Posted on 12/25/2007 10:25:48 PM PST by neverdem
At 8 p.m. on Saturday, a jury deciding the racially charged manslaughter case of a black man who shot a white teenager last year was still hopelessly deadlocked, to use the term the jurors used earlier in a note to the judge.
It was the 11th hour of the fourth day of jury deliberations, and a pack of news crews was waiting, as were lawyers, anxious relatives of the defendant and the victim and a racially divided gallery that had sat on separate sides of a courtroom in the Suffolk County courthouse for a month.
A mistrial seemed imminent. But Judge Barbara Kahn, who had given the jury the case on Wednesday, kept them deliberating late Friday night.
Then, when they could not reach a unanimous verdict, she called them in on Saturday, asking them to give their home phone numbers to court officials and indicating that they would have to come in again Sunday if they did not reach a decision, and then on Monday, Christmas Eve.
In fact, most of the jury 10 members had already concluded by then that the man, John H. White, 54, was guilty of second-degree manslaughter in the shooting of Daniel Cicciaro Jr., 17.
Daniel was shot point-blank in the face on August 9, 2006, after he and several friends arrived at Mr. Whites house and began using racial epithets in challenging Mr. Whites son, Aaron, then 19, to fight.
But there were two holdouts on the jury. And to one of them, François Larché, 46, of West Islip, Mr. Whites account of the nights events that the shooting was an accident and that he was protecting his family and home against a lynch mob of angry teenagers resonated.
In an interview at his home, Mr. Larché said he...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The juror said that rather than continue to deliberate, until they reached a verdict, or the Judge declared a mistrial because they could not reach a verdict, she and the other three jurors who favored a conviction changed their votes to "Not Guilty."
Because it was lunch time, and they wanted to go to lunch.
I was more than a little mad when she left my office, but not at the two jurors who voted their conscience.
watevvvver...:)
“The problem here is the press attention on one man out of 12 who now says he didnt stand up for what he believes.”
The ‘press attention’ part is important in figuring out the motive.
IMHO, there are two possibilities.
1) He is a plant for the defense, and he failed, so he is taking it to the press.
2) He is an egotist who watches too much TV.
Many gripe, or joke about jury duty, and how they easily avoided it.
Jury Duty is the CIVIC duty of Americans, so lying to get out of it is no different than lying to get out of military service.
COPS cannot stop crime.
LAWS cannot stop crime.
Only JUSTICE is effective in stopping crime.
If the ‘smart’ ones, or ‘intelligent’ ones always avoid jury duty, then I say that THEY are the ones responsible for the feeling that one is not SAFE, one will not get TRUE JUSTICE because jurors are all morons.
If Intelligent, reasonable, logical, impartial citizens don’t fulfill their responsibility to our LEGAL SYSTEM, then they leave one of the most IMPORTANT FACTORS of FREEDOM open to bias, and those led by ulterior motives.
In essence, we are cutting our own throats by ruining the intent and practice of our Justice System.
So, IMHO, rather than complain about how bad juries are, we should do something about it.
Like..... show up when you are selected.
I have been called for several drug cases over the years and having a state AFT boss (now retired)has kept me from actually having to sit through a trial. The fact is I disliked my B-in-Law intensely and was not keen on what I know of his methods but I am happy to let him get me off the hook.
Amen!
In this case, I will side with the so called perp. Low class thugs of ANY kind who are charging your property deserve lethal force. The sentence was way too harsh. At most, he should've been found guilty of discharge of a firearm in the municipality.
I have served on 3 juries over the years.
One was for “attempt to possess a weapon by a felon”. Long story but the bottom line was he was showing the cops where the gun was and started to reach for it to hand it to them. They said “let us pick it up”, which he did, but they came back 3 days later to charge him.
The jury was ready to convict him, with little discussion, based on the literal reading of the words.... he *was* trying to pick up a gun.
I pointed out that he was attempting to do the right thing, (hand it to the cops) and it seemed to me that convicting him for doing the right thing was appropriate according to the letter of the law, but not according to the spirit of the law.
We ended up acquitting him.
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