Burton Katz
At last: The jury trial of Phil Spector
Come on folks; admit it, how many of you have mixed feelings about our jury system? I readily admit that sometimes, in a moment of frustration, I have succumbed to thoughts that border on a betrayal of our time-honored system. For me, it is sometimes hard to know whether juries are “leaves swayed by every breath,” as Justice Learned Hand proposed, or are “true and right,” as Clarence Darrow suggested. In darker moments, as in the O.J. Simpson and Robert Blake trials, I have often thought about H.L. Mencken’s observation that juries are “chosen precisely because of their lack of intellectual resilience.”
When I was growing up I knew that our system of justice was anchored in our jury system. I knew that the juries in “Twelve Angry Men” and “To Kill a Mockingbird” got it right. I thought that all juries were like that. Just give them the evidence and somehow they would sift through it, find the truth and return a verdict uninfluenced by bias and prejudice. But I was six or seven then, and what did I know? And we were not bombarded by music and rhyme-heralding gangsta rap, rape and murder.
The concept of a trial by jury of one’s peers is a good one. It is bottomed in the notion that the jury chosen at random from the community in which we live reflects the values therein. As such, the verdict will express the community’s will and its sense of right and wrong consonant with the dictates of our laws. But some would argue that our society has changed; that we have become dumber, crasser and more polarized. That we are more inclined to accept assumptions without supporting facts. Instant communication from bloggers is fine so long as we have a filtering mechanism to screen out misinformation, bias and prejudice.
Hopefully, the Spector jury, consisting of nine men and three women (six alternates to be selected), will follow the time-honored tradition of juries that exhibit an overriding commitment to the evidence and the law, uninfluenced by the entertaining but often inaccurate legal portrayals of “The Practice,” “Law and Order,” “Shark” or the commentary of “Nancy Grace” or Leo Terrell. Speaking of Grace, one prospective juror who was excused said she loved Nancy Grace and listens with interest to what she says. Well, what Grace said was “he’s got mommy issues or wife issues or girl issues, I don’t care.” The point being, we all know where Grace stands on the issue of guilt and so do the jurors who listen to her. Never has there been so much “information” and commentary available at an instant turn of the knob or a click of the mouse.
To make things more interesting is the question of how much influence a male juror who was selected will have on the rest of the panel. He is reportedly a network TV producer who has covered high-profile cases, including O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, among other cases. But more interesting is that he was allegedly assigned to the Spector case for NBC News and has read court documents filed in the Spector case!
So let me get this straight: a juror who has intimate knowledge of the case, who works for “Dateline NBC,” who has read court documents from the Spector case, who has a suspicious interest in self-advancement and exploitation is selected as a juror! Why would either side take a chance on such a juror? Even though most crime show documentaries deal with guilty parties, it is too risky. Having read court documents that assuredly contain inadmissible allegations, misperceptions and legal posturing, if not downright untruths, how does one erase this from his mind? How do you forget the pink elephant in your living room?
Since the defense has only to hang the jury with one dissenting vote, it is even riskier for the prosecution. Remember, the prosecution record on celebrity trials is iffy. Regardless of the ultimate result, it is at best unorthodox, and an element to be overcome or, at worst, fatal to the case. The jury will be asked to accept the notion that Lana Clarkson killed herself. Renowned experts such as Henry Lee of O.J. fame will be called by the defense to dazzle the jury and to raise a doubt as to who caused her death. Jurors must sort through the highly technical forensic evidence. The jurors appear to be intelligent and are represented by a Superior Court clerk, a law firm administrator, an engineering doctoral candidate, an assistant to a deputy mayor of Los Angeles, two mechanics and, finally, a senior vice president of marketing for New Line Cinema. While they would presumably appear capable of separating the corn from the husk, I can only wonder what might happen when a New Line Cinema senior vice president meets a “Dateline NBC” producer. Then again, this is L.A.