Court Opinion

ID: 9505427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-06 20:04:41.248395+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:04:27.773357
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Zolo Azania and two cohorts burst into the Gary National Bank in broad daylight with guns drawn. By the time they were ready to depart with the money, the bank’s security camera was already recording the robbery and an alarm had summoned the police.
The trio decided to shoot their way out, and exited the bank with guns blazing at the uniformed officer who had arrived on the scene.
They ran past the fallen body of Gary Police Lieutenant George Yaros and headed for the getaway car. Not content merely to take off, Azania went over to the officer, kicked his gun away, then put yet another shot into him at close range. After that, the three perpetrators led police on a chase through the streets-of Gary at 80-100 mph, firing back at the pursuing officers. All of this has been largely settled fact for more than a generation.
In the meantime, twenty-four jurors and two different trial judges have unanimously agreed that the State’s request for the death penalty was a just one.
In the face of this, the judgment of judge and jury is today set aside on the basis of a computer glitch.
Equally unattractive is Azania’s play of the system. He seeks relief on the grounds that a mathematically perfect computer run would enhance his chance to have an African-American on the jury. He asserts that having even, one black juror is crucial to his cause. Of course, the reason that even an ideal, random jury pool might still produce an all-white jury is that this litigation was transferred, at Azania’s request and with his participation, to a county with a modest minority population. The State filed these charges in Lake County, where Azania would have had the most diverse jury pool Indiana has to offer. He asked to get away from that jury pool, citing reports of his crimes on Chicago television, and he was accommodated.
I would find that the jury was assembled in substantial compliance with the statute *1264and that any error was harmless. Instead, we will now move along to a third decade of judicial effort aimed not at assessing whether Azania is guilty but rather at settling on an appropriate penalty.
DICKSON, J., concurs.