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THE DARK SIDE: My favorite words in the English language: ‘Not guilty’

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 21, 2011//

THE DARK SIDE: My favorite words in the English language: ‘Not guilty’

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 21, 2011//

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David Ziemer
David Ziemer

The two most beautiful words in the English language are: “Not guilty.”

When I hear these words, I feel like the punk in love with Maria in “West Side Story;” “say it soft, and it’s almost like praying.”

There is only one time in my life when I didn’t love those words: when I saw the abominable movie called “Twelve Angry Men.”

The conceit of this horror flick is that it portrays the jury system at its finest. In fact, it is the jury system at its worst.

The defendant in the movie is obviously as guilty as can be of his father’s murder. The evidence against him is overwhelming.

Nevertheless, this pietistic juror portrayed by Henry Fonda manages to show that each individual piece of evidence alone is not proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant owned a knife identical to the one used to stab the victim; but it’s not the only such knife in existence. The defendant’s alibi is that he was at the movies, but he doesn’t remember the movie; and that is theoretically possible.

The defendant threatened to kill the victim; but it still could have been someone else who actually did it.

But just because each individual piece of evidence standing alone is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that hardly warrants a rational juror concluding that all this evidence combined fails to meet that burden.

At the end of deliberations, the last juror still holding out for a guilty verdict is exposed as a racist. And somehow, that’s supposed to mean the defendant was innocent? A murderer walks free, and that’s supposed to be a happy ending?

After the verdict is rendered, we see the pompous ass portrayed by Henry Fonda standing outside the courthouse as if he has done some great act of citizenship. In truth, a man who should go to the electric chair has been let loose on society, because he abdicated his civic duty.

Of course, I’ve known jurors in real life to do stranger things. After one acquittal, one of the jurors remarked in the judge’s chambers that she voted not guilty because she thought the police were lying.

Which would be fine in most cases, except that, in this case, every single thing every officer testified to actually favored the defendant. They testified they didn’t recover a gun, and didn’t find any shell cases where the shooting allegedly occurred. The only evidence against the defendant was eyewitness testimony that the police officers’ testimony actually undermined.

In my case, the jury reached the right verdict, but for reasons that make no sense. In “Twelve Angry Men,” they reach the wrong verdict, because 11 are bamboozled by one very unscrupulous juror.

As I said earlier, to me, the words “not guilty” border on the sacred. But this movie profanes the words, and I expect that every defense attorney feels the same. I can’t even imagine what the prosecutors must think of it.

David Ziemer can be reached at [email protected].

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