H O W A R D S B E N D

No it wasn’t a double homicide…..not even close, nothing nearly as exciting or riveting. But the recent death of OJ reminded me of an event that I participated in back in the early 2000s and still has me pondering the social and racial implications. Somehow back then, I found myself stuck on a jury in a federal courthouse. Of course, it wasn’t unusual for a fifty-something white Jewish male, who had to be a bleeding heart liberal, to make it to the jury of a minority being charged of a federal crime.

Here is a summary of the case. After many years and numerous incidents of rowdy, inappropriate and often lewd and dangerous behavior, the City of Philadelphia finally instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for South Street, its center of counter-culture and offbeat establishments that always drew big crowds until early in the morning. Anyone found with an open bottle of alcohol would immediately be seized and taken to jail….no ifs, ands or buts.

So as the story unravels, three police officers were walking the beat of South at 1:00 AM which was still very busy. One of the officers happened to look into a parked car and saw a young African American male sound asleep in the passenger side of the car with an open bottle of whiskey between his legs. The driver side of the car was empty. The officer immediately informed his fellow officers who then decided to act immediately. The officers banged on the window waking up the sleeping passenger and told him to come out of the car with his hands up in the air as he is under arrest. The passenger slowly nodded as if he understood and moved very slowly as he reached for the door handle. Suddenly, he jerked the door open very quickly and jammed it into the three unsuspecting officers, knockings two to the ground . The passenger then took off up the street pulled a gun out waving at the officers. Coincidently, two different officers happened to be approaching the car from the other direction, witness the event and to then surprise of the fleeing passenger grab him and tackle him to the ground. They called for back-up immediately which arrived in seconds. The passenger was then handcuffed and taken to jail and later charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest.

Which brings us to the trial of which I am a jury member. The prosecution told the story through the officers at the scene of the crime as well as a number of people who had witnessed the events and volunteered to testify at the trial. All collaborated the story. The defense lawyer did not call any witnesses and the defendant did not testify in his defense.

The jury was then taken to a room and asked to decide the case. There were 7 white jury members and 5 African American jurors. We decided to take an immediate vote to see even if it was necessary to appoint a foreman. So we took the vote and we got the following results……7 guilty and 5 innocent. Not surprisingly, the vote coincided with the racial make-up of the jury.

How could this defendant be innocent? Where was the evidence? One juror claimed that she has a cousin that was falsely apprehended by the Philadelphia police and found guilty in a similar trail. Another juror has an uncle who was also falsely accused of a crime by the Philadelphia police and then sentenced to jail time. Another juror proclaimed, “All Philadelphia police are corrupt”. Another juror was positive that the police planted the gun on the passenger because she knew of another story where the same thing happened. The seven white jurors were all taken aback and had a hard time countering these arguments because none of them had to do with the facts of the trial. As time went on, more and more stories poured out about police corruption especially here in Philadelphia.

Needless to say, we were not out of there right away, or for that matter we were not out of there for the next two days. There was no countering these endless stories of police corruption. Finally, one of the jurors asked if we know who was the owner of the gun that the defendant was carrying when apprehended. After checking the records, we were told that it was registered under the name of the driver of the car. Bingo. That was the missing fact that allowed us to come to the conclusion that the defendant was in fact carrying a gun. We could not agree on the aggravated assault charge, but we were able to convict the defendant of illegally carrying a firearm as he was a previously convicted felon who had served time and was not permitted to carry a firearm. The crime carried a hefty prison sentence.

Of course, this is not nearly as juicy the OJ case. However, the experience really drives home how distrustful minorities are of law enforcement and how as members of the white middle class we do not understand and often doubt these feelings. This issue of racial profiling and and abuses of minorities by law enforcement slowly disappeared from front page news after the OJ case, until 2020 when a series of police misconduct cases came to the public attention including the George Floyd killing that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement. I am not sure if we have made the changes necessary to regain the trust of law enforcement by minorities and I am not sure if those outside the minority community have come to realize the need for such dramatic changes in police conduct. The death of OJ reminded me again of these issues.