🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec13.052718.17314@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>In article <12088@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM> mwilson@ncratl.AtlantaGA.NCR.COM (Mark Wilson) writes:
>>In <1992Dec4.222026.3727@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:
>>|In article <1992Dec3.015949.22567@bony1.bony.com> jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni) writes:
>
>>|>What makes you think that the jury is so perfect, clever and immune to
>>|>manipulation? 
>
>>|Nothing, but I'd be at least as inclined to trust their opinion, given
>>|that they were actually in the courtroom, as yours.
>
>>Did you happen to feel the same way about the jury in the Rodney King case?
>
>That I'd be at least as inclined to trust their opinion as Jake's?  Yes.
>
>But seriously, the parallel doesn't hold.  In the RK case, the act was
>on tape.  There was no question as to whether they had done it; they
>didn't deny it.  The question was whether it was justified.  (Not to
>mention that I watched most of the trial on Court TV.)
>
>In the Crown Heights case, there wasn't (incontrovertible) proof that 
>Nelson had committed the murder.  

There certainly was a question (in the defendants' minds, at least,
and in the end, in the jury's as well) as to whether the police
officers who beat Rodney King had "done it" (ie., committed the crime
of assault).  That they had admitted to the actual beating is no more 
significant than the fact that Lemrick Nelson admitted to being 
somewhere in the vicinity during the Rosenbaum murder; neither 
admission had much relevance to the real issues facing the respective 
juries as they determined their verdicts.  While the infamous 
videotape in the "King" case was certainly incontrovertible evidence 
that a beating had taken place, its persuasiveness as evidence of 
actual criminality (as opposed to the "permissible" use of force) 
appears to have been roughly equal to that of the blood-stained knife 
and victim's identification in the "Rosenbaum" case--more than 
sufficient to convince the public, but not quite enough to move the 
jury to convict.  Yet Mr. Nieporent has expressed confidence in the 
judgment of the "Rosenbaum" jury, while at the same time openly 
doubting the wisdom of the (strikingly similar) "King" decision.
His immaterial reference to the King beating being "on tape" hardly
explains this disturbing incongruity in his views.


"Que dites vous?  C'est inutile?  Je le sais!		Daniel R. Simon
 Mais on ne se bat pas dans l'espoir du succe`s!"	simon@iro.umontreal.ca
					-Rostand