Saturday,
October 28, 2006
Sacco and Vanzetti Treatment Revisited in
Supreme Court Case: Musladin's Victim Fan Club
The ANNOTICO Report
To appreciate how
conduct in the Court room can influence the Jury, we might look back to the
famous trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1921 these two Italian immigrants --
admittedly anarchists who favored the overthrow of the
What is certain is
that the procedures under which they were tried and convicted left a lot to be
desired.
Beyond an openly
prejudiced judge and questionable chains of evidence between the alleged murder
weapons, the ammunition and the defendants, the item most worth noting here is
the...... cage.
Sacco and Vanzetti
sat in a wrought iron pen in the courtroom's center throughout their trial.
What message did that send the jury? How about "anarchist equals
animal"?
News of
By Jim Castagnera
When The Victim Has a Fan
Club, Does Justice Suffer?
October 26, 2006
Last week the
What made the case of Mathew Musladin, who allegedly shot and killed his estranged
wife's boyfriend Tom Studer, interesting to the
Supremes was the buttons. That's right, the buttons.
For the 14 days of trial Studer's
family came to court and sat in the front row wearing buttons that bore the
dead man's picture. The trial judge overruled defense counsel's strenuous
objections. After exhausting his state-court appeals, Musladin
took his case into the federal courts, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Ninth Circuit agreed with him that he had been denied a fair trial in violation
of the U.S. Constitution. The appellate panel ordered a new trial for Musladin... this one, presumably, without the victim's fan
club displaying their regalia.
The Musladin case
is on the cutting edge of a long series of courtroom reforms. A strong dissent
in the Ninth Circuit complained that the appeals court ruling "effectively
erased" the boundaries drawn by Congress around when the federal bench can
overturn state court criminal convictions. The majority for its part relied on
a long line of precedents.
To appreciate the distance our criminal
justice system has come from the "bad old days" to the Musladin case, we might look back to the famous trial of
Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1921 these two Italian immigrants -- admittedly
anarchists who favored the overthrow of the
Beyond an openly prejudiced judge and
questionable chains of evidence between the alleged murder weapons, the
ammunition and the defendants, the item most worth noting here is the cage.
Sacco and Vanzetti sat in a wrought iron pen in the courtroom's center
throughout their trial. What message did that send the jury? How about
"anarchist equals animal"? Works for me.
African-American defendants once were treated
much the same, as documented by the late, great A. Leon Higginbotham, a black
jurist who served on our own U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit here
in Philadelphia. In the 1996 "Shades of Freedom," His Honor reviewed
criminal cases in which black defendants were tried in segregated courtrooms,
such as the one depicted in the film "To Catch a Mockingbird." A
typical prosecution ploy was to call white witnesses "mister" and
"missus" while referring to black witnesses and the defendant by
their first names.
In the worst of cases, prosecutors attacked
the credibility of defense witnesses on the basis of racial stereotypes. In a
1977
None of these antics pass constitutional
muster today. The Supremes have even said that bringing the defendant into
court in prison garb brands him "guilty until proven innocent."
Today's defendant gets to come to court in a suit or a dress, just like
everybody else, even if the state has to do the shopping. As for the jurors
themselves, while no accused minority is automatically entitled to people of
her own race on the panel, the prosecutor can't use peremptory challenges to
systematically exclude blacks or Latinos.
Yes, our criminal courtrooms have
come a long way since Sacco and Vanzetti sat in their cage. Whether wearing buttons into court is protected free
speech under our First Amendment, or prejudicial misbehavior in violation of
defendants' Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial, looks to be a close call.
What if the accused's friends and family come to
court wearing t-shirts supporting him? Does that give the defendant an unfair
advantage?
It's easy to imagine a courtroom crammed with
dueling messages from both sides of the case. This form of "fan advocacy"
might best be left to the World Wrestling Federation, if you ask me.
Havertown resident Jim Castagnera
is the associate provost/associate counsel at
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm
?BRD=1725&dept_id=45406&newsid
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