Here’s an example of differing priorities in our judicial system and its inequities.
In a story about a gang member who was acquitted in the shooting of a little girl, but was later paralyzed for life in what he calls “divine justice” we also learn some interesting details about the jury.
Nelson was acquitted in December 2004 on charges he was part of a shootout that killed Trina Persad as the 10-year-old played in a city park, beating the rap just one day before a Dorchester judge declared a mistrial in the case of his co-defendant, Joseph Cousin.
Five of the jurors who set Nelson free lied about their criminal backgrounds, including one who had an open arrest warrant.
So our justice system can’t be bothered to do background checks on jurors sitting on even capital murder cases, yet the Catholic archdiocese is required to run criminal background checks on the grey-haired grandmothers who clean the altar linens. Does this make sense to anyone else?
N.B. Never mind the stupidity of the juror with the open arrest warrant who showed up for jury duty. Duh.
Technorati Tags: Boston, crime, legal, Massachusetts
One thing, just to clarify, I don’t think any court or state or fed dept of justice is making any diocese or archdiocese do all these background checks – those are being done under all the “safe environment” programs, to please the insurers, and basically to CYA (no, not Catholic Youth Association!).
Not that that makes it any better.
And the open arrest warrant? Heh heh.
Now, listen. If you had an open arrest warrant and you got a jury duty notice with all that heavy duty fine print about not showing up and all that, you’d weigh the possibilities, right?
1) Not showing up for jury duty gets you jailed—at which time they’d sure notice the warrant. Not a good idea.
2) If they hadn’t noticed it so far (and apparently they hadn’t), and you showed up, they just might not notice the warrant and mark you “present.” And if you didn’t get picked for the jury, you could just slink out and get on with life……….
Which would you do???
Not excusing the lowlife, but even lowlifeworld has some common sense to it….
It is possible for an arrest warrant to exist and for the subject of the warrant to be unaware of it.
It is also possible for an arrest warrant to be unjustified.
We do not hire geniuses to do the paperwork in our criminal justice system.
Something like this happened with an in-law of mine.
Now why would someone lie in order to have the privilege of serving on a jury? Embarrassment?