Grand jury declines indictment in Black teen's death, raising questions about race

On the Fourth of July, a Black Mississippi teenager named Nolan Wells died on an island off the state's coast, and this month a grand jury chose not to bring charges — a decision that has left his family grieving not only a life lost but a justice system that may have looked away. The case joins a long and painful American lineage of moments in which the machinery of law moves differently depending on who the victim is. Grand juries deliberate in secret, and that secrecy, by design, absorbs the weight of questions that families like Wells' are left to carry alone.