Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty used well-established precedent to justify his decision to recommend no charges for two Cleveland police officers involved in the November 2014 shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

McGinty based his decision mostly on federal court cases that call for officers accused of excessive force to be judged only on the "split-second judgments" they made when they decided to act.

Officer Timothy Loehmann shot Tamir Rice on Nov. 22, 2014, while investigating a report of a "guy with a gun" scaring people outside Cudell Recreation Center on Cleveland's West Side. Loehmann's partner, Frank Garmback, drove up to a gazebo at the rec center and Loehmann shot Tamir, who had an airsoft pellet gun, within two seconds of getting out of the car.

McGinty made his recommendation to a grand jury, which followed his lead and decided Monday to issue no charges against Loehmann and Garmback.

The prosecutor's application of the case law, while considering the totality of the situation -- including what information the officers received from dispatchers -- ultimately came down to when Loehmann decided to fire his pistol.

Today, cleveland.com takes a look at the case law McGinty cited in reaching his decision, how the case law applies to Tamir's shooting and what legal experts have to say about the precedent.

The case law

A 74-page report that McGinty released on Monday in tandem with the announcement of the grand jury's decision outlines the reasons he recommended not charging Loehmann and Garmback.

Under this analysis, the prosecutors decided only to pay attention to the shooting, and nothing else, when deciding whether Loehmann should face a criminal charge for the shooting.

"Since Officer Loehmann had been given information from Dispatch that he had reason to believe was accurate, any movement by Tamir near the area where Loehmann believed him to have a firearm could have led him to a reasonable, but mistaken, belief that Tamir posed an imminent threat of serious physical harm," the report states.

The bedrock

Lawyers and experts contacted by cleveland.com said that Garner and Connor, while civil cases, have shaped the way prosecutors deal with criminal cases involving police use-of-force.

These cases are now the bedrock that prosecutors across the country use when deciding whether to charge police officers who have killed people. Both were decided more than two decades ago and are now well-established precedent.

Terry Gilbert, a prominent civil-rights attorney in Cleveland, said that Connor in particular has proven useful, but it doesn't answer any detailed questions and can be used in all types of police use-of-force cases.

"The question of reasonableness can be used in many ways," Gilbert said.

Assistant County Prosecutor Matthew Meyer, who presented the case to the grand jury and co-authored the report, described the cases cited in the opinion as an "exacting and complex body of law that we have to apply."

But once the case law is applied, the decision not to charge became very clear, Meyer said.

Some say changes are needed

Experts disagreed with Meyer's assessment, though.

David Rudovsky, a University of Pennsylvania Law School senior fellow, said the U.S. Supreme Court needs to decide what standard applies: split-second decisions or the entire situation.

"I think that's an issue they should decide one way or the other on," he said.

Gilbert said each case is fact specific, and that prosecutors were mistaken when they decided to not analyze the Tamir Rice case and the "continuous flow" of actions that led up to the shooting.

Subodh Chandra, an attorney representing the Rice family in a civil lawsuit against the city, said McGinty should have analyzed the case using Kirby v. Duva, another 6th Circuit Case that says an officers' actions leading up to a shooting -- including any reckless conduct that put them in harm's way -- must be considered.

Meyer rejected this argument, though, and said it is an "overreach" to think Kirby should apply in the Tamir case. He also said the "split-second judgments" concept was endorsed by the Supreme Court in a case this year and that this overrides any splits from lower courts.

"Livermore did not leave much in doubt there," Meyer said. "Don't look at the lead-up."

Reporter Cory Shaffer contributed to this story.