California has taken a big step toward removing secrecy in police killings

Demonstrators raise their hands to protest the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 13 August 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law this week that prohibits the use of grand juries in cases where police officers used lethal force against civilians. The new rule will go into effect next year, making California the first state to take this accountability measure.

Grand jury deliberations, like those following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, are kept sealed from the public unless a judge decides to release them. The new system will instead allow district attorneys, who are elected officials, to decide whether to pursue criminal charges against officers, as would happen if the accused were not on the police force.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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