Soon this will be commonplace, but in October 2007 it's still news. After a jury acquitted the defendant in an intensely charged murder trial last week, one of the jurors posted a comment on line to defend the verdict.
"He killed my baby"
Joseph Wilson, 20 years old and two years out of high school, was stabbed to death at a 2005 party. The killer wore a bandana over his face. The state charged a 19-year-old, Etanis Cumba, and last week a jury acquitted him. The scene was awful; at least one juror was crying, while Wilson's mother screamed, "He killed my baby!"
A Boston blog called Universal Hub, "an alternate news and information resource for the Boston area," posted a short notice of the verdict -- and the comments started flowing in. "[W]hen the NOT GUILTY verdict was handed down, and the victims family's cries and moans for their lost son," said the first one,
all the defendent ETANIS CUMBA did, was turn around, laugh, and snicker at the pain the Wilson family was enduring to see their son's murderer set free once again. As Boston's crime rate, especially homicide/murder continues to sky-rocket, these rats whom are the lowest form of life on this planet, continue to be set free.
Some commenters simply chimed in on guilt or innocence (as in "HE will get his one day what goes around comes around... god will punish him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"), but others added details. "Cumba, whom has a very violent wrap-sheet was 17 at the time of the murder," said a comment, probably the same person as the first one. And there was jury intimidation, added that person and others, citing a report from Wilson's mother that "10 or 20 of Cumba's friends" had menacingly surrounded a juror in the parking lot. Meanwhile another commenter defended the presumption of innocence: "What next, a righteous lynch mob? Puhleeze."
"We did the best we could"
Into this fray came another comment -- from someone who, like most of the others, used the name "Anonymous." This is what it said:
The state created a strong probability that he was guilty, but not beyond reasonable doubt.
1) Cumba's past was not revealed to us at any time. We were not allowed to do outside research. All we knew was that this kid got arrested for mary j, and was suspected of this crime.
2) Witness One was a person who could've well committed the crime, and whose testimony of the events contradicted those of the party goers.
3) Witness Two was high on crack, weed and had drunk alcohol the night of the crime. His story also contradicts that of the party goers. He did not actual witness the crime happening.
4) Nate Yarde and his intimidation was not mentioned at any time during this trial
5) The letters, the whole 3 we were shown, had multiple interpretations. We read them MULTIPLE times, and had the same conclusions that they ambiguous. They could be a scared kid, or story coordination.
6) To us, the phone calls indicated he had drugs. Why would his brother get everything out of his room and LEAVE KNIVES BEHIND? And, where was this BLOOD OF OTHER PEOPLE ON THESE KNIVES? THIS WAS NOT ADMITTED INTO EVIDENCE.
The BURDEN OF PROOF lies on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There was NO physical evidence. There was NO admittance of his past, or prior incidents.
All we had to work with is a kid, who we DID NOT SEE LAUGHING ONCE, who was accused of a crime. Their evidence against him was the word of two individuals with dubious credibility, and some letters and PIECES of phone calls. I don't know where you got all of your "evidence" but these were things that we weren't told. We were picked BECAUSE we were ignorant of the case so that we could judge him SOLELY for the charges at hand.
We did the best we could, with the information we were given.
If this kid is who you say he is, he will probably end up dead by 25.
And given what I know about my co-jurors... Jury intimidation... I would have to say that most definitely did not happened. What happened was a shakey case that possibly let another murder go free.
It was -- or was supposed to be, and sure sounds like -- one of the jurors themselves. In a sense it's not different from a juror talking to a newspaper reporter. But in its emotional immediacy, its availability, and its detail, it is different.
The information superhighway ahead
It's the second time in the last month that I've learned of a juror defending a controversial verdict in the comments to someone else's blog. Meanwhile CourtTV was offering live chat with some of Phil Spector's jurors for the trial-hungry commenters who hang out over there.
It's all happening as we watch. Already we have jurors texting each other their Internet research, juror blogs, jurors reading blogs, jurors commenting on blogs, verdicts challenged over all these things. Few predictions are safe, but this one is: it will happen more and more, faster and faster. Jurors are on line.
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Update: see the October 5 comment to this blog here, pointing out another juror comment today to defend another verdict here. The juror comment came after Peoria's PJStar.com reported the sentencing of two men convicted of gang rape. Other comments to that story "were getting very racist," says my commenter, "and this juror stepped in to say the jury never considered race in the deliberations."
(Photo by dro!d at http://flickr.com/photos/lecates/454787692/; license details there.)
