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Jury Nullification in action-
frodus
Member Posts: 2,396
POTTSVILLE, Pa. – Prosecutors called the beating death of an illegal immigrant from Mexico a hate crime, and they urged an all-white jury in Pennsylvania coal country to punish two white teenagers for their roles in the attack.
Instead, the jury found the teens not guilty of all serious charges, a decision that elicited cheers and claps from the defendants' families and friends — and cries of outrage from the victim's.
Brandon Piekarsky, 17, was acquitted of third-degree murder and ethnic intimidation, while Derrick Donchak, 19, was acquitted of aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Both were convicted of simple assault late Friday following a trial in which jurors were left to sort out the facts of an epithet-filled brawl that pitted popular football players against a 25-year-old Hispanic man, Luis Ramirez, who appeared willing to fight.
A representative of Ramirez's family said the jurors got it wrong.
"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."
On Saturday the group's interim president, Henry Solano, called on the Justice Department to "bring justice to the Ramirez family and send a strong message that violence targeting immigrants will not be tolerated." Piekarsky's attorney declined comment on the possibility of federal charges against the teens.
Prosecutors had cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's growing Hispanic population. They said he was killed by a kick to the head from Piekarsky after he'd been knocked unconscious by another teen.
The jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically.
[...] WOW
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090502/ap_on_re_us/us_immigrant_killing_students
Trade in material assumptions for spiritual facts and make permanent progress.
Comments
I think the prosecutor got too greedy. By adding additional charges like Hate Crimes he merely confused the jury onto what the crime was. Now there are 2 people who got away with murder because the prosecutor wanted to make this about race. The defendants job is to crack even 1 hole in the prosecutors case as false and the jury will have to go with not guilty. Convincing people that an actual hate crime occured is getting more difficult since they are attaching it to any charge that involves a white person against any other ethnicity.
bingo
"If you can't out wit them, report them till they're banned!"- PopinJ'
Yeah, I agree with that too. Why must you add a "hate crime" charge onto an act of murder? Murder is murder. That's all that matters when it comes to trying someone. Who cares what the motive was? Just so long as there is motive. Prosecute! The prosecutor probably over-reached and it cost the victim's family justice in this case. An example of how political correctness harms society.