Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jul 2002
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2002 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/124
Author: William Raspberry

EVEN THE VOICES OF AUTHORITY CAN LIE SOMETIMES

WASHINGTON - Two things were on my mind when I started my recently 
completed five-week grand jury stint. First was the not-so-old adage, 
perhaps first uttered by New York Judge Sol Wachtler, that a prosecutor can 
get a grand jury to "indict a ham sandwich" if he or she wanted it to. The 
other was the dismaying number of young black men who are winding up in our 
prisons.

Now I've got a third thing to worry over: Donovan Jackson, the 16-year-old 
videotaped being slammed and punched by an Inglewood, Calif., police officer.

The ham-sandwich adage, no doubt overstated, is based on the fact that 
grand juries hear only the prosecution's side of things; the defendant may 
not even be aware that the proceedings are taking place, and the prosecutor 
is likely to be the only lawyer in the room.

The second is no overstatement at all. Too many young black men, 
particularly those without connections or financial resources, are being 
sent to jail, often with long mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.

I had made up my mind that I would not lightly or unwittingly add to that 
dismaying trend. Any prosecutor who presented a case to me would have to 
have his stuff together. I would make sure that the police dotted their I's 
and crossed their T's. Cases based on profiling, on presumptions about how 
poor black folk behave, on sloppy police work or on the expectation that we 
should automatically believe the cops would produce no indictment if I had 
anything to do with it.

That was my intention.

Here is my humble confession: I wasn't able to do much of anything about 
the stuff I had in mind. Evidence is evidence. How can I vote not to indict 
the guy who sells $100 worth of crack to an undercover officer and is 
arrested with the marked and recorded money in his possession? How can I 
ask my fellow jurors not to do their part in bringing murderers and rapists 
and gang-bangers to justice?

It's unlikely that everyone whose case came before our 23-member panel was 
guilty of everything on the prosecution's catch-all list. Surely some of 
them will have alternative explanations of the relevant facts and 
circumstances we considered. But in the overwhelming majority of the cases 
we heard, there was enough evidence against the accused to warrant their 
being brought to trial - which, after all, was what we were supposed to 
decide. And even that decision, which requires only a majority vote, is, by 
law, based on mere "probable cause," a much lower standard than the trial 
jury's "beyond reasonable doubt."

Which brings me to Donovan Jackson. Imagine that the only information I had 
about what happened in Inglewood two weeks ago came through the prosecutor 
and police witnesses. Imagine that a cop shows me his scratched face and 
says this crazy kid did it to him, then tells me he and his fellow officers 
finally had to wrestle the boy to the ground in order to subdue him.

Would I be clever enough to read the false testimony for what it was? Don't 
count on it. The overwhelming likelihood is that I'd end up voting to bring 
Donovan to trial (where the cards would be similarly stacked against him).

What I'm saying is that decent, even sympathetic, jurors might have wound 
up sending an innocent young man to prison. Indeed, the only reason Donovan 
Jackson and Inglewood police officer Jeremy Morse are topics of 
conversation is that - shades of Rodney King - a civilian happened to take 
video footage of the officer's actions.

I don't know what to say about those Americans who, judging from the radio 
talk shows, refuse to believe their eyes. My immediate concern, though, is 
for people like me who find it all too easy to believe their ears, 
particularly when they are listening to the uncontradicted voice of authority.

Surely Rodney King and Donovan Jackson and Philadelphia's Thomas Jones 
(remember the cops standing in a circle around the subdued suspect and 
taking turns kicking him?) aren't the only victims of police brutality. The 
reason we know their cases is that we saw the action on videotape.

On the other hand, it doesn't follow that all untaped police beatings are 
unjustified. Criminals do stupid things, inexplicable things, murderous 
things - to cops, to innocent civilians and to each other.

So what is a conscientious grand juror supposed to do? Assume that cops 
usually lie? Assume that most of those accused of crimes are innocent? 
Demand a level of proof beyond what the law requires? Wait for the videotape?

Most, in fact, will go on believing most of what the authorities tell them 
- - at least believing it enough to send the cases forward for trial.

Even if the cases include a ham sandwich or two.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart