From: jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni)
Subject: Re: Say it ain't so
Organization: The Department of Redundancy Department
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 23:00:16 GMT

In article <Bx74tn.E9r@world.std.com> srm@world.std.com (Stevens R Miller) writes:
>jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni) writes:
>
>>Doubt?  After arresting the murderer within a few minutes of the
>>attack? 
>
>The murderer?  You're presuming the outcome; he was a suspect, presumed
>innocent.  Also, he was not the first man stopped by the police; they
>had another suspect in a red shirt first, but let him go and then picked
>up Nelson.

Nelson was caught within minutes of the stabbing; the victim hadn't
even been evacuated by ambulance yet.  If the police actually had
another suspect, then he may have been part of what Mayor Dinkins is
now calling a "lynch mob".  He should have been arrested, as well.
If he was indeed caught BEFORE Nelson, perhaps he hadn't tried as hard
as Nelson to get away.  Did Nelson have something troubling him that
made him try so hard to flee?

>>With the murder weapon still in his pocket?
>
>Presuming the result again.  There was a knife in Nelson's pocket.

I believe that this ITSELF is a violation of local law.  

>>Bloodied with the victim's blood?
>
>We don't know when the blood got on the knife, but we do know that
>no blood was on Nelson's hands, and that Nelson's fingerprints were
>not on the knife.

I have shown before that fingerprints needn't be on a knife,
especially after another person had pulled it out of Nelson's pocket.

>>Identified by the victim himself?
>
>One man show-ups, at night, across races, to a man just beaten and
>stabbed, lying on his back as he is carried to an ambulance do
>leave room for a jury to find some doubt.

Reasonable doubt?  Every single rapist in this country can get off
with this excuse. 

>>After confessing at the police station to the murder?
>
>Without a lawyer, a black teenager arrested for murder surrounded
>by Brooklyn detectives might confess to a lot.  It wouldn't be
>the first time.

He might even confess to crimes he had committed.  With a lawyer who
knows that there are legal loopholes large enough to drive a truck
through, the teenager may well be instructed to deny everything.  It
wouldn't be the first time.

>>Doubt?
>
>It would seem so.  Thanks goodness jurors aren't always swayed by
>blood and uniforms.

Unfortunately for Americans who rely on the criminal justice system,
foolish jurors (there are lots of them) are easily swayed by lawyers
who perform stage-acts that color the facts and the evidence.
Nelson's lawyer, in fact, had continuous arguments with the judge
about irrelevancies (I'll see if I have the NY Times articles on his
courtroom behavior - articles from BEFORE the case went to the jury -
that reported on Nelson's lawyer drumming on the issue of minor
inconsistencies in police testimony to discredit the other evidence). 

>>A judge told me this week that he knew the outcome long ago, that
>>"there isn't a jury in Brooklyn that would convict this guy".  The
>>jury didn't suffer doubt.  They suffered prejudiced blindness.
>
>Judges aren't always right.  Try listening to what the jurors themselves
>had to say:  They didn't believe the police witnesses.

No, they didn't believe the facts as they were presented, but
preferred a conspiracy theory planted among them by Nelson's lawyer.
The Kahane/Nosair case is disturbingly similar.

That a new lawyer like yourself is so valiantly defending the rights
of lawyers to manipulate gullible juries reflects poorly on the state
of justice and legal education in the USA.  It is sad, indeed, that
friends and family of victims of violent crime here have to disrupt
their lives and their life savings to pursue justice even after the
justice system has raised it's hands in failure, letting murderers
roam free.  This bodes poorly to the many American Jews and other
Americans who are learning that the legal system cannot be relied on
to pursue justice in a reasonable manner.

-- 
Jake Livni  jake@bony1.bony.com              10 years from now, George Bush will
American-Occupied New York                   have replaced Jimmy Carter as the
My opinions only - employer has no opinions. standard of a failed President.