Can you research this and cite examples
Consider the case of Derek Chauvin.
Chauvin exhibited no stupidity at all. His actions were in line with his training, as well as current case law.
Yet he will be convicted of something, and the reason for the conviction will be to quell the angry mobs rather than because the law and the facts were being correctly interpreted.
Oheremicus is Rocklin Wolley.
http://www.bikernet.com/pages/October_23_2003_Part_2.aspxBIKERNET COP CONVICTION STUDY-- Bad Cop: Convicting a cop, nearly impossible... California - It's been more than three decades since a police officer faced criminal charges for fatally shooting someone in Santa Clara County.
As a county grand jury considers this week whether to charge a San Jose officer in the July shooting death of a Vietnamese woman, the long-ago case of former officer Rocklin Woolley illustrates the long odds involved in trying an officer for killing in the line of duty.
"It's always hard for a jury to convict an officer, particularly in our county, where the public has a high opinion of police,'' said Dave Davies, a retired prosecutor who unsuccessfully sought to convict Woolley of felony manslaughter.
Woolley's case bore many similarities to the July 13 shooting of Bich Cau Thi Tran by San Jose police officer Chad Marshall. Both shootings drew public outrage and involved victims who were not white. The officers said they acted in self-defense and were accused of overreacting with deadly force to a harmless threat.
But what is especially telling about the failed prosecution of Woolley is that in some ways, his behavior seems more difficult to justify than that of Marshall, the officer in the Tran case. While Marshall faced a woman wielding a large, sharp instrument -- which turned out to be a vegetable peeler -- Woolley shot an unarmed man who was running away from him.
Woolley was a 27-year-old patrol officer when he stopped motorist John Henry Smith Jr., 37, for allegedly making an illegal U-turn Sept. 19, 1971. Smith, a black IBM research technician on his way home from a date, angrily protested the traffic stop when two off-duty officers who lived nearby happened on the scene.
Police said Smith threatened the officers with a tire iron. Woolley said he tried to subdue Smith with tear gas, then sent his police dog after him as he slipped free and fled toward an apartment complex.
As Smith reached the apartments, Woolley fired a single shot from his .45-caliber pistol, killing the unarmed man. Woolley later said he acted in self-defense, fearing Smith would arm himself once inside the apartments.
Community tension prompted calls for outside investigations. Two months later, a grand jury indicted Woolley on charges of manslaughter and using illegal tear gas.
At Woolley's trial, Davies told jurors the unarmed Smith posed no threat when he was shot. There was evidence Woolley threatened to kill Smith for suggesting he would sue over being tear-gassed. And officers said Smith had brandished a tire iron, but the tire iron turned out to fit one of their cars, not Smith's.
Then-Police Chief Robert Murphy said afterward that he no longer believed Woolley was justified in the shooting. Woolley, who was later fired along with another officer, lives in Placerville and declined comment. The city paid $30,000 to settle lawsuits on behalf of Smith's three children.
Though other fatal police shootings have been controversial since then, none resulted in charges against the officers, let alone convictions. Officials declined calls for an open grand jury hearing into the 1976 shooting of unarmed Latino bartender Danny Trevino by two San Jose officers.
The first such open hearing was held 20 years later over the 1996 death of Gustavo Soto Mesa, a suspected drunken driver fatally shot in the back as he ran from a sheriff's deputy. The grand jury declined to charge the deputy, who said his gun fired accidentally.
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