Michael Jackson has been acquitted of all counts. We covered the case earlier on Mar. 1 and at Point of Law on Apr. 7.

Filed under: crime and punishment

Jack Chin at CrimProfBlog has a roundup.

Filed under: crime and punishment

ACSBlog posts:

The Christian Science Monitor reports that a computer program designed by a team of criminologists and computer scientists is able to predict the outcome of death penalty cases with better than 90% accuracy. The program considers no law or legally significant facts in making its assessment, instead basing its analysis entirely on factors such as age, race, sex, and marital status of the offender and the date and type of offense.

The implication, says Dee Wood Harper, one of the researchers and a professor of criminal justice at Loyola University in New Orleans, is that “if this mindless software can determine who is going to die and who is not going to die, then there’s some arbitrariness here in the [United States justice] system.”

I was considerably less impressed by the 19-variable model. I can devise a zero-variable model that will have a better-than-80% accuracy rate for predicting the outcome of modern American death penalty cases simply by having a model that will always answer “no” to the question “Will the death row inmate be executed?” Given states like California where the death penalty is on the books, and juries regularly sentence criminals to death, but the Ninth Circuit refuses to let the state perform executions, there’s little surprise that a model that accounts for location and year of conviction can do even better. (As an ACSBlog commenter notes, part of Harper’s “arbitrariness” is reflected in the difference in state laws.) Between 1973 and 2000 there have been about 4500-5000 death row inmates, and fewer than 800 executions. (Susan Llewelyn Leach, “Using software to model death row outcomes”, Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 27)(& letters to the editor, May 10 and Jun. 8).

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After eight years and three trials, a group of protesters whose eyes were swabbed with pepper spray during a series of anti-logging demonstrations finally won their case Thursday against Humboldt County sheriff’s deputies and Eureka police—but were awarded only $1 each in damages.

The protestors had blocked a public road by locking their arms together inside metal pipes, and argued that the police should have used a grinder to cut through the metal. One press account credulously repeats: “‘It was never about the money,’ [attorney Dennis] Cunningham said. ‘It was always about the principle.'” This contradicts the complaint in the case, which asked for punitive damages, and I wonder if the press will remind Cunningham of his statement when the plaintiffs ask for attorney’s fees—which are now potentially available to the plaintiffs because of the “success” of the $1 verdict in a civil rights case. The plaintiffs’ web page estimates that they will ask for about a million dollars. (Stacy Finz, “Logging protesters win pepper spray case”, SF Chronicle, Apr. 29; Justin M. Norton, AP, Apr. 29; Plaintiffs’ web site).

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“During the two decades [millionaire murder defendant Fred] Keller has lived in Palm Beach County, he has filed more than 160 lawsuits. Most were landlord-tenant actions in connection with his commercial real estate empire,” but there were also a large assortment of others, including suits naming several relatives and a former girlfriend against whom he waged a 16-year campaign to collect a $2,225 debt. Keller, 70, is headed for a retrial next month after a jury deadlocked on charges that include “first-degree murder in the death of his fifth wife, Rosemarie, and attempted first-degree murder in the wounding of her brother in November 2003.” (Larry Keller, Palm Beach Post, Apr. 25)(via Sploid).

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We get mail:

I read your post about the juror who was caught buying a newspaper during a murder trial with interest because my brother, William Boge, was one of the defense attorneys.

While I agree that simply buying a newspaper when instructed not to by the judge (especially if the trial isn’t covered in that paper) is not necessarily grounds for an automatic mistrial, I think there were some important points left out of this discussion that makes the mistrial more reasonable.

First, the juror bought two newspapers, not one. And it’s reasonable to assume if she bought newspapers that day, she probably bought them other days as well. And one of the papers she bought (the Potomac News) was a local one, and covered many aspects of the trial, including information NOT allowed to be presented at the trial. So, who’s to say she didn’t read the papers on those days, too?

Second, because it was the defense attorney (John Shields) who accused her of buying the paper (and the Judge asked her directly if she had seen Shields at the 7-11 that morning), she would understandably hold some anger against him, which could impair her ability to make a fair decision in the case.

Finally, this case was entirely circumstantial. There was not one piece of evidence linking the defendant to the crime. Based on this, my guess is that the judge was very hesitant to let stand a murder conviction and a 40-year prison term, based solely on circumstantial evidence, if there was any doubt that the jury had been influenced by outside evidence.

Regards,
Matt Boge

The first point is certainly a valid argument. If the judge made a finding that the juror was prejudiced from reading newspapers other than the ones seen being bought, that could be grounds for a mistrial. We don’t know from the press accounts whether the judge actually made this finding, which was certainly possible: on April 12, the Potomac News reported about an inadmissible affidavit Marissa Lara made before her murder where she accused her estranged husband of raping and threatening to kill her. But why not question the other jurors to determine if Lindy Heaster had reported this information in deliberations?

I don’t find the second argument persuasive. If this were a legitimate reason to find prejudice, an attorney could deliberately try to alienate jurors and then complain that the juror might wish to retaliate. If it were possible for the judge to do so (and it may not have been), Judge Alston should have taken steps to quiz the juror about the 7-11 purchase without letting it be known who saw the juror.

Nearly every murder case involves solely “circumstantial evidence,” which just means non-eyewitness testimony. And the circumstantial evidence here was strong: Gerardo Lara had the motive to kill his estranged wife; Lara had previously violently attacked her (and someone trying to rescue her) in a different incident in front of witnesses; Lara was caught trying to get his sons to lie about an alibi; the victim’s body was found in a Mitsubishi, wrapped in a sleeping bag resembling that of one of Lara’s sons, and both sets of the keys to the Mitsubishi were found in Lara’s home–including a set in a briefcase hidden underneath the bed. All of that would be sufficient evidence to convict Gerardo Lara of murder even if one completely discounts the jailhouse confession he allegedly made.

Other readers have asked whether the judge has the power to issue a $30,000 civil contempt fine to compensate for the costs of the mistrial. The contempt proceeding on July 1 would probably have to be a criminal contempt proceeding, though, if so, it contradicts the press account stating that the judge has already held Heaster in contempt. The proposed fine is likely substantial enough to entitle Heaster to a jury trial; Virginia law has in a similar case limited civil contempt fines to $50. Brown v. Commonwealth, 26 Va. App. 758, 497 S.E.2d 147 (1998). But all of this remains to be litigated, and, if I were the juror, I would probably be more concerned about the possible felony perjury charges the peeved prosecutor is likely to bring.

Filed under: crime and punishment