries and DA’s. It rhymes with ‘drag them out of their homes and hang them from the nearest lamppost.”
Normally, I wouldn’t even imagine such a thing would be necessary in America, but as we’ve seen so clearly over the last four years (and much earlier in some places), large swathes of ‘America’ quite clearly aren’t.