In 2004, I served on a jury in Inglewood. The case was a young black man who was pulled over while driving on suspicion of being drunk and who then took a blood alcohol test showing he was intoxicated. The facts were clear but the blacks on the jury would not convict a black man and so we ended up with a hung jury.
Patricia Cohen writes about a black former U.S. attorney:
Now, from his fourth-floor office at George Washington University Law School, Paul Butler, 36, has become the leading spokesman for “jury nullification,” urging African American jurors to ignore rock-solid evidence of guilt and set nonviolent black defendants free.
In the backwash of O.J. Simpson’s acquittal, Butler’s calls to put loyalty to race above loyalty to law have fueled anxieties about the nation’s trial system. While fear of renegade jurors has prodded some state legislatures to consider abandoning unanimous jury verdicts, a federal appeals court last week declared that judges have a duty to prevent nullification. In the District, some judges have started issuing what’s become known as an “anti-Butler” warning to jurors; a New York Times editorial this week chided Butler, and angry GW alumni have demanded
unsuccessfully that he be fired.
“I do want to subvert the criminal justice system,” Butler declares unapologetically. A system that treats black crack smokers more harshly than whites who snort powdered cocaine doesn’t deserve respect, he says.
What seems remarkable, however, is not simply that someone is advocating nullification, but that this former prosecutor, this Justice Department veteran, this product of the establishment, is its preeminent champion.
How did Paul Butler move from there to here?
