Respecting courtroom verdicts challenges us to look beyond our biases
“That’s the American way.”
This was Kevin Gough’s reaction after his client, William “Roddie” Bryan, was found guilty by a jury for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery along with two other suspects.
“We have to respect that verdict,” the defense attorney told reporters after Wednesday’s verdict at the Glynn County Courthouse in Georgia.
Most of us struggle to respect jury verdicts we don’t agree with. This also is the American way — complaining that our justice system is actually an injustice system, particularly with minorities, the poor and marginalized people.
This past week, we witnessed the U.S. justice system in action multiple times in different parts of the country. Some cases we applauded. Other cases we booed. Respecting these courtroom verdicts challenged us to look beyond our biases, politics, and assumptions.
“A great week for the American justice system,” a reader told me. “An innocent young man was rightfully acquitted. And three guilty men were rightfully punished.”
Her first reference was to the jury trial verdict of Kyle Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty for the fatal killings of two men in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last year. I wouldn’t describe the 18-year-old conservative media darling as an “innocent young man.” More like a young man who was found not guilty by self-defense.
For true innocence, look just to the north of Kenosha, where real victims were plowed down like traffic cones at a parade in Waukesha.
Legal justice will someday be served in the case of Darrell Brooks Jr., charged
for intentionally driving his SUV last Sunday through barricades and into a crowd celebrating a parade in that city. True justice, however, will never be served, not in the moral universe. Life in prison isn’t enough for him. The death penalty isn’t enough. He deserves a crueler fate for killing six people and injuring dozens of parade-goers.
For believers in an afterlife, Brooks will meet eternal justice in hell. I’m not convinced.
As for Rittenhouse, he told Fox News that he plans to move away from the Midwest and keep a low profile in life. It would be incredibly impressive if he does. I’m not convinced.
The public celebration and condemnation after the Rittenhouse verdict reminded me of the celebration and condemnation after the O.J. Simpson verdict. Both men are alleged killers, right? Both men were set free, right? Still, their moral guilt depends on our biased sensibilities and our personal backgrounds. To some people, they will never be viewed as in a bad light.
The guilty verdicts in the Arbery murder case instilled new hope that the arc of the moral universe does indeed bend toward justice. But damn, it’s a long arc, dripping with the blood of too many victims.
“Let the word go forth all over the world that a jury of 11 whites and one
Black in the Deep South stood up in the courtroom and said that Black lives do matter,” Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery, said after the verdict was read in court.
Also in the Deep South last week, we witnessed other shades of justice — and deferred justice — as several readers reminded me.
In Missouri, 62-yearold Kevin Strickland was exonerated after serving 43 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. A judge dismissed all criminal counts against him, including one count of capital murder and two counts of second-degree murder. A few months ago, a fund was created to help him after his release, with a goal of raising $7,500. So far, more than $1 million has been raised.
“All funds go directly to Mr. Strickland, who the state of Missouri won’t provide a dime to for the 43 years they stole from him,” the fundraising page tells donors.
Even if he receives $1 million from donations by more than 17,000 strangers, would it fairly compensate him for losing 43 years of freedom in his life? Of course not. Justice will never be served in his case. A once innocent young man is now an innocent old man.
In New York, two of the men found guilty for the 1965 assassination of civil rights leader Malcolm X were exonerated last
week, again revealing the systemic injustices of the U.S. justice system. The Manhattan district attorney tossed out the convictions for Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, who each spent more than 20 years in prison.
“It’s long overdue … our system failed,” Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice initiative, told the New York Times.
“These men did not get the justice that they deserved,” added Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney.
Deserved justice is a subjective subject in the monkey court of public opinion. We the people act as judge and jury for these high-profile cases whether we have enough evidence or not. Our sense of justice has too little to do with facts, and too much to do with our opinions. I’ve been guilty of the same crime.
After these latest high-profile jury verdicts, I researched the phrase “respect the verdict of the jury” and found numerous cases where it’s been stated by legal counsel on both sides of a case. Do the rest of us also respect these verdicts? Not so much. We begrudgingly accept them and move on to the next case to justify our beliefs or biases. This, too, is the American way.