Faith In Judicial System Being Lost

It’s even money that Judge Lance Ito will empty the jury box at the O.J. Simpson trial before the Juice’s lawyers empty their client’s bank account.

Simpson’s Dream Team has extended its massive conspiracy defense, imagining prosecutors in cahoots with Ito to outspend the wealthy superstar similar to the way the Reagan-Bush team won the Cold War by outspending the Soviet Union.

A mistrial would mean Simpson would walk free, argue his lawyers, because a second trial would violate the U.S. Constitution’s “double jeopardy” provision.

A mistrial also would mean Simpson might not have enough money to mount a second defense. If the double jeopardy trick fails, a destitute Simpson could be assigned a public defender while the Dream Team rejoins the condors in search of juicier pickings.

And if the court treats a destitute Simpson the same way it treats other down-and-out defendants, Simpson’s preening flock of fatted lawyers could be replaced by one skinny kid who just squeaked by the last bar exam and has been surviving on Frito pies, No-Doz and tequila slammers since high school. Quite a change.

A public defender trial probably would go to the jury in three days. A week, tops. Public defenders seldom have sequestered juries, high-priced experts and endless challenges and objections.

If Ito keeps dismissing jurors, prosecution and defense lawyers could agree to continue the trial with fewer than 12 jurors. Supposedly, a decision can be made by only 10 jurors. Or only six. Perhaps two. Or maybe just one agentless juror, who doesn’t mind being held prisoner indefinitely, can decide Simpson’s guilt or innocence.

“I’m through with juries,” said Willie Cravin, the last juror axed by Ito (as of this writing).

Who can blame him?

Cravin said he felt like a convict locked up for the past five months. He said jurors were treated like prisoners under the constant observation of sheriff’s deputies.

The 55-year-old postal worker got the boot for giving intimidating looks to another juror.

One juror was dismissed after a laptop computer was found in a search of his hotel room. Another juror was booted after deputies found a note she had passed to a fellow jury inmate about a book deal.

Jurors’ rooms are searched, and they are told what they can say, what they can look at, who they can meet and what they can do. They constantly are being told to get up and leave the room while all the smart grown-ups talk about serious matters the jurors couldn’t possibly understand or be trusted to know.

A really nifty way to destroy the public’s sense of civic responsibility is to treat law-abiding citizens like ignoramuses and criminals.

But jurors naturally will be treated like ignoramuses as long as the courts demand that only an elite group of lawyers and judges can be trusted with all the facts. Supposedly, justice can occur only if jurors have no knowledge of the defendant or anything else that bears on the trial.

It used to be just the opposite. A trial by a jury of peers meant a trial by hometown neighbors who best knew the defendant and the circumstances surrounding the case.

Simpson’s lawyers base their double jeopardy argument on an appellate court decision about a mistrial caused when a juror was dismissed without the defendant’s consent after the juror had read a newspaper that supplied information that invalidated the defendant’s alibi. There were no alternate jurors.

No one but a lawyer would think that justice was served by letting the defendant walk away free because the jury was supposed to remain ignorant of information that invalidated the defendant’s alibi.

No wonder Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden said this trial has caused him to lose faith in the current criminal justice system.

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