Darren Wilson won’t face state charges for the shooting death of Michael Brown, but the 28-year-old police officer remains under a cloud, facing possible federal criminal charges and civil lawsuits for the Aug. 9 killing.

As furious locals protest a grand jury's Monday decision not to indict the Ferguson, Missouri, cop for murder or manslaughter, the Department of Justice continues to investigate whether to bring federal charges.

The law authorizing federal prosecutions of police, 18 U.S. Code § 242, allows for maximum penalties of execution or life in prison for violations of citizens' constitutional rights.

Legal experts tell U.S. News a federal prosecution is possible, but not necessarily likely.

“The difficulty in these cases generally is you have the officer’s testimony and really no one else’s,” says Pace Law School professor Randolph McLaughlin. “I don’t think the officer would testify and say, ‘Oh yeah, I intended to violate his constitutional rights.’”

In a similarly high-profile and controversial case, the Department of Justice investigated, but did not file charges against, George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer unsuccessfully tried for murder after the 2012 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

But federal officials do sometimes move forward with such cases.

Four New Orleans police officers were successfully prosecuted by the Department of Justice for killing Hurricane Katrina survivors on the Danziger Bridge in 2005. Those convictions were overturned because of official misconduct and remain on appeal.

Eric Hessler, an attorney for one of the four police officers, says he heard some of the same federal investigators who worked the post-Katrina cases are working to determine the next step in Ferguson.

“It’s certainly a possibility,” he says, that Wilson will face federal charges.

Hessler, a police officer for 17 years before practicing law, was indicted - and acquitted - himself in 1990 for an alleged federal civil rights violation (in a non-fatal case) after being acquitted by a state court.

“The government must have felt there was some hanky panky going on and decided to indict us,” he says. “That’s what [Wilson] is looking at now if they feel a federal civil rights case fits.”

A federal grand jury would need to find probable cause to indict Wilson on federal charges.

“The grand jury system, the problem with that is the government decides what evidence to produce," Hessler says. "They could produce a completely one-sided presentation and leave the grand jurors to conclude this person did what he was accused of doing."

Statistics show federal prosecutors are highly successful at winning indictments.

“My gut feeling is the government wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole because it seems there was a very comprehensive investigation done at the local level with the involvement of federal officials," Hessler says. “It seems to be from a practical level they wouldn’t present it, [but] from a political standpoint I have no idea what they are capable of doing.”

Peter Joy, director of the Washington University School of Law’s Criminal Justice Clinic, says it's unlikely Wilson will face federal charges unless federal officials present grand jurors with surprising new information.

"Short of some evidence that has not been released in some fashion, I think that's very unlikely," Joy says. Evidence that Wilson participated in white supremacist groups or used racial epithets before the shooting, he says, would probably push a federal case forward.

Frank Bowman, a University of Missouri law professor, agrees a prosecution of Wilson would be difficult.

“DOJ lawyers have been living with this case for a long time and know its nuances far better than anyone on the outside,” he says. “That said, from what I've seen, making a federal civil rights case seems awfully tough on these facts.”

Photos: Grand Jury Decision in Ferguson View All 53 Images

Bowman points to forensic proof there was a struggle in Wilson’s car before an ensuing chase, autopsy evidence Brown was not shot in the back, as some witnesses claimed, and conflicting statements on whether Brown advanced before the shooting.

Whereas a federal criminal case appears unlikely, legal experts consider lawsuits against Wilson a near certainty.

It’s easier to win civil lawsuits than a criminal conviction. That’s because plaintiffs only need to establish a preponderance of evidence - meaning a greater than 50 percent likelihood of wrongdoing - rather than meet the guilt beyond a reasonable doubt standard for criminal convictions.

Joy says he believes a lawsuit will be filed in federal court against Wilson and also against either the Ferguson Police Department, the city government, or both.

"There still appears to be some conflict in testimony" about the final moments before the fatal shots, Joy says. "I suspect [Brown's family] will want to have more of a public airing."

Several witnesses to the shooting said Brown, 18, advanced toward Wilson before he was fatally shot, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch said Monday. Others said he appeared to be surrendering. Many witness statements were discredited, McCulloch said.

McLaughlin, the Pace law professor, says it’s possible to sue for a variety of alleged misdeeds by police under state law, or in federal court under 42 U.S. Code § 1983 for alleged violations of constitutional rights.

“What I have to show is the officer acted under color of law - acting as a police officer - and as a result of his actions my rights were violated,” says McLaughlin, who won a $4.5 million award for the family of Charles Campbell, who was fatally shot in 1997 by New York City police officer Richard DiGuglielmo during a dispute over a parking space. The officer was convicted of second-degree murder.

“The family would likely contend that Officer Wilson’s excessive use of force violated Mr. Brown’s rights under the Fourth Amendment,” says University of California at Irvine law professor Mario Barnes. The Brown family, he says, “would need the evidence to prove that it is more likely than not that Officer Wilson violated Brown’s rights and they would need to overcome any potential defenses.”

Wilson has immunity from lawsuits only if he acted in a reasonable manner.

Though most legal experts expect a lawsuit is already in the works, not all agree it would go to trial.



“I believe that a civil lawsuit against Darren Wilson and the Ferguson Police Department will be commenced and likely settled out of court,” says University of the District of Columbia law professor Andrew Ferguson.

Ferguson points out that although civil lawsuits require lower burdens of proof than criminal convictions, the local grand jury “found no probable cause” against Wilson, “a much lower standard than even the preponderance of the evidence," though he notes things might be different in an adversarial courtroom setting.

Lawsuits filed after other high-profile shootings have been resolved out of court, such as those in response to the New York City shootings of Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Sean Bell in 2006 by police officers. The officers in those cases were acquitted of criminal charges.

The Ferguson Police Department, legal experts says, could be found liable for failing to provide Wilson better training to handle his encounter with Brown in a manner that ended in a non-lethal outcome.

In addition to weighing possible federal charges against Wilson, the Department of Justice is probing the civil rights record of the Ferguson Police Department itself, which could lead to court action and years of federal supervision.

Hessler, the New Orleans attorney, was involved in a fatal shooting in 2000 and was cleared by a state grand jury. He says even if Wilson avoids federal charges and defeats anticipated lawsuits, the officer's life will be in tatters.