Take for instance this latest decision by a federal jury in New Orleans.
If you don't know the story about the murder of Henry Glover you should learn it.
Mr. Glover was shot and killed by police officer David Warren in the aftermath of Katrina, and the NOPD covered up his killing.
Charges were filed, arrests were made, and a state jury found all the officers guilty for their actions.
But now....
"NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former New Orleans police officer whose 2010 manslaughter conviction was touted as a milestone in the city's healing after Hurricane Katrina was acquitted Wednesday by a different jury of charges he fatally shot a man without justification during the storm's chaotic aftermath.
David Warren spent more than three years behind bars after he was charged in the September 2005 death of 31-year-old Henry Glover, whose body was burned in a car by a different officer after a good Samaritan drove the dying man to a makeshift police compound.
Leaving the courthouse a free man, Warren, 50, was reunited with his wife and five children after jurors acquitted him of a civil rights violation and a firearm charge.
Warren told reporters that he "took the action that I had to take" when he shot Glover once with a rifle from a second-story balcony at a strip mall he was guarding.
"We have spent years talking about something that lasted seconds," he said.
Warren's trembling relatives wept and embraced each other after the verdict, which jurors delivered less than two hours after they informed a judge they were struggling to reach a unanimous decision.
"Oh my gosh, I can't even get it in my head," his wife, Kathy Warren, told a supporter. Her husband had been in custody since June 2010, when he surrendered to authorities following his indictment.
On the other side of the courtroom, Glover's sister, Patrice, slumped over and wailed so loudly that U.S. District Judge Lance Africk paused as he spoke to jurors. After a man carried Patrice Glover out of the room, several jurors wiped away tears as they filed out.
Friends and relatives tried to console Patrice Glover as she sat in a chair in the lobby of the courthouse.
"He was a good child," she said of her brother. "That was my baby."
U.S. Attorney Kenneth Allen Polite Jr. said in a statement that prosecutors were disappointed by the verdict but thanked jurors for their "attentive service."
His predecessor, Jim Letten, said after the 2010 verdict that it marked a "critical phase in the recovery and healing of this city, of the people of this region."
Africk had sentenced Warren to nearly 26 years in prison after the jury in his first trial convicted him and two other former officers of charges stemming from Glover's death.
But an appeals court overturned Warren's convictions and ordered a new trial last year. A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit ruled that Warren should have been tried separately from four other former officers charged in an alleged cover-up of Glover's death. The panel agreed with Warren's lawyers that the "spillover effect" of evidence about the cover-up, including testimony about the burning of Glover's body and photos of his charred remains, denied him a fair trial.
A different officer, Gregory McRae, was convicted in 2010 of burning Glover's body. The 5th Circuit upheld McRae's convictions.
The jury for Warren's retrial was barred from hearing any testimony about what happened to Glover in the aftermath of the shooting.
On Monday, Warren testified that he feared for his life when he shot Glover because he thought he saw a gun in his hand as he and another man ran toward the building he was guarding. Prosecutors, however, said Glover wasn't armed and didn't pose a threat." [Source]
Officer Warren is now a free man. But was justice served? Sadly, only David Warren knows for sure.
Then there is this crazy story out of Texas. Rich kid gets hammered and gets behind the wheel of a car. He kills four people and doesn't get sentenced to a day in jail. Why? Apparently he suffers from a rare desease called "affluenza" . -I think Mitt Romney has the same desease.- I wonder what kind of treatment they have for that.
"The Keller, Tex., 16-year-old has a rare condition that a judge believes is best remedied with anything but dealing with the consequences for causing a DWI wreck that killed four people, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
Couch suffers from “affluenza,” according to his lawyers, a term which means that his wealthy parents pretty much let him get away with everything. The defense saved him from a 20-year sentence; State District Judge Jean Boyd bought it at his sentencing on Tuesday and gave Couch probation instead.
“He never learned that sometimes you don’t get your way,” Gary Miller, a psychologist assigned to Couch said in court. “He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.” [Source]
Poor Ethan, we all should have it so hard.
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