The Salt Lake Tribune
| Pyle:
Put Trust in Juries to Dispense Justice |
Sunday, December 1, 2002 |
| BY
GEORGE PYLE In two high-profile criminal cases tried in Utah in recent weeks, the prosecution is 0-2. But that doesn't mean that justice is. First, psychiatrist Robert Weitzel was acquitted of charges that he unlawfully caused the deaths of five of his patients by giving them too much painkiller. The jury took less than two hours to conclude, in effect, that very old and very sick people often die, and that it shouldn't be a crime to be nearby when it happens. If it is, the risk that all of us will die alone and in pain increases significantly. Another jury took more time and, apparently, a lot more discussion before deciding that the case against James Bottarini just wasn't strong enough to convict him of killing his wife. Jurors told The Tribune's Michael Vigh afterward that deliberations began with a 10-2 split in favor of convicting Bottarini in his wife's fatal fall from a Zion National Park cliff five years ago. But the two initial holdouts convinced the others that the prosecutor just hadn't met the heavy burden of proof that our system supposedly requires for conviction. The federal prosecutor in the Bottarini case said, as prosecutors often do from the losing locker room, that he "respected" the jury's decision. The Davis County prosecutor who went after Weitzel was a tad less gracious, suggesting jurors in that case had been "confused" by all the conflicting expert testimony that had been thrown at them. Prosecutors may not suffer from confusion. But people who won't admit to being confused can't be trusted. Which is why we have juries. Juries and jurors have been the butt of a great many jokes over the years, what with all the cracks about being judged by 12 people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. They are certainly the most important and potentially maddening variable in an attorney's life. But, without them, our criminal justice system would be a lot more criminal and a lot less just. My experience as a courthouse reporter is limited to a handful of jury trials, most of them civil cases that involved lots of money but no one's life. Two, though, stand out in my memory, one because it was funny, the other because it was not. The funny one was a drunk-driving charge against an individual who complained that he had been targeted for prosecution because he had a habit of objecting to local laws about where he could put trailer houses. Seems the defendant was sitting at the wheel of his large car in the wee hours of the morning, stopped at a red light. A police car, about the only other vehicle at large at that time of the morning in that small town, came up behind him. The light turned green, then yellow, then red. Twice. The car never moved. The police officer investigated and, according to his testimony, discovered the driver passed out at the wheel with a half-empty bottle of liquor in the passenger seat. The jury let the man walk. Why? Because his defense attorney explained to the jury that at no time had anyone seen his client drive a car while impaired. It was, even according to the arresting officer, just sitting there. A miscarriage of justice? Nope. Bad lawyering on the part of the city prosecutor, who just assumed he had a slam-dunk case and didn't bother to lead the jury through the thought process to conclude that the defendant must have been doing something illegal to get where he was. The other case was a Greek tragedy, played out in another small town. A woman, upset because her husband wanted a divorce, drove to the school to get her three children, drove to Kmart to buy bullets and drove to the storage locker to get her husband's hunting rifle. Then she lined up her children in her living room and killed the oldest, an 8-year-old boy, before the husband arrived to save the others. The defense was insanity, though all the lawyers involved privately agreed with the judge that the woman's methodical plan to execute her children proved she was, by law, as sane as anyone. But those 12 housewives, farmers and store clerks said, in effect, the law is an ass. A woman who would kill her own children is nuts. The prosecutor was about as stunned as the defense lawyer. The judge was incensed -- though he never showed it in court. The mother, last I heard, was a guest of a state mental hospital, where she was taking nursing courses. The lesson from these old stories, and from the two new ones, is to trust juries. They hear all the testimony. They are the people plucked from normal life and given the task of sitting in judgment of their fellow citizens. They are the ones who feel the huge weight of that responsibility and, often enough, discharge it with great seriousness. These two recent Utah cases, on the other hand, suggest an unfortunate tendency on the part of prosecutors not only to see the world in stark shades of black and white, where the real wisdom born of doubt plays no role, but also to adopt a kill-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out approach. Or, more exactly, try-'em-all-and-let-the-jury-sort-it-out. Just be glad that juries are capable of exactly that. _________ George B. Pyle writes editorials for The Salt Lake Tribune. |