Word: convicted
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Leaster, a former death row convict who was incarcerated for fifteen years before he was acquitted at a retrial, dismissed both the moral and utilitarian arguments for the death penalty...
...veteran prosecutor was already saying her case was as good as lost. For two reasons: one, O.J. Simpson was an American hero and thus "an unconvictable defendant." Second, "they've filed this case downtown, which means they're going to get a downtown jury. A black jury will not convict this defendant. Forget it. It's all over." Says Cochran: "I know the downtown jury panel. So I felt that one of the first big breaks was obviously the case coming downtown...
There may be no verdict that can reconcile feelings so sharply polarized. Never mind that the jury has nine African Americans--a guilty verdict will infuriate many blacks outside the courtroom. An nbc poll last week showed just 2% of blacks would convict Simpson of first-degree murder, which requires proof of premeditation and could send him to prison for life without parole. Only 15% would support even a second-degree verdict, the one appropriate to killings that might be called crimes of passion, which in California would carry a prison term of 15 years to life. Fifty-nine percent...
...hung jury? If it should emerge that it was split largely along racial lines, it would leave most Americans with the impression that black jurors could not bring themselves to convict a black defendant so dear to them as O.J. It would also probably mean another trial, and thanks to a year of saturated publicity, the search for a dozen unbiased jurors is certain to be more difficult than it was the first time. Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti has promised to retry Simpson even if the jury votes 11 to 1 for acquittal. The seminars on dna evidence...
This theme of diametric opposites in race relations fosters the whole concept of the black community being at war with the white community. It is a matter of "us" versus "them" instead of "we." As witnessed in the O.J. Simpson trial, the predominately black jury failed to convict Simpson because if they had, they would have been forced to live among their communities with the ridicule of being traitors. This sense of being at war has carried over to the inner cities, only it has been heightened to the nth degree. Brought about by drugs and gangs, the culture...