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Robert P. McCulloch is the Prosecuting Attorney for St. Louis County, Missouri, a post he has held since 1991. A Democrat, he has historically had bipartisan support as a popular prosecutor and has won re-election in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014, often unopposed but by wide margins when he has had an opponent.

McCulloch was the prosecutor in the case related to the shooting of Michael Brown, which attracted considerable media attention and controversy both nationally and internationally.

Education and early career

After attending law school at Saint Louis University, McCulloch served as a clerk for Missouri Appeals Court judge Joseph G. Stewart. McCulloch was an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney from 1978 to 1985. He worked in private practice until 1991, when he was elected to the post of Prosecuting Attorney. McCulloch was president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys and a board member of the National District Attorneys Association.

Tenure as D.A.

Just after he first took office in the early 1990s, McCulloch prosecuted Axl Rose of the band Guns N’ Roses on charges related to the Riverport Riot in which 40 concert attendees and 25 police officers were injured. McCulloch charged Rose with misdemeanor assault and property damage for allegedly hitting a security guard, hurting three concertgoers and damaging a dressing room at Riverport Amphitheatre. McCulloch made headlines when he pursued Rose across the country to serve an arrest warrant in the case, before Rose finally turned himself in and agreed to a plea deal.

In 2000, in the so-called "Jack in the Box" case, two undercover officers, a police officer and a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer, shot and killed two unarmed black men in the parking lot of a Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant in Berkeley, Missouri. In 2001, the officers told a grand jury convened by McCulloch that the suspects tried to escape arrest and then drove toward them; the jury declined to indict. McCulloch told the public that every witness had testified to confirm this version, but St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist Michael Sorkin reviewed the previously secret grand jury tapes, released to him by McCulloch, and found that McCulloch's statement was untrue: only three of 13 officers testified that the car was moving forward. A subsequent federal investigation found that the men were unarmed and that their car had not moved forward when the officers fired 21 shots; nevertheless, federal investigators decided that the shooting was justified because the officers feared for their safety. McCulloch also drew controversy when he said of the victims: "These guys were bums." The two men killed, Earl Murray and Ronald Beasley, had prior felony convictions on drug and assault charges.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign McCulloch endorsed Democratic candidate Barack Obama. He was accused by some Republicans of abuse of power for being a member of the Barack Obama Truth Squads in Missouri. McCulloch defended his participation, calling the notion he was trying to criminalize political speech "nonsense."

In 2013, McCulloch publicly switched his longtime allegiance from fellow Democrat and St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley to support Dooley's challenger in the Democratic primary for county executive, Steve Stenger, stating that Dooley oversaw too much corruption in the county. With help from television ads from McCulloch, Stenger won over Dooley in the Aug. 5, 2014 primary by a landslide.

Michael Brown case

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After the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson, McCulloch announced that rather than making a decision about whether to arrest Wilson, he would bring the case before a grand jury, leaving to jurors the decision of what charges might be brought, if any. His spokesman acknowledged that it was unusual that the prosecutor was not asking the grand jury to endorse a specific charge. It was also unusual to present a case to a grand jury before the police investigation was over. On November 24 McCulloch reported in a press conference that the grand jury reached a decision in the case and elected "not to indict Wilson." Immediately after the announcement, McCulloch said that he appointed prosecutors in his office to handle the case, rather than himself, because "he was "fully aware of unfounded but growing concern that the investigation might not be fair."

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), called for a special prosecutor to replace McCulloch in the case, saying that was needed to restore credibility with Ferguson's black community. In an interview on December 19, McCulloch confirmed that the case was unusual and defended that the decision to present all evidence was made to prevent controversy about witnesses not being able to testify to the grand jury. McCulloch stated that the claims of bias on him were politically motivated because his office has prosecuted more than fifty police officers for a range of crimes. On the statements of fairness, the then-ongoing grand jury deliberations in the Pine Lawn deadly officer-involved shooting was not questioned. During the interview, McCulloch gave another example, claiming that the Washington Post requested and did not report three cases where McCulloch's office did not indict three black officers involved in shooting incidents, one of the cases involved a white civilian. In the immediate aftermath of the grand jury decision, accusations asserted that McCulloch was biased because he failed to secure an indictment, this was sometimes portrayed as manipulation of the grand jury. Other opinions including that of Paul Cassell described the process as clearly fair and attempted to counter claims that the evidence confused the jury or the process took too long.

Personal life

McCulloch is the son of a St. Louis police officer who was killed in the line of duty while searching for a fleeing kidnapper when McCulloch was 12 years old. When he was in high school, McCulloch lost a leg to cancer.

McCulloch and his wife Carolyn have four children.

References

1. ^ "St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney". Retrieved September 20, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
2. ^ Robles, Frances (August 20, 2014). "St. Louis County Prosecutor Defends Objectivity". New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
3. ^ Kimberly Kindy and Carol D. Leonnig (September 7, 2014). "In atypical approach, grand jury in Ferguson shooting receives full measure of case". Washington Post. Retrieved September 23, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
4. "Testimony of The Honorable Robert McCulloch" (PDF). 2003-09-17. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
5. ^ Nicholas J.C. Pistor and Joe Holleman (August 16, 2014). "St. Louis prosecutor has faced controversy for decades". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved September 9, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Sorkin, Michael D. (August 17, 2014). "20,000 sign petitions seeking special prosecutor in Michael Brown shooting". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved September 19, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
7. http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/8699/missouri-prosecutors-sheriffs-target-anyone-who-lies-about-barack-obama
8. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/09/attacking-obama/
9. Christine Byers and Steve Giegerich (October 10, 2013). "St. Louis County prosecutor pulls his support of Dooley in next election". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved September 20, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
10. ^ Byers, Christine (September 16, 2014). "Grand jury now has until January to decide whether to charge Ferguson officer". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Retrieved September 17, 2014.
11. "What Happened in Ferguson?". The New York Times. November 24, 2014. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 3, 2014.
12. Basu, Moni; Yan, Holly; Ford, Dana (November 25, 2014). "Fires, chaos erupt in Ferguson after grand jury doesn't indict in Michael Brown case". CNN. Archived from the original on December 2, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
13. "Lawmaker Wants Investigation of St. Louis Prosecutor". ABC News / Associated Press. Archived from the original on 19 December 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2014.
14. Kaplan, Rebecca; Face The Nation (August 17, 2014). "NAACP president: Special prosecutor "critically important" in Ferguson". CBS News. Archived from the original on August 18, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
15. Chuck, Elizabeth (August 21, 2014). "Petition Against Prosecutor in Ferguson Case Has 70,000 Signatures". NBC News. Archived from the original on August 22, 2014. Retrieved August 26, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
16. McGraw Milhaven and Robert P. McCulloch (December 19, 2014). McGraw Live with (Radio Show). Big 550 KTRS.
17. Citron, Eric. "Cases and controversies: Not your typical grand jury investigation". SCOTUSblog. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
18. "Two deaths: The crucial difference between Eric Garner's case and Michael Brown's". Fortune. Retrieved 12 December 2014.
19. Zucchino, David (November 25, 2014). "Prosecutor's grand jury strategy in Ferguson case adds to controversy". The Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 26, 2014. Retrieved November 26, 2014. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
20. Cassell, Paul (November 25, 2014). "The Michael Brown grand jury process was fair". Washington Post. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
21. Paul Brown (April 19, 2012). "Persons of Interest: Bob McCulloch". Ladue News. Retrieved September 20, 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

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