As the saying goes, “Snitches get stitches.” In the case of Dolphins receiver Brandon Marshall, the more operative phrase could be, “The guy who got stitches didn’t snitch.”
Omar Kelly of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that charges have been dropped against Michi Nogami-Marshall arising from an April stabbing of Brandon, even though she admitting to doing it. The problem? She claimed that she acted in self-defense, and she and her husband thereafter clammed up sufficiently to prevent a prosecution.
A spokesman for the state attorney’s office released a statement that claimed Nogami-Marshall “declined all additional opportunities to elaborate about the incident to prosecutors,” which obviously was her right under the U.S. Constitution.
For his part, Marshall gave two sworn statements to police claiming that he wasn’t stabbed, but that he slipped and fell on broken glass, even though as Kelly points out no blood was found on the broken glass on which he supposed fell.
Citing “conflicting evidence,” the authorities opted not to pursue the matter.
Right or wrong, it’s a reality of the justice system. That high standard of proof that keeps people from being wrongfully convicted often gets in the way when it’s fairly obvious that a law was broken.
In the end, if the victim has no problem with what happened, maybe that’s the right result.