8/6/2019 2004 | Juries Understand 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty'

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Friday, Jan 09, 2004

Bob Ray Sanders

Posted on Wed, Jan. 07, 2004

Juries understand 'innocent until proven guilty'Bob Ray Sanders - In My Opinion

Four recent highly publicized Texas trials -- oneending in acquittal and three in mistrials -- may bea sign that jurors are paying attention more, takingtheir jobs seriously and refusing to be ramroddedby prosecutors who tend to have the presumptionof guilt on their side.

This is a good sign, even if it means thatoccasionally a person who actually committed acrime will go free or eventually end up with amuch lighter sentence than government attorneyshad wished.

Let's quickly review those criminal cases in which I'm willing tobet most people inside and outside the courthouses were expectingguilty verdicts for the much-maligned defendants.

Robert Durst. This New York millionaire who once disguisedhimself as a mute woman to escape capture admitted during hisGalveston trial that he had chopped up the body of his elderlyneighbor, Morris Black, but claimed that Black's death was anaccident that occurred as the two struggled over a gun. Thesensational trial lasted for two months, and jurors spent 26 hoursover five days before voting 12-0 for acquittal.

Shocking verdict? You bet.

Perhaps the only people more surprised than Durst on hearing the"not guilty" verdict were the prosecuting attorneys, but more aboutthat later.

Daniel Shockley Miller. He was accused of kidnapping andkilling 27-year-old Gina Dykman of Richland Hills in 1996, andhis capital-murder trial was thought by some observers to be aslam-dunk for the prosecution.

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8/6/2019 2004 | Juries Understand 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty'

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arrant ounty prosecutors ca e to t e stan ers at er,mother, sister and brother, all of whom testified that Miller toldthem that he had killed a woman. In addition, two formerroommates said Miller admitted to them that he had killed thewoman, and another person said she had been an eyewitness to theshooting.

After three days of deliberations, and with the majority of the panelquestioning the credibility of prosecution witnesses, jurors weredeadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal. The judge declared a mistrial.

Richard Simkanin. The 59-year-old Bedford businessman, astaunch anti-income tax crusader, had pleaded guilty in a pleabargain with federal prosecutors to failing to withhold and paytaxes on his employees' wages. When a judge threw out the pleaagreement on a technicality, Simkanin decided that he wanted to goto trial rather than bargain with prosecutors again.

He was prosecuted on a 27-count indictment in November, but

jurors could not reach a verdict in the case. It, too, ended in amistrial. The case is being retried this week in a federal court inFort Worth.

Frank Allen Montgomery Jr. This capital-murder case grabbedheadlines because the victim was a 16-month-old girl and theaccused was a Texas Christian University football player at thetime.

Prosecutors maintained that in 2002, Montgomery burned thedaughter of his girlfriend and the next day struck her with oragainst an object, causing her death.

The defense team argued that Montgomery was in class when thechild was fatally injured by her mother, Roxane Lawrie. With thejury failing to reach a unanimous decision -- divided 8-4 foracquittal -- a mistrial was declared.

These four trials, occurring within days of one another, drawattention to the true role of jurors and, of course, to prosecutors.

The accused in this country are supposed to be presumed innocent,with the state or federal government having the burden of proof.That proof is supposed to be "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Unfortunately, it usually seems the other way around. The

defendant is most often presumed guilty, and if he or she is sittingat the defense table in a courtroom, the jury usually gives thebenefit of the doubt to the prosecution.

In each of the above-mentioned cases, most people I know hadalready convicted the defendants, and I've heard some ask, "Howcould any juror think they were innocent?"

From what I could tell, in these cases the juries weren't necessarilysaying that the defendants were innocent but that the prosecution

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