DA calls Blake jury "stupid"

Seattle Times ^ | 03/24/2005 | Richard Winton

[Oztrich Boy]

Jury nullification? It's possible that the jury (a single jurist?) thought Blake was justified in some sense.

Maybe, but it appears that the jury room was always solidly in favour of aquittal. It would have taken Henry Fonda to get them to deliver a guilty verdict.

[RichInOC]

Servant, first, do keep in mind that the jury was a cross-section of the community. Second, the community was L.A. Third, the foreman has apparently decided he wants to see how long he can extend his fifteen minutes of fame. I don't want to see or hear any more from Robert Blake than I absolutely have to (i.e., I'd just as soon never hear his bitter little midget butt again) and I have even less patience with the supporting cast in this farce. They all need to just go away.

[technochick99]

Moreover, a DA who thinks anyone should be convicted more or less on their say-so is a danger to the public.

Or at least says such things publically!

[MinuteGal]

I believe he did it also, or had it done. However, without solid evidence, the DA made an unfortunate call to prosecute Blake. I think he's kicking himself now as well as bitter.....lashing out at the jury for his own wrong decision.

He would have been better off not bringing the case to trial, holding off to see if more evidence would pop up in the future. Blake is no serial murderer and represented little threat to be in the populace for the time being.

If there was no trial, it could take years for the mystery to be solved, true. It might never be solved.

But almost-forgotten cold cases are solved all the time by bulldog investigative and forensics work. Sometimes it takes a decade or more for the truth to surface.

Bringing the Blake case to trial with insufficient evidence resulted in him being a free man. On the obverse, NOT bringing him to trial would have had the same result, but at least with a remote, long chance of key evidence surfacing and a later trial.

It was a crap shoot for the prosecutor, he jumped the wrong way with his decision, and unfortunately, the State will never get another shot at the perp in the future.

Leni

[Oztrich Boy]

the jury didn't want to believe two witnesses who said Blake asked about having his wife killed, yet they believed Blake, who left his gun back at the restaurant....

Difference is:

"D'oh. I forgot my gun. Just call me dumb"

"Blake asked us to kill his wife. We didn't tell the cops. Blake's wife was murdered. We didn't tell the cops. The cops questioned us. We still didn't tell the cops. Later we told the cops. Just call us slimeballs"

We can all identify with the first. The second: not so much.