Posted on 03/11/2008 7:58:00 AM PDT by SmithL
The sole black juror on a panel deadlocked along racial lines lied to win a seat on the jury and then set out to exact revenge on law enforcement by serving as the spoiler in the trial of an alleged drug chief serving as his own lawyer, some of her fellow jurors said Monday.
Jurors in the trial of Johnnie "Bro" Martin walked out of U.S. District Court with nothing to show for nine days of work but a mistrial.
"She made a mockery of the system," one juror said of the black woman whom members of the panel said refused to even consider what the rest of the group believed was overwhelming evidence of Martin's guilt.
Although they declined to be publicly identified, jurors outraged over the outcome of a trial in which Martin's defense rested on the notion that racist law enforcers had framed him confirmed the panel had split 11 to 1 in every vote cast during the roughly four days of deliberations.
The lone hold-out was a black woman who, when questioned during the jury selection process, assured federal prosecutors David Jennings and Tracee Plowell that she harbored no ill will over the imprisonment of her sister in a Mississippi drug case. Asked if her sister deserved her fate, the woman answered, "Absolutely."
Fellow jurors interviewed after U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips declared a mistrial Monday said the woman lied.
"She never should have been on there in the first place," one juror said. "From the beginning, she kept saying her sister was in jail for selling drugs and the cops set her up, and she could not believe any police officer no matter what."
Jennings and Plowell sought to remove the woman from the panel Friday after learning that her daughter had been arrested on a marijuana charge by the Knoxville Police Department in 2006. She did not reveal that arrest, for which she posted bond, during the jury selection process. KPD Investigator Jeremy Maupin was a key witness against Martin.
Phillips refused, saying there was "no evidence of misconduct on the part of any juror in this case."
He noted the woman revealed her sister's drug conviction. He did not address, however, Plowell's complaint that the woman failed to reveal her daughter's arrest by KPD.
Instead, Phillips chastised the News Sentinel for reporting a racial division among the jurors.
"That's not what the note said," Phillips said of a message from the panel to the judge on Thursday in which jurors reported claims of racism were contributing to the deadlock.
The judge insisted that the note's statement that claims of racism had been raised during jury deliberations did not mean the panel was divided along racial lines.
"I would ask the Knoxville News Sentinel to be accurate in its reporting," Phillips said from the bench.
Jurors, however, said the woman accused white members of the panel of being racist, prompting the note to Phillips.
"It offended me," one juror said.
The woman at issue refused comment when approached by a reporter and walked out of the courthouse alone. Fellow jurors followed minutes later as a group.
Martin, a convicted drug dealer from Boston, had opted to serve as his own attorney on charges he moved his drug-peddling network to Knoxville and set up armed stash houses serving a smorgasbord of drugs ranging from $500,000 in cocaine every month to marijuana to Ecstasy. He also was accused of plotting to kill a key witness against him.
He insisted he was being framed by racist cops and lying "degenerates." The voice on secretly recorded phone conversations authorities said he had with various underlings was not his, he told jurors.
The lone black juror on the panel bought into Martin's defense hook, line and sinker, fellow jurors said.
"You bring up the wiretaps and she'd say it wasn't his voice," one juror said. "She said the (alleged co-conspirators) were lying, and you couldn't believe the police officers. The whole time she talked about how unfairly her sister was treated."
The panel did find Martin guilty of one of 17 charges against him, deeming him guilty of being a felon in possession of an assault rifle. It was the sole charge not directly tied to the drug conspiracy.
"Anything that had to do with the drugs, she wouldn't even consider it," a fellow juror said.
Although prosecutors have 30 days to decide whether to retry him, Jennings announced in court he and Plowell would file formal notice today of their intent to seek a new trial.
Martin, who has boasted from the day of his arrest that he would win the case and openly taunted Jennings at an earlier hearing, remains jailed. As he was led out of the courtroom by the U.S. Marshals Service, Martin looked back at Jennings, smirked and said, "Checkmate."
Harbinger of August’s convention and November’s election...............
Jury nullification?
juror nullification
I predict we'll start seeing more of this with drug cases.
This week's Time magazine published a manifesto by the screenwriters for HBO's The Wire imploring jurors to take this stand.
A black woman does this, and there is a mistrial. No one even mentions that she could have done anything wrong, the judge dismisses it and attacks the press for even suggesting it.
If a white man had done this in the trial of a white person, in say, New Orleans, (the “chocolate city”), the white juror would be called racist, and face punishment under hate crimes.
I don’t think this is what Dr. King had in mind.
Just a mistrial.
Try again and oir dire should be a little more thorough.
I was just wondering the other day what ever became of the OJ juror’s?
FReepers are probably familiar with the classic motion picture “Twelve Angry Men” in which Henry Fonda is portrayed as a “heroic” holdout on a jury (despite several instances of his juror misconduct)
Every time I see it the question lingers — but what if the kid really did it?
Shouldn’t she have been jailed?
"Dr." King plagiarized his PhD dissertation.
And cheated on his wife ruthlessly.
And sided with the cause of Vietnamese communism.
And on and on and on...
Who knows what Dr. King really "had in mind"?
For anyone who cares, what you are seeing in this narcotics case is a harbinger of the social breakdown our society is about to experience as a result of 40 years of dysgenic fertility.
Prepare for the worst. And then some.
I’m really getting tired of dealing with these sullen, entitled, arrogant black women.
This thug will be re-arrested soon enough and the juror can be charged also because you know the drug dealer is going to pay this woman off. I can also see the justice system exacting some revenge on the juror by denying parole for her daughter any time soon.
He’ll just continue to run the ring from behind bars.
I wonder if this caused her, for the first time in her adult life, to be proud to be an American.
“”Dr.” King plagiarized his PhD dissertation.
And cheated on his wife ruthlessly.
And sided with the cause of Vietnamese communism.
And on and on and on...
Who knows what Dr. King really “had in mind”?
For anyone who cares, what you are seeing in this narcotics case is a harbinger of the social breakdown our society is about to experience as a result of 40 years of dysgenic fertility.
Prepare for the worst. And then some.”
People don't want to hear the TRUTH about this cheating scoundrel. I suppose the ELITES believe this is the best that a black man can achieve.
Why arent judges allowed to find them in contemp for this?
I think OJ’s jury should have been locked up for contempt and the judge direct a verdict of guilty for his first murder trial. Let them fight it on appeal, but Ito wasn’t anywhere close to having the cajones to do that.
Then the prosecution should have proved it. We really, really don't want to live in a country where you can be jailed or executed because someone thinks or wonders if you did something.
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