DIVIDED JURY MAY BE A CASE OF FAIRNESS TRUMPING FACTS

Although I don't support the war, I like the troops. I'm talking about
the war on drugs. I like the cops and the prosecutors, and I have
mixed feelings when their good efforts go for naught. That is what
happened in a case I wrote about for Wednesday.

Robert Lindsey Jr. was on trial for drug trafficking. Assistant U.S.
Attorney Ray Meyer presented a very strong case. The narcotics
detectives who testified for the government were good witnesses. At
least they seemed credible to me. A confidential informer had told
them that two men - Heavy and Junior - were selling drugs in front of
an abandoned house in which they stashed their dope. Surveillance
seemed to confirm that. So the detectives got a search warrant and
returned to the house. They saw a man go in and out of the house and
apparently make transactions of some sort on the street. When he left
the house, they followed him and then arrested him.

The detectives testified that they found a small amount of crack
cocaine in his car. Also, a loaded .38 revolver. They then returned to
the house and discovered more than an ounce of crack cocaine and more
than an ounce of powder cocaine. They also found a small amount of
heroin.

Defense attorney David Bruns made some headway, I thought, when he
pointed out that there had been no further mention of Heavy. I thought
to myself, "Where is the second fellow? Why is all the weight being
put on Lindsey?" But as I mentioned in Monday's column, those
questions go to fairness, not to guilt or innocence.

Bruns scored some more points when he put on his case. The detectives
had testified that Lindsey's window was down when they approached his
car. But it turned out his windows had been tinted the day before, and
the man who tinted them testified that you can't roll the windows down
for 48 hours after the tinting. So maybe the detectives were wrong
about the window being down. On the other hand, Lindsey's sister
testified she was across the street but could still see that the
driver was her brother. So who knows? Besides, even if the detectives
were wrong - even if they were lying! - the matter of the window did
not have much to do with the heart of the case.

Furthermore, Lindsey did not do well when he testified. In the movies,
a defendant might confess on the stand, but in real life the most a
prosecutor can hope for is to catch a defendant in some obvious lies.
Meyer did that.

So things were looking bleak for the defense. I felt bad for Lindsey.
Although he had only a pot conviction on his record, he was looking at
a minimum of 10 years, and in the federal system, there is no parole.
I went back to the newspaper and wrote that Bruns had raised some
questions about fairness. "Those questions might trouble city jurors,
who are often ready to give even a guilty defendant a break. But this
was a federal jury."

What I meant was, city juries often practice a form of jury
nullification. The heck with the law, they say. Does this man really
belong in prison? More and more in drug cases, the juries are saying
no.

In the Lindsey case, eleven of the jurors voted to convict. One said
no. She was the only black person on the jury.

I was long gone before the jurors announced that they could not reach
a verdict, so I had no chance to talk to any of them. I've talked to
other jurors, though, who've made decisions that seem to fly in the
face of the facts. What I usually hear is something about the futility
of the war on drugs. Throw this young man in prison and somebody will
take his place on the corner. We can't stop the supply unless we stop
the demand, and in this case, the detectives were asked if they had
arrested any of the people who were seen buying drugs. No, they said.

U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway told me the government will take
Lindsey to trial again.