No fucking shit. Did you think I didn’t know that?
But thanks for allowing me my rant anyway.
Based on the OP, no, perhaps he didn’t. You seemed to imply that “DUH! Even I know for sure that he did it!” was sufficient for a conviction.
But your rant is: “I don’t have as much access to the same information or ALL the information that the jury did and I’m making a decision based on my own less-informed recreational outrage over a decision I made a long time ago, and I’m making it unilaterally without any consideration of the nature of exculpatory evidence or ‘reasonable doubt’ yet I expect people to agree with me and I call them idiots when they point out the fact that I am making a statement with no legal basis.”
And that’s not a good rant.
OK, everybody. Just agree with her and let the thread die. Because she “no fucking shit” knows that he should be convicted. What else is there to say?
So, in response to the OP, I rescind my previous post and agree 100% with what the esteemed Shayna says.
This thread is deadlocked.
Yet another reason why we need to scrap our current justice system and move to “Trial by Television with judge Nancy Grace.”
Good idea - maybe Shayna would like Grace to try to badger Spector enough that he’ll commit suicide.
Then we coould get Maury to read the verdict: You are…NOT guilty
And the executions can be aired on pay-per-view.
Robin
This might be a stupid question, but is there a way to get a transcript of the trial?
Our court system has unfortunately far devolved from the point where a jury was supposed to look over the facts and make a decision. The professionals have taken over all control. Now a trial is just a contest between two competing legal teams who both try to manipulate the evidence into looking like whatever their side wants it to be and regard the jury as a lump of clay for them to sculpt into shape. Reality has left the building. The best you can hope for is that the two legal teams are approximately balanced. But when one side is working for a millionaire then the other side is going to be outgunned.
Yes, Spector’s defense team invoked the horror of looming race riots and the unfairness of being of a minority ethnic group living in a racially homogenized upper crust society, thus appealing to the jury’s sympathies and prejudices. Yes, it’s exactly like the O.J. Simpson trial, except lacking the fashion palette that Marcia Clark brought to the proceedings.
Or perhaps the o.p. is simply being a hyperbolic know-it-all whose information, drawn from the not-quite-so infalliable fourth estate, has led her to a conclusion which twelve people who had to sit and listen to the evidence and jury instructions provided through the legal process and who bear the responsibility for making a decision regarding a crime for which the only witness is the accused were couldn’t make.
The jury system has a lot of flaws–starting with the assumption that any twelve more-or-less random people of no particular accomplishment or intellectual or ethical threshold–are competent to decide the fate of a person accused of a crime, but the fact that about half the jurors couldn’t convince the other half of the validity of the case one way or another suggests that the case presented by prosecution was sorely lacking, at least insofar as allowing the jurors to walk out of the jury room and declare the defendant “guilty” without significant doubt. This is like blaming the umpire because the Cubs entire lineup struck out (again!)
Why not Judge Reinhold? It would bring this whole multilayered metatexuality to the situation. You could have Gene Hackman and Harry Hamlin cameo.
Stranger
I wish we had the Scottish “not proven” over here.
I have little faith in the judicial system–in general. I have no idea if Specter is guilty or not (not following the case).
I am not as informed as I should be, though nobody but myself is to blame for this. If only I had expent hours in front of the TV watching Court TV…
Somebody here will shortly correct me if I am wrong, but I think the jury was only given two choices: “Ms. Clarkson (or whatever her name is spelt like) shot herself”, or “the defendant intended to, and did kill Ms. Clarkson”. From whatever little I’ve seen of the trial I think Spector meant to point the gun at her and intimidate her, but I have a hard time believing he intended to kill her.
Perhaps they’ve come to the same conclusion as I did, and having no way to declare that the defendant committed a criminally stupid act (pointed a gun at her, shot her, but did not mean to either shoot, nor kill her) they are loath to convict him on a more serious charge.
Perhaps I should go back to watching Law and Order.
So, when are you letting them all out?
The judge may tell the jury this morning that they can consider involuntary manslaughter in this case, which will mean the prosecution and defense get to give closing arguments again, to show how the evidence fits the new charge.
If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Specter could receive probation.
I think I withhold my opinion as well. Ms. Shayna seems to be a little cranky this morning.
Shayna, do you realize at all that the flip side of what you’re arguing can result in an innocent person being sent to jail?
How much more of an injustice is that to you than letting Phil Spector go free. Because for me, it’s about a million time more unjust.
If you don’t have rock solid evidence and arguments to convict a person, you simply can’t send that person to jail.
The jury is deadlocked, they did not and probably will not return a “not guilty” verdict. That means that he won’t go free but that there will be another trial.
What would that do, in real terms? He (or anyone receiving that verdict) would still go free, right?