Posted on 03/19/2005 12:01:01 AM PST by lawnorder
It was probably big news across the USA, but it was certainly big news in Los Angeles, when a jury found Robert Blake "Not Guilty" of murdering his wife, and of soliciting her murder.
While few will doubt that this was always going to be a hard trial for the prosecution, given the very unsympathetic character of the victim, I doubt that anyone could have forseen how much our legal system is incapable of dealing with jurors with "hidden adgendas" who get themselves onto juries in order to further their personal objectives.
In a wild interview on the John Ziegler Show, KFI640 AM Thursday night, juror number 11, Roberto Emerick, told Ziegler that he had used his jury service to promote his music CD.
Ziegler did an admirable job of maintaining his composure while Emerick made "off the record" comments that totally contradicted his "on air" comments as to his belief that Blake was not involved in the death of Bonnie Lee Blakley, Blake's wife.
The interview - which is available in MP3 format from KFI's website www.kfi640.com, was quite heated at times, and culminated with the juror challenging Ziegler to a fist fight.
Listen to the interview - it's a sad insight into the mind of a juror more concerned with promoting himself, than doing justice.
Emerick rambles and avoids tough questions, and clearly decided that a controversial verdict - such as "not guilty" would give him the publicity he needed to promote his CD.
Emerick was interviewed countless times on the eve of the verdict, including CNN's Larry King Live, where he also shamelessly promoted his CD.
Emerick, a Los Angeles Unified School District air conditioning repair guy, is a prime example of what's wrong with the jury system.
The lawyer's I've seen look for the dumbest stumps in the road for jury duty. The b@stards spend 80% of their time jury profiling, because they know if they get the right jury, they'll win the case, regardless of the facts. The best way to get an impartial jury is to do a screen for people who know parties involved, and then draw from a random pool. They'll never do it, because jury profiling allows them to control the decision, and that's why they make big bucks.
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