Bobby Ferguson got away with millions of tax payer money and
was finally brought to trial with solid evidence all over the place, we are
told, so his conviction was a slam dunk.
Before the trial, Ferguson ’s
lawyers complained that he was not getting a fair trial because he was not
being judged by a jury of his peers. I knew right then and there, we were
heading for a mistrial.
To me, being judged by a jury made up of my peers means that
the jury is composed of people from my city, town, village or county. To
Ferguson’s lawyers, his peers means his fellow blacks… which to me is an issue
steeped in racism and has no place in how juries are chosen or how juries do
their sworn duties; people on the juries are sworn to judge the evidence
presented to them in a color-blind fashion; am I naïve?
Anyway, there have been cases in recent history where the black defendant was
absolutely guilty judging by the evidence presented and according to the men
and women of the jury hearing the case EXCEPT for the lone black juror (usually
female) who disregarded the evidence and instead blocked conviction because she
just could not convict a fellow black on principle.
In the Ferguson
case it appears that in the face of overwhelming evidence, one female black
juror scuttled the entire effort of the prosecution on the grounds that she
could not convict a fellow black. In this case there was at least one other
black juror (male) who thought Ferguson was guilty and was disappointed at the
lone holdout.
Our jury system is not perfect and I think we all know that
but it is our system and our right to be tried by our peers but I suspect there
is a cultural problem that is being exploited by conniving defense lawyers to
the detriment of our system of jurisprudence.
We all remember the infamous O.J. Simpson case but there
have been many other miscarriages of justice based on a culture of racism that
has no place in our society today.
You can call it getting back at all the miscarriages of
justice by all white juries in the South that found blacks guilty and sentenced
to hang based on the color of their skin and not on any evidence but that has
to stop at some time and the time is now.
All jurors are obligated to be impartial judges of the
evidence presented to them and I feel there must be a process where a juror’s
obvious obstinacy based on bias and not on presented evidence, must be
identified and dealt with so as not to waste taxpayer money on expensive
retrials.
I know I will be reminded of the great play and movie, THE
TWELVE ANGRY MEN which is such a classic but even in that classic about one
hold-out juror eventually convincing the other eleven of the defendant’s
innocence, race was not an issue in the story and it should not be an issue in
our story today.
