Legal Commentary

Juror Complains to Judge About Sentencing for Acquitted Conduct

By Jeralyn

Don't miss this article in the Washington Times about an upset juror. Here's his letter to the Court (pdf) which is causing quite a stir.

The jury had acquitted the defendants of all but some small drug sales. Juror #6 learned from a press release the defendants could still get 40 years.

I write because I recently saw a press release from the US Attorney’s Office which states that Gregory Bell and Joseph Jones were sentenced to 16 years and 15 years, respectively, “for their roles in this case”. It also states that Antwuan Ball, Desmond Thurston, and David Wilson “each face up to 40 years imprisonment for the narcotics crimes for which they were convicted.”

Can this be true? We as a jury found these individuals guilty of somewhere around 20 instances of selling drugs, but as I remember it, most of these were very small amounts. And this was over a period of nearly 10 years. Now
I’m not a lawyer, but after 30 years of living in the District, I believe people selling small amounts of crack on the street usually end up with probation or only a year or two in prison if they have a previous offense.

[More...]

As you remember, Judge Roberts, we spent 8 months listening to the evidence, filling countless court-supplied notebooks, making summaries of those notes, and even creating card catalogues to keep track of all the witnesses and their statements. We deliberated for over 2 months, 4 days a week, 8 hours a day. We went over everything in detail. If any of our fellow jurors had a doubt, a question, an idea, or just wanted something repeated, we all stopped and made time. Conspiracy? A crew? With the evidence the prosecutor presented, not one among us could see it. Racketeering? We dismissed that even more quickly. No conspiracy shown but more importantly, where was the money? No big bank accounts. Mostly old cars. Small apartments or living with relatives.

It seems to me a tragedy that one is asked to serve on a jury, serves, but then finds their work may not be given the credit it deserves. We, the jury, all took our charge seriously. We virtually gave up our private lives to devote our time to the cause of justice, and it is a very noble cause as you know, sir. We looked across the table at one another in respect and in sympathy. We listened, we thought, we argued, we got mad and left the room, we broke, we rested that charge until tomorrow, we went on. Eventually, through every hour-long tape of a single drug sale, hundreds of pages of transcripts, ballistics evidence, and photos, we delivered to you our verdicts.

He adds,

What does it say to our contribution as jurors when we see our verdicts, in my personal view, not given their proper weight. It appears to me that these defendants are being sentenced not on the charges for which they have been found guilty but on the charges for which the District Attorney’s office would have liked them to have been found guilty. Had they shown us hard evidence, that might have been the outcome, but that was not the case. That is how you instructed your jury in this case to perform and for good reason.

Juror #6, Jim Caron, age 60, died of heart problems a few weeks after writing the letter. I'm glad it's getting the attention it deserves.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).