There'd be no justice in retrying Jason Meade. This lust for vengeance is indefensible.

Ray Grogan is the Marion County Prosecuting Attorney and he formerly taught at the Ohio Northern University College of Law.

The mistrial in former Franklin County Deputy Jason Meade's case reveals a deep community divide.

It was always foreseeable that a representative panel of Franklin County citizens would split in a way that’s consistent with the way most of America is currently divided – those who are largely supportive of police vs. people who are hyper critical of them.

It’s also foreseeable that any further prosecution will result in the same result. Yet, many far left activists — including some of the same voices that often criticize police for shameful political gain — are now loudly demanding a costly retrial.

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Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin, in a revenge-tinged tone, pronounced, “for this community to heal those involved in the court system must move forward with all possible speed for a new trial.”

The Franklin County commissioners leapt into the melee, lobbing an ill-advised press statement, declaring “Our thoughts are with the Goodson family” and that they wanted to seek “constructive and peaceful discourse.”

When county leaders openly side with a family suing that same county, taxpayers ought to prepare to open their wallets for a hefty civil case payout.

This ideological lust for vengeance is indefensible.

Worse yet, these politicos are sending an unmistakable message to the city and county law enforcement officers who work for them – we put our political fortunes ahead of your well-being.

That’s a dangerous sentiment.

Will officers be hesitant to thwart threats?

Police officers like Jason Meade — a SWAT officer and decorated Marine Corps veteran of the vaunted Lima Company that served in Iraq — receive extensive, state-mandated training. In rapidly changing situations, these officers are often forced to make life and death decisions in the blink of an eye. Second guessing those decisions by threatening well-intentioned officers with a prison sentence naturally leads many officers to hesitate to thwart a threat.

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And here’s where that affects you — when officers unnecessarily pull back rather than intervening in a dangerous situation, vulnerable people may die. The angry shouts for a retrial ignore these stakes.

And there’s more.

Recruits see political agendas

Law enforcement agencies across America are experiencing a shortage of police officers.

Potential recruits are all too aware that political agendas can undermine their careers and safety.

When politicians are willing to sacrifice these individuals to appease a far-left anti-police syndicate, it deters good people from entering — or remaining in — this noble profession. When that happens, we’re all less safe.

As the elected prosecutor for nearby Marion County, I've faced the tough call of deciding whether to retry a case after a hung jury. It's a decision fraught with complexity, lacking a clear legal standard.

It falls on the prosecutor alone to weigh the likelihood of a different outcome against other factors, including the potential for further community division.

Pushing for a retrial ignores facts

There is a time and a place for re-trial after a hung jury, but let’s be honest — the evidence against Meade was always weak. There are no eyewitnesses to contradict Meade’s credible account of self-defense — that he had to use deadly force when Casey Goodson pointed a semi-automatic pistol with an extended clip at him. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality.

Indeed, questions sent from the jury to the judge indicate jurors believed Meade was justified in using deadly force.

This tells us the prosecution’s arguments to the contrary simply weren’t convincing.

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To convict, a jury must unanimously agree that the evidence meets the law’s highest burden of proof. Rashly pushing for a retrial ignores this fact and is little more than a crude attempt to score political points. Justice is not served by such irresponsible rhetoric.

Worse yet, a few strident voices have claimed — without evidence — that race was somehow a factor in this case. There’s a reason the prosecution didn’t allege that: because there’s not a single fact to support it.

Efforts to improperly and callously deploy race to inflame an already tense situation deserve to be ignored and discredited.

Prosecutors must resist the political pressure to retry Jason Meade

The special prosecutors appointed to handle the criminal case against Meade now face a choice. They can drain more community resources and further inflame opinions. Or they can see reason and allow the civil lawsuit to proceed as the better means of justice. Civil court is the right venue for this dispute.

The burden of proof is lower. Both sides can make their case without the all-or-nothing stakes of a criminal trial.

These prosecutors must resist the political pressure and accept that a retrial would be a costly mistake that will only deepen the community divide. Another hung jury won’t heal anyone. Justice must find its path in wisdom, not in the tumult of rash political zeal.

Ray Grogan is the Marion County Prosecuting Attorney and he formerly taught at the Ohio Northern University College of Law.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jason Meade retrial for Casey Goodson shooting would be dangerous