* The Root has a good piece on those. Also worth noting is that a significant portion of the rioters were White anarchists. And on that front, I agree with Myca and others in the comments, which is that these folks who just like to use political discord as an excuse for smashing shit are remarkably blind to their own privilege. Not only are they appropriating the miscarriage of justice in the Grant case for their own ideological ends (which I imagine is some ill-thought out version of "smash capitalism"), but even though their faces are White, the media narrative will be all about savage Black folks who run rampant through the streets when
Saturday, July 10, 2010
The Oscar Grant Verdict
As nearly all of you know, Johannes Mehserle, the White BART police officer who fatally shot an unarmed, restrained Black man who was lying face-down on the ground, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but acquitted of the more serious charges of voluntary manslaughter or second degree murder. Oakland residents reacted with outrage at the perceived lenient verdict, with several riots breaking out.*
It seems difficult to understand how a jury could refrain from judging Mehserle guilty of at least voluntary manslaughter (Having read the jury instructions given for voluntary manslaughter, I'm not longer willing to state that. This, nonetheless, simply raises the level of abstraction when we're talking about injustice). Nonetheless, part of me was surprised that there was a conviction at all. I am, in fact, that cynical. Look at the history. A Texas cop was recently acquitted of all charges after shooting an unarmed Black man, lying face down in his own driveway, because the cop thought he was stealing his own car. Bernard Goetz was acquitted of everything but unlawful possession of a firearm after brutally massacring four Black men on a subway train. And of course, we all remember the Rodney King verdicts. Given these precedents, any form of homicide conviction is at least partial justice. But then, I don't really expect the people of Oakland to settle for partial justice.
* The Root has a good piece on those. Also worth noting is that a significant portion of the rioters were White anarchists. And on that front, I agree with Myca and others in the comments, which is that these folks who just like to use political discord as an excuse for smashing shit are remarkably blind to their own privilege. Not only are they appropriating the miscarriage of justice in the Grant case for their own ideological ends (which I imagine is some ill-thought out version of "smash capitalism"), but even though their faces are White, the media narrative will be all about savage Black folks who run rampant through the streets whenthe legal system utterly fails them they don't get their way.
* The Root has a good piece on those. Also worth noting is that a significant portion of the rioters were White anarchists. And on that front, I agree with Myca and others in the comments, which is that these folks who just like to use political discord as an excuse for smashing shit are remarkably blind to their own privilege. Not only are they appropriating the miscarriage of justice in the Grant case for their own ideological ends (which I imagine is some ill-thought out version of "smash capitalism"), but even though their faces are White, the media narrative will be all about savage Black folks who run rampant through the streets when
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29 comments:
I'm a little uncomfortable that the mere presence of white anarchists somehow makes it unnecessary to talk seriously about the rioting and looting. In your post you slip from noting "a significant portion" of white rioters to implying that they were generally white. I don't think that's true. Honest question: if you were in the media, how would you frame footage like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bUSo1p66a0
I don't see how the facts of the case could have supported a murder conviction (even supposing a platonically impartial jury). Therefore, it's irresponsible to claim that the judicial system "utterly failed" the black community. To allow past wrongs and present concerns with institutional racism to override the facts of the case is a definition of injustice.
I'm not a law student, but it seems problematic that the jury was choosing from three categories (second-degree murder, voluntary and involuntary manslaughter) to define what was essentially a binary question: did he deliberately fire a pistol at Grant or not?
The evidence (multiple witnesses, including a friend of the victim, testifying that he said he was going to use his taser; the very public nature of the situation; the officer's immediate reaction to the shooting) makes it plausible that he was *not* purposefully firing a pistol. (It at least make it impossible to prove murderous intent beyond reasonable doubt.)
53 people died in the Rodney King riots. The casual willingness to portray this case as a travesty of justice - while perhaps understandable in light of history - is at the same time grossly irresponsible.
The link says that "many" of the destructive rioters were White. The video you showed seems to buttress that -- obviously its hard to identify with full confidence, but it looked to me like most of the folks actually smashing the window of the Foot Locker were White. (It's of course important to distinguish folks who actually engage in property damage from those who simply protested -- even those who protested angrily -- or even those who looted after the windows were broken). I don't condone rioting, but at the same time, it's tough to lecture folks about obeying the law when (as police shootings demonstrate in every possible sense) the community feels (with good reason) that the law isn't there for them. Rev. Jackson is correct that it is quite notable that these riots only occur in response to police brutality, not absence of food, jobs, or any other ailment.
One of the things I noted when I struck the section about not understanding how the jury couldn't at least give a voluntary manslaughter verdict is that it just moves the miscarriage of justice to a higher level of abstraction. As has been noted, this officer could get less time in prison than Plexico Burriss got for accidentally shooting himself (not to mention less than a low-level drug dealer). Neither the legal system, nor the general public, is structured so as to take the problem of police brutality (particularly against Black people) seriously. That formalist legalisms buttressed that oversight simply means the problem is more deeply entrenched.
I don't see how the facts of the case could have supported a murder conviction (even supposing a platonically impartial jury). Therefore, it's irresponsible to claim that the judicial system "utterly failed" the black community.
David, I can't help but notice your response to the quoted comment from Jon is quite different from your take on the whole Nasr-CNN-Hezbollah situation.
There, you refuse to conceptualize any potential double standard as being a bias "for" Israel. You insist that if there's a similar situation implicating Arab concerns instead of Jewish concerns, the only just outcome must be "raising the standards" all around, i.e. adding to the list of fire-able statements by journalists. Leveling the playing field any other way than this (for you) optimal outcome must be a great injustice.
But here, you focus on a relatively light sentence as the injustice, not merely the fact that black defendants don't get the same break. And you take this approach even though you seem to concede that, as a matter of law intersecting with reasonable doubt, the verdict may not be incorrect; and even though we might question whether this defendant really poses so great a future danger to society that a decades-long sentence (at a public cost of $40,000 a year) would be fruitful. (To be clear, the same is probably true of most convicted criminals in the U.S. -- our runaway imprisonment rate is largely due to lengthy sentences relative to the rest of the world, and we're not much safer for all of it.)
So I think it's a marked contrast in your approach. For my part, I'd much rather see lighter sentences and more impartial juries for black defendants, as opposed to making sure we lock white people away more frequently and for longer. I suspect that you would agree with me on that. But fairness is a huge value (and has its own benefits in terms of social cohesion), so I have no problem leveling the playing field the other way if need be.
I think I see the point you're trying to make, but it's based off such a fundamental misunderstanding of the point I made in this post and the comment that I can't really respond to it without going deeper into the weeds than I feel like doing. Try to read for comprehension, rather than smarminess.
Hey now, any reading incomprehensions are good faith, albeit potentially huge and boosted by major argumentativeness.
Jon, in answer to your puzzlement on the number of charges, there are a lot of other possible questions. In this case probably related to just how careless the jury thinks the defendant was being, if he intentionally shot the guy with his real gun did he think he was in danger of imminent bodily harm, would that belief be reasonable, etc. And a lot of crimes are identical except for one element. For example, attempted murder becomes murder if we have the additional element of the victim dying. An assault is in a more serious category if a weapon is used.
David,
You write: "Bernard Goetz was acquitted of everything but unlawful possession of a firearm after brutally massacring four Black men on a subway train."
I sort of remember this incident pretty well. It was pretty horrible. The background of the event included the near complete breakdown of law in the NYC subway system, which is not intended by me to excuse Goetz playing the role of Paul Kersey.
It is, however, worth noting that Goetz acted after being accosted - and on his version, he was about to be mugged by four toughies who had demanded money from him. His version of events was one that a jury in NYC could certainly believe occurred. Of course, to understand how his version might make sense to a jury, you have to be old enough to remember how scary it once was to ride on the NYC subway system and how common muggings on the subway were, with people sitting and watching the muggings in surrounding seats and no one helping (but, instead, cowering in their seats - often with good reasons, since there are incidents where good Samaritans were shot trying to defend people who were being mugged on the subway). Such concern led to considerable sympathy for Goetz since most people in NYC were certainly well aware - and his champions in the NYC press reminded anyone who did not appreciate - that it was dangerous to ride on the subway due to the toughies.
Before Joe jumps in and calls me a racist: I think Goetz was guilty of at least attempted manslaughter. (No one died in the event, which is why I say attempted.) The toughies who attacked him were likely also likely guilty of a crime although I do not think any were prosecuted.
You misremember the facts of the Goetz case.
There were four youths in the train. One or two (unestablished) approached Goetz, and one said "gimme $5". That might be enough to ring them up on a robbery charge, but I'm doubtful (it does not support allegations they "attacked him". That's a flat out lie -- not even Goetz ever claimed that). Goetz then (his words) "established a pattern of fire" to "get as many of them as he could", first hitting the two men in front of him at point blank range, then the third person (one of those who had not come forward or participated in the potential attempted robbery in any way).
The fourth shot missed its target (Cabey), who also had not been participating and was deliberately standing away from the action. Cabey tried to pretend he had been hit, but Goetz got up and (after possibly saying "you're okay, here's another" -- again, that's from Goetz's own police statement), shot him point-blank and severed his spine.
That last shooting -- of a person who hadn't said a word to Goetz, was standing away from Goetz, and was shot at twice by Goetz (the second after deliberately walking over to make sure the first hit) was an attempt at premeditated murder. It's not even a hard case. The third shooting also is pretty clearly attempted murder, at the very least voluntary manslaughter. The second and first maybe could get away with a defense charge, but the third and fourth shootings? No way. Hell, Goetz said to the police: "My intention was to murder them .... If I had more bullets, I would have shot 'em all again and again. My problem was I ran out of bullets."
N., who I'd be calling a racist there is Goetz, on the assumption a group of white guys would not be shot quite so much in that situation (but for, perhaps, the instinctive knowledge that the justice system would come down harder on him for that).
David,
You might try reading the NYC papers at the time. They termed the event as an attack on Goetz, to which he responded.
Again: the NYC subways were a lawless place. People were attacked there frequently. It was normal for a panhandling type event to be the preamble to an attack. I know that. It happened to me. So, frankly, your understanding of such events is wrong and, moreover, misreads how it was portrayed at the time, both by Geotz - who was clearly in the wrong - and his many supporters in the paper, most of whom were not racist.
And Joe,
I do not know if he was (or,if he is still alive) a racist. I do, however, know that one took one's life in his or her hands if one went on the NYC subways. That environment made for a trigger happy response. Whether Goetz wanted such to occur, as in Death Wish, or merely acted on the circumstances, I could not answer. Neither can anyone else, unless they enter into his head.
However, both David and Joe ignore the circumstances, believing one can define a massacre or racism, without regard to circumstance. Pathetic excuse for education.
Gosh, I'm really sorry for not deferring to how the New York Post described the events over the New York Court of Appeals. As we all know, the judiciary is far more prone to sensationalizing events as oppose to the sober, disconcerned fact-finders that inhabit our local media. [/sarcasm]
Pathetic.
David,
Courts are good at a great many things. However, for sorting out how things were understood at the time by average people, it is not a sufficient basis for information.
I am and, even back then, was a reader of the NY Times. I am well aware of how the event was discussed, both on the news - TV, NY Times, NY Post, NY Daily News, etc. - and in daily conversation. Politicians came to Mr. Goetz's defense, so it was reported in the NY Times as well.
A panhandler approaching you on the subway could be seen, rather rationally, as an attack. That was Geotz's defense, as presented to the jury, if not officially. It was wink and nod sort of stuff, things that do not get into transcripts but which everyone knows about who shared similar circumstances - i.e., anyone who spent a lot of time on the subways in NYC.
Stop being so smug. Judges are not historians. Courts do not captures history. They record facts but to understand the facts as they would have been understood by a jury requires something which you choose to ignore.
Again: any reasonable person seeing a person ask for money on the train could think it the prelude to an attack. That is common sense. And, that is how the jury saw it. Otherwise, they would have found him guilty - which is what should have happened.
Bernie Goetz was obviously an idiot for turning himself in. Look at the stupidity he had/has to put up with.
Whether Goetz wanted such to occur, as in Death Wish, or merely acted on the circumstances, I could not answer. Neither can anyone else, unless they enter into his head.
I think we can infer a lot from this not being the norm for behavior from passengers at the time.
Joe,
I am not so sure what can be inferred. Goetz carried a gun, illegally. That would suggest he was looking for trouble or it could suggest that he was very fearful that he would be attacked. Either, if not more possibilities, is a reasonable supposition.
In any event, Goetz was confronted by a hostile toughie who was with other hostile toughies. The hostile toughie asked for money - something which, in that setting and at that time, would suggest, to anyone who ever spent any time on that period's NYC subway system, a great likelihood that the failure to turn over money would be met with violence.
So, he may have been looking for trouble. He may merely have been scared for his life and acted out on his fear.
Having spent time on NYC's subway system in that period, I can see it either way. My wife, for example, was stuck up on a subway train and had a knife put to her neck when she did not immediately give in - this following a request just like what was reported in the Goetz case. She did not carry a gun so her only reaction could be to give up her pocketbook.
This is really not as simple as you believe or, at least, want to believe. David, with no experience of the type of fear that traveling on the NYC subway system of the time entailed, incorrectly uses the word massacre - as if this were a black and white matter. He resorts to citing the Court record, as if it captures the situation adequately. No. The subway system was a lawless jungle, with the expectation that there could be deadly violence from toughies at any time.
My view of the matter is that Courts need to uphold the rule of law. Hence, he should have been found guilty of manslaughter - assuming he was not looking for people to kill. Based on the version of facts he presented, though, the jury obviously was caught up with the known problem that the subway system was a lawless place. So, they punished him for breaking a part of the law, which means they too wanted to say that vigilante justice is no good. They just did not consider it manslaughter or murder - and certainly not a massacre because it was entirely reasonable to imagine that he thought he was defending himself.
I submit, that if this scenario was as commonplace as you suggest, and if it was so likely to be the prelude of an attack, history would be replete with Goetzes and he wouldn't be nearly as famous.
Joe,
Most more or less law abiding citizens likely did not typically carry guns, much less in the subway, in that era. Some no doubt did but most certainly did not. After all, New York gun laws were rather tough, so having a gun was not something that most law abiding New Yorkers had.
So, that fact by itself would be a reason why Mr. Goetz's crime was the exception, not the rule. Most people did what my wife did, give in. That is what I did. That is what all of my friends, every one of whom was mugged - and we lived in nice neighborhoods - did. I heard about people who fought back. Most of them ended up in the hospital.
So, the question becomes: why did Goetz carry a gun? Was he scared? Was he looking to kill people? I do not know the answer. You are merely making a supposition based on no facts. And, you clearly do not understand how crime was understood at that time, since our time has comparatively little crime - or, so we perceive things.
I think you can merely say about Goetz that he either sought a fight or we was terrified. Either scenario fits the known facts.
And, you clearly do not understand how crime was understood at that time
I've seen Dirty Harry twice, thanks.
Joe,
So have I. That, however, does not change the fact that the NYC subway system was a lawless place at the time of the Goetz incident.
N. Friedman,
The toughies who attacked him were likely also likely guilty of a crime although I do not think any were prosecuted.
Which crime would that be? Only one asked him for money, so even if panhandling were a crime, only one "toughie" could be charged with it.
Goetz was by definition not a law-abiding New Yorker, as he carried an unlicensed firearm, which is why the grand jury, regardless of the value they placed on the lives on Darrell Cabey and other black men, allowed the weapons charges to go forward. Moreover, Goetz ran away from NYC after his action (not very indicative of belief that he had acted in legal self-defense) and surrendered to police in Concord, NH.
You seem to be following the same strategy in this discussion that Goetz did in his trial, which is of sensationalizing what was happening in New York at the time, in order to justify Goetz's deliberate, premeditated decision to shoot Cabey while Cabey was lying on the ground playing dead. (E.g., Goetz claimed that all NYC sanitation trucks were accompanied by armed guards. False.)
Nor were NYC's problems sui generis at the time; other large cities like Chicago and Detroit had similar crime rates.
Also, if you think grand juries are supposed to make their decisions based on press accounts rather than what is presented in the court record, I hope your job doesn't involve giving jury instructions.
You know, I can't think of a good reason why felony murder shouldn't apply to apply to any deaths resulting from a firearms violation. It would seem to be in the furtherance of the offense.
Which, granted, wouldn't do anything to Goetz since his victims had the temerity to live. but still.
PG,
If you had read my comments carefully - in fact, with any care -, you would have noticed that I thought that Goetz should have been found guilty of at least manslaughter. Small point, mind you, but one which seems to undermine your comment entirely.
My point was to note that the jury, which was certainly impacted by the problems that places like NYC really did suffer, saw something to the defense that Goetz raised. And, that is because the subways really were lawless places at the time - as even you note in your own comment.
I noted that Joe, for reasons I do not understand, denies what any sentient being knew to be the case: namely, that the rule of law had broken down on the subway system so that average people were under regular threat by toughies. I mentioned that my wife had a knife put to her throat while riding in the subway in Queens. She was also stuck up right outside of her then apartment at the southern edge of the fashionable Murray Hill neighborhood. I have other friends who used to carry money specially (in a separate pocket) to give to toughies.
As for the case against the group of toughies: if a group of people have a common plan and one among the group begins to implement that plan, the group can, depending on the exact circumstances, be charged with a crime. So, the fact that one of the toughies took an overt step does not make that person's compatriots into innocent bystanders.
Now, the fact is that there has been a complete turn around in how places like NYC deal with crime of the type involved. Rather than ignoring little crimes by toughies on the subway system, the government prosecutes such crimes on the theory that those who commit such little crimes also commit bigger crimes. I do not know whether there is any causation involved but I do note that there is a strong association in the change in tactics and the safety of people who ride subways and walk the streets in NYC and other cities that have taken the same approach.
Again: I believe in the rule of law. I also note that one needs to examine the world as it is and was. And, part of the world as it was in the late 1960's - 1990's was that the subway system was a dangerous, lawless place in which toughies regularly threatened, beat, robbed, etc., with impunity. The incident involving the toughie who asked for money from Goetz is a paradigmatic example of behavior that regularly occurred and which often had violence threatened or actual violence associated with it. Hence, a reasonable jury ought to have been able to take that fact into account - and, in the Goetz case, surely did.
As a believer in the rule of law, I think that Goetz was probably guilty of at least manslaughter. I suppose that the background circumstances might be seen to weigh on whether he had committed a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. But, I would have voted that it is not a sufficient doubt to exonerate him. He acted far too early, in my view.
I think you mean sapient.
Joe,
No. I chose the word I meant to choose.
So, a pidgeon, by virtue of having a conscious mind, knew about the state of the law and crime rates within U.S. cities?
It's a nitpick, but "sentient" is often used like that, primarily in science fiction, to mean intelligence when really it only covers basic awareness.
joe,
The meaning of a word is usually determined by how it is used - i.e. by its context. The word "sentient" expressed the thought I had in mind and, except to the most dimwitted of people, was obviously limited to people.
"Sapient," the word you would substitute in the sentence where I used "sentient," includes a more limited group of people than I had in mind. Among others, I intended to include you among those who, were you to have been a subway rider at the time of the Goetz affair, would have realized that the NYC subway system had become a lawless, dangerous place.
Perhaps, you understood what I wrote. Maybe not.
The blog shifts from Oscar Grant to an ignorant discussion of the Goetz case. To learn about the facts of the Goetz case, grand juries, media, etc, see the Wikipedia article about it. Thank god for the internet.
"Gosh, I'm really sorry for not deferring to how the New York Post described the events over the New York Court of Appeals. As we all know, the judiciary is far more prone to sensationalizing events as oppose to the sober, disconcerned fact-finders that inhabit our local media. [/sarcasm] Pathetic."
What's pathetic is some Americans trust in corrupt leadership. The NY Court of Appeals judge that wrote the Goetz decision was later jailed (by the Feds) for criminal conduct (blackmail). The biased decision is here http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/archives/p_goetz.htm and was based on a corrupted grand jury here http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/archives/p_goetz.htm . It turns out the NY Post was a lot more accurate than the NY Times or NY Court of Appeals.
Correction: "Gosh, I'm really sorry for not deferring to how the New York Post described the events over the New York Court of Appeals. As we all know, the judiciary is far more prone to sensationalizing events as oppose to the sober, disconcerned fact-finders that inhabit our local media. [/sarcasm] Pathetic."
What's pathetic is some Americans trust in corrupt leadership. The NY Court of Appeals judge that wrote the Goetz decision was later jailed (by the Feds) for criminal conduct (blackmail). The biased decision is here http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/archives/p_goetz.htm and was based on a corrupted grand jury here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=People_v._Goetz&action=historysubmit&diff=368073196&oldid=368073053 . It turns out the NY Post was a lot more accurate than the NY Times or NY Court of Appeals.
Correction, this blog won't take long URLs:
"Gosh, I'm really sorry for not deferring to how the New York Post described the events over the New York Court of Appeals. As we all know, the judiciary is far more prone to sensationalizing events as oppose to the sober, disconcerned fact-finders that inhabit our local media. [/sarcasm] Pathetic."
What's pathetic is some Americans trust in corrupt leadership. The NY Court of Appeals judge that wrote the Goetz decision was later jailed (by the Feds) for criminal conduct (blackmail). The biased and innacurate decisions can be seen in the "Grand juries" section of the Wikipedia article on Goetz . It turns out the NY Post was a lot more accurate than the NY Times or NY Court of Appeals.
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