Category: Juries

TRUMPIAN JUSTICE: OUR CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

Like a drunk progressing from slurred speech to crashing the family car, the presidency this week continued its rapid descent toward rock bottom. Regardless of your politics, is there anyone out there who wasn’t jarred – at least a little bit – to hear our president praise a convicted felon for refusing to cooperate with the federal government he defrauded? Sure, Paul Manafort was Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, but historically presidents have paid fealty to the law, not to the lawbreakers.

The president, after all, is the chief executive of that federal government, including its Department of Justice, which, a few days ago, Trump called a “joke”. This is totally contrary to those civics textbooks now welcoming students back to school. No president has ever repudiated his justice department. We inch ever closer to a constitutional crisis.

Here’s how fast we’ve fallen: In April of 2017, legal scholars expressed outrage when Trump accused a former Obama aide of having committed a crime. Since the justice department reports to the president, such a declaration of guilt without due process was seen by numerous observers as a flagrant abuse of presidential power and possible grounds for impeachment. They noted, as summarized in this space back then, that many similar slips of the presidential tongue over the years were immediately walked back. Prime example: Richard Nixon declared cult leader Charles Manson guilty before his trial began. He immediately withdrew his comment, saying, “the last thing I would do is prejudice the legal rights of any person, in any circumstance.” Trump, however, walks nothing back and has no qualms about prejudicing anyone’s legal rights.

What happened this week makes the president’s earlier comments look like jay walking. While Manafort’s unsequestered jury was deliberating, Trump repeatedly fired off messages claiming – in full Twitter shot of the jurors – that the trial itself was a “sad day for our country” and that Manafort was “a very good person”. The presidential attempt at verdict influencing, however, did not stop the jury from convicting Manafort on multiple counts of tax and bank fraud.

Hours later, Trump took to the stage of a political rally in one of those theater of the mind moments that flow from the bizarre politics of separate realities. With his former campaign chairman tucked neatly into a jail cell, and his personal attorney having just pled guilty to a felony charge that implicated the president, the Donald led the crowd in the ritualistic chant of “lock her up,” a vintage reference, of course, to Hillary Clinton, who has not been charged with a crime.

If you think that Trump was simply having a bad day and reverted to the Hillary ditty out of a pathetic combination of inertia and nostalgia, you would be wrong. Every day since that rally, Trump has eviscerated his justice department, along with his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Never a strict constructionist on punctuation matters, the president said he now puts quote marks around “justice” when referring to the department because he sees no real justice there. He called Manafort “brave” for refusing to flip on him, like his attorney, Michael Cohen, did.

One of the federal prosecutors who helped convict mob boss John Gotti told Washington Post reporters that Trump’s recent statements about the criminal justice system struck him as “the modern-day version of a particularly inarticulate mobster.” That pretty well captures the moment we are living in.

Every day, the president lists names of more Democrats he thinks should be prosecuted by his “Justice” Department (here, here, here and here). Clearly, he has turned the notion of justice on its head. To him, it has nothing to do with the rule of law. It’s about using political power to protect himself and punish his enemies. Trump hasn’t merely hinted at that notion, he’s said it. He told Fox News this week, “the only reason” for appointing Sessions as attorney general was because he “felt loyalty” and expected his guy to protect him in the Russia investigation and then go after Democrats. Trump has never forgiven Sessions for recusing himself from the special prosecutor’s investigation.

The Washington Post has reported that the chief White House counsel and other top aides have repeatedly told Trump that he can’t call Justice and give orders, but the president refuses to embrace that concept. Here’s what a former senior administration official told the Post yesterday: “The president has not a whit of respect for institutions, whether it’s the DOJ or the Fed or the FBI. If you are a threat to him, he is going to try to kill you.”

Most of the news analysis and commentary produced by this historically tumultuous week has been focused on the future. Will Manafort flip for a reduced sentence? Will Trump pardon him? How much additional dirt does Cohen have on the president? What about impeachment? Will Mueller subpoena Trump? How will all of this play in the midterms? So many questions, and so little time to fully absorb the depth of depravity our country faces right now, in this moment, regardless of what happens later.

We have a president who has rejected the rule of law, who calls the Justice Department a “joke”, who thinks nothing of tampering with a jury, and who will do whatever it takes to subvert the processes of government in order to protect his own hide and punish his enemies. This is no longer an esoteric debate on the efficacy of a president opining on a person’s guilt or innocence. This is – right now, in this moment – a full scale assault on this country’s very concept of justice, with or without quote marks. Whatever may lie ahead, let us never accept a mobster’s notion of justice as our new normal.

THE VERDICT IS IN: JURIES ARE NOT CHANGE AGENTS

Two high profile trials that ended last weekend reminded us that petit juries are no venue for profound social change. In two very different deliberations, jurors did what they were supposed to do: examined the evidence and applied the law to those facts. To say that neither outcome advanced broader underlying causes would be an understatement.

Philando Castile was a black 32-year-old Minnesota school cafeteria worker. He was driving with a broken brake light last July when a suburban St. Paul police officer, Jeronimo Yanez, stopped him. Within minutes, Castile was dead. The officer, after approaching the car window, asked Castile for his license and proof of insurance, which he immediately produced. According to police records, Castile then told Yanez that he was carrying a firearm (duly registered). The officer told him not to pull it out, and then proceeded to fire seven shots at him. Yanez became the first Minnesota police officer in modern history to be charged with manslaughter. On Friday, a jury acquitted him of all charges.

Meanwhile, about 1,200 miles to the east, 12 jurors deliberated for 52 hours in Norristown, Pennsylvania over whether legendary comedian Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted a woman more than a decade ago. The case was a proxy of sorts for at least 59 other women who, going back over more than half a century, claim they were similarly assaulted by Cosby. Only one case, however, was before this jury, and since the alleged incident occurred 13 years ago, strained and inconsistent memories resulted in conflicting testimony. On Saturday, jurors said they were “hopelessly deadlocked” and the judge declared a mistrial.

These two juries, sitting in separate county courthouses 1,200 miles apart, sparked viscerally adverse reactions among those who had hoped for verdicts that would send strong messages on two important issues: racism in policing, and aggressive prosecution of sexual assault.

A Star-Tribune story on the Minnesota verdict started with this sentence: “For black Minnesotans, the acquittal of Jeronimo Yanez in the fatal shooting of Philando Castile was the latest sign of a criminal justice system that often delivers heartbreak.” That angst is more than just a Minnesota thing. In 15 recent instances of black men killed by police nationwide, there were only two convictions. Still, the facts of this case seemed particularly strong. According to prosecutors, Castile did everything right. He was polite and compliant. He wasn’t running from police. There was no weapon in his hand. He just sat there, calmly and quietly, while the officer fired seven shots at him.

While the jury heard those facts, it also listened to Yanez’s tearful testimony about being confused and in fear of his life. Jurors, according to a Bowling Green State University study, are inclined to distinguish between a cop’s serious mistake and manslaughter, particularly if the officer was scared or confused. After 29 hours of deliberations, these 12 people – 10 white and 2 black – decided that the seven shots Officer Yanez fired at Philando Castile did not rise to the level of criminal activity. Jason Sole is the president of the Minneapolis NAACP. He told the New York Times the verdict was “more of the same.” “How are you going to kill this guy and still say we have a fair system? How? Man, this behavior has gotta stop, and they can’t stop so they are going to continue to kill us.”

Back in Norristown, the jury system was also taking it on the chin. Andrea Constand, a former Temple University athletic administrator, testified that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2004. Dozens of other women have come forward with stories of similar Cosby encounters, but have been time-barred from taking action. The jury’s inability to reach a unanimous verdict was seen by some of his accusers as a repudiation of sexual assault victims. For example, Lise-Lotte Lubin, who claims Cosby drugged and abused her in 1989, called the lack of a unanimous guilty verdict one more sign that rape victims are rarely believed.

As a distant observer of both trials, I too was disappointed in the outcomes. I would have gone with guilty verdicts, based on what I had read, together with my values and beliefs (also known as biases). But I wasn’t a juror. I didn’t hear the testimony or see the evidence. I didn’t take an oath to apply the law only to what I heard and saw in those courtrooms. Juries for better or worse, are the centrifuge of our justice system. As a reporter covering courts years ago, I marveled at how well this seemingly quaint and archaic process worked. On the surface, it might seem flawed to plunk 12 random citizens into uncomfortable chairs and expect them to make important decisions outside their comfort zones. Yet, a mammoth review of multiple jury studies by a Cornell University team concluded that jurors consistently take their role seriously, follow the rules, and make decisions based on the evidence and the law, as opposed to crafting their own brand of justice.

And that is precisely the point. Those Minnesota and Pennsylvania jurors were not there to solve the weighty problems of racism, police violence or sexual assault prosecutions. Their job was limited to a single case, with specific facts and legal standards. The real fix for the larger social issues lies in other venues: police leadership, city halls and state legislatures. That’s where the pressure needs to be applied. It’s already happened in the Cosby matter. Many states have eliminated time limits for filing sexual assault charges, a nod to the horde of Cosby accusers who came forward after it was too late to prosecute. With respect to police shootings, if city administrators can’t find a way to stop scared, confused cops from killing people, then it’s time to change the statutes. Make the law crystal clear: a police officer’s fear and confusion are unacceptable defenses to manslaughter.