Come on, who are we kidding? This case was never meant to click along nice On Thursday Juror No. 2, a 25-year old African-American flight attendant, asked to speak to the judge. “I can’t take it anymore,” she told him, distraught-and apparently adept at recalling good movie lines. She then allegedly went on to complain that three white deputy sheriffs were causing problems, and issued an ultimatum: either remove them or she would walk.‘Ito blinked and, with no objections from the attorneys and sheriffs commander who were present, reassigned the three. Not so fast. The next day, 13 of the 18 jurors, angered by the removal, rebelled. They refused to go to court and demanded that Ito come to their hotel to talk - an unprecedented defiance. The judge couldn’t very well do that, so the Simpson 13 relented-but not before most put on black clothing as a symbol of protest. In pointed response, the antiguard faction dressed colorfully.
Facing mutiny in the courthouse, Ito called off testimony and began questioning each member individually. But once again legal experts were talking about the prospect, growing less remote daily, of a mistrial if the jury pool shrunk below 12. And if not that, the discord raised the question of how 12 jurors, who squabble over which movies to watch, could possibly reach a unanimous verdict in the double-murder case. “This trial is now somewhere between surrealism and farce,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford law professor.
The jury has been sequestered since Jan. 11, so it’s not surprising their nerves may be shot. That became evident a few weeks ago when dismissed juror Jeanette Harris told of a quarrelsome, racial divided in it was exacerbated, she claimed, by what she perceived to be unfair treatment by at least three white sheriff’s deputies who watched the jury. Ito interviewed jurors about Harris’s charges last week, but no action appeared imminent -until a tearful juror No. 2 came forward.
The racial breakdown of the jurors who protested the guards’ removal suggests that personality as much as race may be involved. Although the handful of jurors who were unhappy with the deputies appeared to be black, the 13 who protested the dismissal were racially mixed. Many jurors apparently gave little credence to complaints made by Harris or Juror No. 2. The Sheriff’s Department agreed. Said Michael Graham, an assistant sheriff, “We told him it was a mistake, but he said he felt it was necessary to maintain harmony in the jury. It’s obvious that his action has done just the opposite.”
So now the question is: how does Ito get the jurors back into the courtroom? If he reinstates the three deputies, he risks angering the handful of jurors who complained of mistreatment. He could hold the jurors in contempt, but turning them into unwilling participants is hardly conducive to producing a fair verdict. His most obvious course is to appeal to their civic duty and make their sequestered life easier even unsequestering them, though that’s unlikely. It would also help if he could convince them he’ll keep the trial moving more rapidly. “The pressures that have built up have come about principally because they haven’t had enough work to do,” contends Ira Reiner, former L.A. district attorney.
And if Ito decides the jury won’t return or is too badly divided, he could dismiss the lot. The defense would undoubtedly object on double-jeopardy grounds. Instead, most experts predict continued attrition of jury members as the trial limps along. Ito has discharged six jurors since January. “It may just be,” says Stanford’s Weisberg, “that the lesson the pessimist-or realist-learns from all this is that this case cannot be tried.” Premature, maybe, but less so than when the trial began.
In Week 13 the jurors were running the show, and the question was: will there be a Week 14? On a scale of 1 to 5 gavels, here’s the flash judgment.
Watching prosecutor Hank Goldberg drone on 77 could make anyone scream, “I can’t take it anymore.” But his direct of Andrea Mazzola was short and effective.
The fortune-cookie bit was tasteless, but the hugs for 77 the hapless Dennis Fung were acting at its worst. Advice to Barry Scheck: stop reading your press reviews.
Surprise, surprise, jury revolts against the Bill Clinton of the judiciary. Will Ito do his customary flip-flop and reinstate the three sheriff’s deputies he booted?
