We all know that there is a risk that jurors will decide cases on ethnic lines. For instance, back in 2020, Carrie Bess, who had served as a juror on the O.J. Simpson murder trial, admitted that the not-guilty verdict was payback for the LAPD beating Rodney King. Of course, that explanation is suspect because there was no connection between Simpson's dead wife and King. Rather, the more likely explanation was simply that the jurors did not believe Simpson--a successful black man--should be punished for killing a white woman. But at least in that case, there were serious mistakes made by the police investigators and prosecutors that a biased jury could use to justify their vote.
This bias will probably be cropping up again in the murder trial of Karmelo Anthony for his stabbing Austin Metcalf to death. If you don't remember the case, it occurred at a football game. Anthony, who is black, decided to sit under a shelter set up for a different school's players. Metcalf, who was white, tried to get Anthony to leave. But you don't want to make the black kids angry! Anthony stabbed Metcalf to death and then claimed that it was self defense.
The New York Post has interviewed a legal expert, Randy Zelin, about the case and likely outcome. Of course, if the jury follows the law, Anthony will be found guilty of murder because he illegally and without justification used lethal force against someone who, at most, put hands on him to escort him from a place he had no right to be. Moreover, it appears from the evidence that Anthony intended to stab anyone that interfered with him. But Zelin adds this caveat:
But Anthony has one ace in the hole, Zelin added: his race.
Anthony’s defense has tried to cast Metcalf as a white bully flagrantly assaulting a black victim, with the murder charge the product of a racist justice system.
This might seem outlandish, but keep in mind that Anthony raised $600,000 from people that obviously believed black teens shouldn't be held responsible for murdering white kids.
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