GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Shortly after the prosecutor's announcement that the officer who shot and killed Da'Quain Johnson on Feb. 18 would not face charges, I had a conversation with Lew Langham, a Cooley Law School professor and former Michigan State Police detective.
Langham said prosecutors have an obligation not to bring cases forward and charge individuals when they don't believe they can prevail in front of a jury and get a guilty verdict.
"The question becomes, in the final analysis, you have to look at everything in totality of the circumstances and make a decision as as officers and then as a prosecutor later on, whether or not the officers were reasonably justified in firing their weapon based upon the perceived injury, serious bodily injury to themselves and or death, and the prosecutor indicated that he felt that the officers were justified. I don't see anything wrong with that call at all. They're the facts of the case as they've come out. Seem to strongly indicate these officers should not be charged," Langham said.
Grand Rapids
No charges for GRPD officers in shooting death of Da'Quain Johnson
Johnson's family indicated that they would not give up pursuing justice and would try to take this case to the Attorney General's Office.
Langham said there is not a next step in the criminal process.
"I don't think that's going to happen. The AG wouldn't see any more than the prosecutor saw here, and would come up with the same decision. I have no doubt about that. And so this is something that they just won't probably even consider - Consider getting involved in. I mean, it's their call, but I don't, I don't see that even coming close to consideration by the Attorney General's Office," Langham said.
