Panelists claim woman wouldn’t consider evidence, accused them of racism
By Jamie Satterfield
The sole http://wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2643 on a panel deadlocked along racial lines lied to win a seat on the jury and then set out to exact revenge on law enforcement by serving as the spoiler in the trial of an alleged drug chief serving as his own lawyer, some of her fellow jurors said Monday.
Jurors in the trial of Johnnie “Bro” Martin walked out of U.S. District Court with nothing to show for nine days of work but a mistrial.
“She made a mockery of the system,” one juror said of the black woman whom members of the panel said refused to even consider what the rest of the group believed was overwhelming evidence of Martin’s guilt.Although they declined to be publicly identified, jurors outraged over the outcome of a trial in which Martin’s defense rested on the notion that racist law enforcers had framed him confirmed the panel had split 11 to 1 in every vote cast during the roughly four days of deliberations.
The lone holdout was a black woman who, when questioned during the jury selection process, assured federal prosecutors David Jennings and Tracee Plowell that she harbored no ill will over the imprisonment of her sister in a Mississippi drug case. Asked if her sister deserved her fate, the woman answered, “Absolutely.”
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/mar/11/black-juror-blamed-for-mistrial/