Missouri law could protect Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson As The Christian Science Monitor points out, not everyone agrees that Wilson should be taken into custody. That divide can even been seen among law professors within the same university.
The Monitor quotes another Harvard law professor who says, "We should not arrest [Officer Darren Wilson] until there's a substantial level of proof of criminality, even if it appeared that the police acted improperly."
But opinions aside, there are also some practical obstacles to moving ahead with any prosecution of Wilson.
Missouri's Defense of Justification statute gives police officers broad authority to use deadly force in cases when, "He or she reasonably believes that such deadly force is necessary to protect himself, when he reasonably believes that such use of deadly force is immediately necessary to effect the arrest" and when the subject "May otherwise endanger life or inflict serious physical injury unless arrested without delay."
It's the same law that was invoked in 2000 after two unarmed men were shot and killed by police at a Berkeley, Mo., Jack in the Box.
