Andrew McCarthy: The rule of law is collapsing

Bodycam footage shows Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe with Rayshard Brooks

The campaign to erase iconic symbols of American society, culture and history is working, contends a former U.S. prosecutor, because it is "destroying the rule of law that makes possible a civilization worth having."

"Its replacement is the rule of the mob," writes Andrew C. McCarthy, a former assistant U.S. attorney, for the American Spectator.

He points to the capital murder charge against Atlanta police officer Garrett Rolfe in the shooting death of a violent felon who attacked and was still pointing a weapon when he opened fire.

McCarthy acknowledged the case of Rayshard Brooks is tragic but insists that, legally, it is straightforward.

"Brooks was a fleeing felon in possession of a lethal weapon (the stolen Taser), which he used against police. He was a threat to the officers and the community. The shooting was justified," he writes.

But Rolfe is white and Brooks was black, McCarthy points out, and "in the current climate, nothing more is required by the radical left."

"The demagogic narrative of cops hunting down black men is satisfied: don't bother us with the trial, let's get on with the sentence," he says.

McCarthy notes the prosecutor, Paul Howard, is running for re-election while facing multiple allegations of sexual harassment and an ethics investigation for campaign finance irregularities.

Howard calculates that running as anti-cop will serve him best in the wake of the "riotous rancor" that has followed the killing of a black man, George Floyd.

Howard, McCarthy says, has "preposterously" charged Rolfe with felony-murder, a death penalty offense, without waiting for investigators to finish their probe.

It's unlikely, however, that a grand jury "would approve so blatant an abuse of prosecutorial power," writes McCarthy.

"But for progressive prosecutors, overcharging has become a strategy," he says. "The capital murder charge, with the mob baying for blood, puts pressure on the grand jury to indict the police. And if there is an indictment, that puts pressure on a trial jury to convict. Not because of evidence; because of intimidation."

In the case of the Minneapolis police officers in the death of George Floyd, to charge Derek Chauvin with felony murder, as opposed to negligent homicide, "may be a reach; to charge the other three police with it is irrational," he writes, "except as a prosecutorial strategy to exploit the climate of vengeful violence."

The tactic was legitimized throughout the Obama years, recalls McCarthy, when "the exorbitant number of black males killed by other black males was ignored; but on the rare occasions when black males were killed by police or non-blacks, the Justice Department routinely mobilized to pressure local authorities to file murder charges, even if unwarranted by the evidence."

The Trayvon Martin case, which resulted in a swift jury acquittal, was one example.

"The country is a different cauldron right now," he writes. "In the mob moment, ubiquitous 'No Justice, No Peace' signs may be translated: 'If there are no murder indictments, and murder convictions, there will be more murders.' The rule of law is collapsing. Reason is out, passion is in."