With juries like rape-cop Michael Pena's and prosecutors like Trayvon's, justice is a bigger gamble than a lottery
The New York Daily News by Mike Lupica - April 2, 2012
The case against cop Michael Pena was a 'rockcrusher,' a prosecutor says, but jurors still refused to convict him of rape.
You start to hear that George Zimmerman, a wanna-be cop who shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old kid five weeks ago, might finally be arrested and charged in the next couple of days. It would be a positive message for Florida, the capital of OK Corral America, telling the rest of the country that shooting an unarmed teenager, even in Florida, is still against the law. But that will only be the beginning of the process with Zimmerman, who still wants to be a victim in this case, at least according to the hustlers who keep going out to a friendly media and trying to defend what he did on the night Trayvon Martin died. Because if an off-duty cop like Michael Pena can get away with rape in New York City, if Pena can walk after dragging a young schoolteacher down an alley in Inwood at gunpoint and then forcing her to have sex with him in front of witnesses, then perhaps actual justice in this country is the biggest lottery we have. If Pena, even facing serious time on other charges, can get enough people who couldn’t win a battle of wits against the Lohans on his jury, then there is great hope that Zimmerman could beat his rap, if he finally does have to convince a jury in Florida that he was only defending himself when he shot Trayvon Martin dead. Are you kidding? They had the victim’s DNA on Pena’s genitals and they had Pena’s DNA in the woman's underwear and they had witnesses, Only now we’re supposed to believe that the holdouts on the jury couldn’t get past the fact that the victim couldn’t remember the color of a car on the morning that Pena did what he did to her. There has been the notion, at least since the tragedy of Trayvon Martin came to the attention of the country, that we need to try Zimmerman in court and not in the media. But why should anybody believe that a jury, if it comes to that, will ever get it right with Zimmerman if the boneheads on the Pena jury can’t get it right with him?
Sometimes you start to think that the legal system in this country works about as well as the political system. Maybe it is no accident that it was a lawyer on the Pena jury who became the king of the holdouts. This is what you heard afterward from a woman named Ann Bishop, who called 911 twice to report the sexual assault she said she was witnessing against a 25-year-old woman who had spent all this time believing she was raped until a jury in Manhattan Criminal Court told her she was wrong. Pena was convicted of six sexual assault charges and of predatory sexual assault. Just not rape. “When common sense can be so easily swayed, in a big picture, it disturbs me,” Bishop said to Kerry Wills and Jonathan Lemire of the Daily News. And we had the voice of the victim in this case. Had her account of what happened. We have more than the screams of a 911 tape in Florida, a voice that experts now are saying does not belong to the shooter, Zimmerman. We will never hear from Trayvon Martin, never hear his voice, because the last two people in this world to hear that voice are a girlfriend and George Zimmerman, shooter. On Sunday I asked Linda Fairstein, who ran the Sex Crimes Prosecution Unit of the Manhattan DA’s office for 26 years, about the Pena case. “This case was what we call ‘rock crusher,’ ” Fairstein said. “A very intelligent ‘victim’/complaining witness, one smart and courageous and forthcoming, and very lucky to be alive. Neighbors saw something wrong going on and called 911, cops arrived to actually take Pena off the victim. Rockcrusher.” Fairstein continued: “(One juror) faulted (the victim) for not recognizing that she walked past a car in the alleyway down which Pena walked her. Well, perhaps that’s because she was concentrating on where he had the gun and where he was taking her and what she could do to live through this terror. Trust me, if she had described in detail a white Chevy Camaro with a convertible top, these same rogues would have said she was much too observant and interested in her surroundings to have been in fear for her life. “This verdict was not about the law. It was thoroughly bizarre and inexcusable behavior by jurors in the face of a strong case, a great witness, a smart judge and prosecutor -- and a thorough absence of common sense.” Maybe that is the common sense the rest of us should apply to the notion that the bad guys always get what’s coming to them. If an off-duty cop Michael Pena can get away with rape, why shouldn’t we believe that a wanna-be like George Zimmerman will eventually get away with worse?
Justice in this sad country only comes from who you know.
ReplyDeleteA good comparison.... it's all about money.
ReplyDeleteSo any monies we might have to give a lawyer should just be handed over to a lottery agent. Sounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteThe Daily News wants to replace the jury system with trial by news reporter. This fish-wrapper paper complains of the jury system, when it has totally failed to report the massive judicial corruption reported here at this site and elsewhere. Can we trust the news reports of what the jury heard or trust only what parts of the testimony the jury heard that are presented by the fish-wrapper? What does the fish-wrapper reporter know of what happened with Zimmermann that night? I don't know the facts, but the fish-wrappper reporter does. If the fish-wrapper reporter reported suspicious activity and the person he reported attacked him, would the fish-wrappper reporter use a gun to protect himself, or would he say, "just beat me senseless or to death"?
ReplyDeleteThe fish-wrapper reporter prefers lynch mobs which use information (not facts)which he chooses to write about.
I listened for decades to pltf stories relative to sex abuse, assaults, rape etc. and the male judges I had to sit beside, which ranged in the 50's in number... so very often had no empathy for them, but lots of excuses for theses perps in these crimes.
ReplyDeleteI had one old time judge who knew a well known Dr. had abused several female patients, but said to me that he was not going to ruin his career and found him not guilty and secretly used the excuse that she had long blonde hair and makeup on.
This same judge was also having an affair with his court reporter for years and they often drank home made liquor from a glass bottle during court hours..they offered me some and I refused,but the smell was 100 proof!
Oca has loads of stories like this..but they just don't get that the information is in the hands of some of the more popular employees..the cute ones that is and can be spilled at any time!
Of Course the lawyer protects his own.
ReplyDeleteHe will cash in this favor one day soon.
leukemiascandal.com
"A top Bronx-based appeals judge turned the court system into a patronage trough for his family and the relatives of his stop staff, an explosive new report alleges.
ReplyDeleteJudge Luis Gonzalez, presiding justice of the appellate division’s First Department, hired his ex-wife and five relatives of his top staffers, the report by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct found."
At least this guy has the sense not to be the fall guy. But his list seems way too short.
"In defending himself, Judge Gonzalez provided investigators with a list of 50 former First Department employees hired over the last 30 years he says were related to judges or other court employees. Commission officials declined to release the list."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/top-judge-luis-gonzalez-turned-appeals-court-patronage-pit-family-amp-friends-report-article-1.1054383#ixzz1qu60Coqb
Unfortunately, the courts in the U.S. resemble a craps table --- with fixed dice!!
ReplyDeletethey said that you have a 176,000,000 to one odds of winning the last mega millions lottery...
ReplyDeleteif you happen to be pro-se, and on the wrong side of certain judges protected clicks... you're chances are zero...
zero chance of getting justice...
and even less of a chance that the case will ever get before a jury...
i've seen juries manipulating in such an obscene manner as to constitute an irrefutable fraud upon the court and the justice system...
... and there is no statute of limitations on such fraud.
In the United States, when an officer of the court is found to have fraudulently presented facts to court so that the court is impaired in the impartial performance of its legal task, the act, known as "fraud upon the court", it is a crime deemed so severe and fundamentally opposed to the operation of justice that it is not subject to any statute of limitation.
we've gotta insist on justice... and we must stand together...
--Mike Hense is Searching For Rule Of Law In America
This wrongfully convicted man I know of filed a Writ of HC with the federal courts.
ReplyDeleteThe judge, a highly respected one issues a 63 page decision denying the Writ.
IMHO, and I am not a lawyer, the decision is a ball of crap. Illogical and contrived with false facts and assumptions to deny the Writ without a thorough investigation.
Legal Aide appeals. The Appeals Court gets the appeal and issues a scathing opinion to the judge and tells him to make his case because what he wrote made no sense. The decision was a Remand and Vacate. It was a decision of 30 odd pages.
Judge gets it back and lets in remain on his desk for more than a year. He finally writes another Tome and denies the Writ again.
It gets appealed. The Fed Appeals Court gets the case again and has an oral argument scheduled. In less than two weeks after the orals, the court affirms the denial in a two page decision. The appeals court did say there were numberous trial errors, some constitutional errors of violations of the Confrontation Clause and Due Process. But not enough to set aside the conviction.
Google Lefty Line...a police blog in upstate NY..and read the Judge LoRusso #2 case and the police comments regarding his removal and subsequent firing of the court clerk who originally filed the charges years ago..that is pending in Frderal Ct WNY... almost 8 yrs later.
ReplyDeleteThe cover-up and continuous agjournments of her case exclusively by OCA...that has been going on for so many, many years is a manifestation of JUSTICE DELAYED IS JUSTICE DENIED.
The facts surrounding the second Federal Ct case filed for retaliation are unconscionable and a prime example how the NY Cts..OCA... treat female employees who reject judicial sexual misconduct.
All 3 long time OCA employed witnesses, who testified for her at her appalling Administrative hearing, using the 5th district's executive director Michael Klein as the paid determinor for OCA'S prior determined termination hearing... have been fired also!
OCA used false testimony that included fabricated documents and a blatant altered Supreme court reporters trnascript plus multiple perjurous statments from employees who have sinced been promoted.
TO this day OCA has requested over 50 plus adjournments in Federal Ct to stall this action for those 8 yrs.. because they know it was a contrived action by them to prevent the employee from exposing their corruption and retaliation in another Federal Ct.
The first Federal Ct case of 1997 filed relative to the LoRusso sexual abuse, was settled without the emplolee's consent and while the employees was in the hospital on a Worker's Comp case WHERE OCA was well aware of her presence, because they authorized that surgery.
The employee found out this case was settled from the Newspaper and multiple media reports that lasted for days..no lawyer called her and no court had her permission..why and how America can this happen?
The Lefty Line blog also gives you a link to ALL the cases and number of cases handled by the CJC that have been determined by them since 1975..categorized by letter of the judges last name..very interesting and informative.