Hung juries are becoming an alarming trend in city

The Baltimore Sun

Cops have a saying: "We only catch criminals. We can't cook 'em."

Last month, Eric Evans avoided being cooked on a charge of carrying a gun after being convicted of a disqualifying crime, courtesy of a hung jury in Baltimore Circuit Court.

Marty Burns, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore state's attorney's office, said that 10 trials have ended in hung juries this year, including the two murder trials that ended in hung juries in the past nine days. In 2006, there were 18 trials that ended in hung juries,

Are trials that end in hung juries an alarming trend or an occasional nuisance?

"If you had asked me that question six months ago," Burns said, "my answer would be totally different from the one I'm giving you now. We are definitely seeing an increase in the number of hung juries."

The reasons some jurors refuse to convict vary. There are those who apparently don't pay attention to voir dire questions. In Evans' case, it boiled down to one juror who wasn't convinced by the testimony of the state's two principal witnesses.

On Aug. 3, 2001, Evans was convicted of felony drug possession. The conviction made carrying a handgun an unwise option for Evans, but on Sept. 25 last year, two special police officers who work security for the Lorelly Apartments in Northeast Baltimore allege that they saw Evans holding an open can of malt liquor.

According to District Court charging documents, Officer Josh Klein and Officer Antonio Washington searched Evans and found a loaded semiautomatic handgun in his right front pants pocket. They turned him over to two Baltimore police officers, who sent him to the Central Booking and Intake Facility to be charged.

The case went to trial June 19. Amy Davidoff, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore's School of Pharmacy, was one of the jurors. Davidoff said both Klein and Washington testified about finding the gun on Evans.

Evans, according to Davidoff, then testified that he was just hanging in the vicinity of the Lorelly Apartments when the officers approached him and put him against a wall. Then one of them held up the handgun and said "Hey, look what I found."

Davidoff remembered Evans testifying that all he was doing was hanging out, waiting for a woman to bring him some money so the two of them could go to a bar. Under the law, Evans is innocent until proved guilty, but to believe him, you must buy into the idea that the officers planted the gun on him. When testimony was finished, 12 jurors had to weigh the credibility of two special police officers against that of a convicted drug offender.

Apparently, at least one felt Evans was more credible.

Deborah Schakne was the forewoman on the jury. She remembers what happened during deliberations.

"There was one person from the start who was not going to convict," Schakne remembered. "She said she wasn't convinced, that guilt wasn't proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and she thought [Evans] deserved a second chance."

According to Schakne, the holdout juror then went into a litany about the plight of young black men in Baltimore. After the woman completed her discourse, Schakne told her "While we don't necessarily disagree, that's not what we're here for."

Schakne said she didn't remember the juror's name, but that she was a fairly young black woman. It was at this point that perhaps someone should have brought up the issue of potential racial bias that, Burns said, is asked during the voir dire process in Baltimore Circuit Court trials.

There are, indeed, many blacks in this city who believe life is unduly harsh for young black men. I understand the sentiment. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. The question here is whether a person who believes such should serve as a juror in a case where a young black man - Evans is 27 - is the defendant.

The issue is even more dicey if you believe that such young black men deserve "second chances" when they go to court. Evans' criminal record includes one second-degree assault case that was placed in the inactive docket, two drug possession charges and a car theft charge that were placed on the inactive docket, and an open container case where the charges were dropped. And then there's his felony drug conviction. It seems that Evans is on his fourth or fifth "second chance."

But in defense of the juror reluctant to convict, both Schakne and Davidoff said the main thrust of her argument was the inconsistent testimony of the special police officers, not necessarily Evans' denial or his race and gender. And that juror wasn't alone in her doubts.

"There was some sense," Davidoff said, "that one of the state's witnesses was less believable. There was discussion of the testimony of the police officers not being in sync."

Actually, there should have been more skepticism if the testimony of the two officers matched exactly. Davidoff was with the majority of jurors who believed there was no good reason not to believe the testimony of the two special officers.

"The defense [attorney] didn't give any rationale about why they would plant a gun on" Evans, Davidoff said.

For at least one juror, the defense attorney didn't have to.

gregory.kane@baltsun.com

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