myourish
04-09-2007, 06:46 PM
It's been a very long time since I was on jury duty, and I'd been picked several times before I finally got a case. The one I finally got involved a mugging.
A middle-aged black man was mugged by a young African-American male. The description of the perpetrator was "young, black, male, hooded sweatshirt, flat-top haircut." This was back in the days when everyone wore a flat-top haircut.
The jury was a mix of men and women, white, black, and (I think) Hispanic, and young, middle-aged, and old.
The defense attorney was a woman, obviously new, very nervous, and seemingly not very well prepared. The judge seemed to feel sorry for her at some points, and angry with her at others. The witnesses for the prosecution included two police officers. Everyone on the jury got the sense that the defense attorney didn't know what she was doing.
I think the mugging victim took the stand at one point, but if he did, I don't remember much of what he said. I remember much more clearly the interrogation of the police officer who chased down and arrested the young man.
The victim called for help, and flagged down a passing patrol car. The officers chased the suspect into a nearby housing project. I don't remember how they chased him to the floor of the defendant, but they said they chased the defendant to a certain apartment, and then knocked on the door, announcing they were the police. They said the door "fell in" when they knocked on it. During cross-examination, the defense attorney questioned them on this and they stuck to their story--it's an old project, the doors are in bad shape, and it just "fell in." They entered the apartment, and found the young man with the flat-top haircut, wearing a sweatshirt, and--a kitchen knife in the kitchen. The mugging weapon was a kitchen knife.
The trial itself didn't take very long. We went into deliberations. Most of us thought the cops hadn't made their case, and just arrested the first kid to come along who fit the vague description. The fact that they found a kitchen knife in an apartment we just laughed at.
The thing I noticed right off the bat is that the guilt or innocence of the defendant went right down race and gender lines. ALL of the non-whites on the jury and ALL of the women thought he was innocent. All of the white men thought he was guilty. We took a couple of votes, and slowly the guilty votes went over to not guilty.
The common theme was that even those of us who thought he was innocent of the mugging thought that he was probably guilty of other things. He was not your stand-up kind of guy. He was an inner-city African-American young man, and we made assumptions as to what he was really like. But, as I (and others) pointed out, what we thought he might be guilty of had absolutely no bearing on the case before us. And the case before us had enough reasonable doubt to drive a truck through. The door just "fell off"? That's a load of garbage. Doors in those projects generally have as many locks as possible. The police entered illegally, searched illegally, and arrested the first black kid in sweats with a flat-top haircut. The real criminal got away with it, we were sure.
In any case, the white men gave up when they realized the rest of us were perfectly content to keep on talking and voting until we wore them down. We returned a verdict of not guilty, which seemed to surprise the D.A. immensely, and the young man was incredibly happy.
Reading this synopsis now, I have to say, I was presuming a lot, thinking he was guilty of something. I didn't know the boy. All I knew is that he was young and black and living in Newark.
But I'm very glad I voted not guilty from the get-go. And I learned something new from that case: That cops will lie on the witness stand. I was such a babe in arms back then.
--Meryl
A middle-aged black man was mugged by a young African-American male. The description of the perpetrator was "young, black, male, hooded sweatshirt, flat-top haircut." This was back in the days when everyone wore a flat-top haircut.
The jury was a mix of men and women, white, black, and (I think) Hispanic, and young, middle-aged, and old.
The defense attorney was a woman, obviously new, very nervous, and seemingly not very well prepared. The judge seemed to feel sorry for her at some points, and angry with her at others. The witnesses for the prosecution included two police officers. Everyone on the jury got the sense that the defense attorney didn't know what she was doing.
I think the mugging victim took the stand at one point, but if he did, I don't remember much of what he said. I remember much more clearly the interrogation of the police officer who chased down and arrested the young man.
The victim called for help, and flagged down a passing patrol car. The officers chased the suspect into a nearby housing project. I don't remember how they chased him to the floor of the defendant, but they said they chased the defendant to a certain apartment, and then knocked on the door, announcing they were the police. They said the door "fell in" when they knocked on it. During cross-examination, the defense attorney questioned them on this and they stuck to their story--it's an old project, the doors are in bad shape, and it just "fell in." They entered the apartment, and found the young man with the flat-top haircut, wearing a sweatshirt, and--a kitchen knife in the kitchen. The mugging weapon was a kitchen knife.
The trial itself didn't take very long. We went into deliberations. Most of us thought the cops hadn't made their case, and just arrested the first kid to come along who fit the vague description. The fact that they found a kitchen knife in an apartment we just laughed at.
The thing I noticed right off the bat is that the guilt or innocence of the defendant went right down race and gender lines. ALL of the non-whites on the jury and ALL of the women thought he was innocent. All of the white men thought he was guilty. We took a couple of votes, and slowly the guilty votes went over to not guilty.
The common theme was that even those of us who thought he was innocent of the mugging thought that he was probably guilty of other things. He was not your stand-up kind of guy. He was an inner-city African-American young man, and we made assumptions as to what he was really like. But, as I (and others) pointed out, what we thought he might be guilty of had absolutely no bearing on the case before us. And the case before us had enough reasonable doubt to drive a truck through. The door just "fell off"? That's a load of garbage. Doors in those projects generally have as many locks as possible. The police entered illegally, searched illegally, and arrested the first black kid in sweats with a flat-top haircut. The real criminal got away with it, we were sure.
In any case, the white men gave up when they realized the rest of us were perfectly content to keep on talking and voting until we wore them down. We returned a verdict of not guilty, which seemed to surprise the D.A. immensely, and the young man was incredibly happy.
Reading this synopsis now, I have to say, I was presuming a lot, thinking he was guilty of something. I didn't know the boy. All I knew is that he was young and black and living in Newark.
But I'm very glad I voted not guilty from the get-go. And I learned something new from that case: That cops will lie on the witness stand. I was such a babe in arms back then.
--Meryl