Pubdate: Tue, 16 Jul 2002
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2002 The Dallas Morning News
Contact:  http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author:  William Raspberry

SO WHAT IS A CONSCIENTIOUS GRAND JUROR SUPPOSED TO DO?

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

Now, I have 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 wouldn't 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 
automatically should 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 
to justice?

It is unlikely that everyone whose case came before our 23-member panel was 
guilty of everything on the prosecution's catchall 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 
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 likelihood is that I would end up voting to bring Donovan 
Jackson to trial (where the cards also would be stacked against him).

What I am 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.

Surely, Donovan Jackson and Rodney King 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 - 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.

William Raspberry writes for The Washington Post.
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