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In Parts I, II, and III of this series I explored the events leading up to the trial and conviction of Christopher McCowen, the Cape Cod trash collector charged with murdering fashion journalist Christa Worthington. What's the relevance of this real-life legal drama to my blog's focus on the science of small talk? Well, in the end, McCowen's fate hinged on how a judge evaluated the remarks allegedly made by jurors deliberating on his case. The outcome of this legal proceeding would depend on a matter as mundane as word choice.
As I detailed my previous post, it was (and remains) my opinion as an expert in the case that statements along the lines of "this is what happens when a big, Black man shakes a woman" indicate stereotypical perceptions on the part of the jurors in question. But there were additional questions facing the trial judge in this hearing:
• Did such statements, if uttered as alleged, impact others in the jury room?
• What about other comments allegedly made by a male juror in the case, a dark-skinned man of Cape Verdean descent who apparently went out of his way to remind other jurors that he was not African-American like the defendant? A juror who allegedly responded to one outburst by the sole African-American member of the jury by saying that he didn't like Black people since "this is what they're capable of"? A juror whose own aunt would take the stand a week after my testimony to detail what she described as a long history of prejudiced statements made by her nephew?
• And what role, if any, was played by the fact that McCowen's own attorney, Bob George, made repeated mention of race during the course of the trial? That George had argued bluntly that the only reason his client was charged with rape in the first place was that he was a Black man who hauled trash for a living? Had the defense attorney primed the pump for jurors to see McCowen through the lens of his race and occupation?
On the first question, it's clear that the racially tinged statements allegedly made during deliberations did have an impact. This was a jury that deliberated for several days, that initially told the judge they couldn't reach a unanimous verdict. A jury that was sequestered in a hotel against its will and would have been dismissed as hung had they told the judge just one more time that they couldn't reach a verdict.
According to interviews given since the case, the two hold-outs for acquittal finally gave in when they could no longer take the tension and animosity that had built-up among the 12 jurors. And much of this discord, much of the pressure these jurors felt to switch to a vote of guilty despite their lingering doubts, was fueled by the race-related statements in question.
These comments had the potential to impact more than the tone of the deliberations–they likely also influenced the way that some of the jurors saw the case. I'm not suggesting that the jury would have acquitted McCowen had these statements never been made (though, again, a hung jury and a mistrial seems a likely outcome). But we know from psychological research that stereotypical thoughts, once activated, often color our perceptions unless we make a concerted effort to counteract them. Had the other members of the jury made a conscious attempt to combat bias once it potentially reared its ugly head during deliberations? Apparently not, at least according to the testimony of the jury foreman during Day One of the 2008 post-trial hearing:
Q: At any time during your deliberations, did one or more of your fellow jurors voice the need to be sure the verdict was not tainted by racial bias? Anything to the effect of... we can't let race enter into this? We have to keep our guard up here against that? A: No.
And as for the assertion that any mention of race by the jurors simply reflected the defense attorney's tendency to talk about these issues? It's an interesting hypothesis. But when McCowen's attorney talked about race, he did so in one particular vein: to suggest that the police and the district attorney didn't believe McCowen's story because they couldn't wrap their heads around the idea that the victim would have consensual sex with a Black trash collector. He was making an argument regarding the importance of preventing racial bias from entering the equation.
The jurors in question did precisely the opposite. They weren't proposing that maybe the police zeroed in on the defendant because he was "a big, Black guy." They weren't even suggesting that they didn't think the victim would have sex with "a big, Black guy." The jurors used the phrase "big, Black guy" to describe how dangerous the defendant was, how intimidating he could be. And, allegedly, the juror of Cape Verdean descent went much further. The race-related arguments of the defense attorney didn't open the door for the juror comments that followed–in fact, it was this very type of comment that he was warning against to begin with.
By now, you're inevitably asking, how does the story end? How did the judge rule? Did he grant a new trial? Unfortunately, the answer to this last question is no.
I say "unfortunately" not because I can tell you with any degree of certainty that Christopher McCowen is innocent. I truly don't know if he is. But based on the evidence I've seen, there's ample room for reasonable doubt. And more relevant to the post-trial hearing I've been describing, I can state quite confidently that there are legitimate questions as to the fairness of the process by which he was convicted. In a matter of such high stakes, where one man's freedom and the even grander principles of justice are at stake, you'd like to think the system would err on the side of caution.
But in the end, the judge was not swayed by the defense motion. He found too many inconsistencies in the jurors' stories of what was and was not said. He deemed the phrase "big, Black man" to be a simple use of race as a descriptor. He denied the petition for a new trial, and Christopher McCowen continues to serve his life sentence for the rape and murder of Christa Worthington.
My reaction to the ruling was not one of great surprise. I had spoken to a reporter weeks before my testimony, and she had described the request for a new trial as a "slam-dunk." When I told her I'd bet against it, she seemed shocked and asked me to explain. I told her the evidence of bias was compelling, but the statements were ambiguous. I told her that the jurors in question obviously were going to deny any racial bias on their part, and that no expert would be able to look the judge in the eye and guarantee that, yes, definitively, this verdict was absolutely and irrevocably changed due to racial bias. I told her that trial judges don't make a habit out of undoing year-old verdicts that 12 jurors assented to in open court, especially when doing so would lead to a costly retrial that would dwarf the first one in terms of notoriety and media saturation.
So to me, the end to this tragic legal drama may have been anticlimactic but it wasn't surprising. Still, it's disturbing that Christopher McCowen is serving a life sentence after a trial in which multiple jurors expressed subtle and not-so-subtle forms of racial bias. It's disturbing in light of every defendant's right to a fair and impartial jury trial; it's disturbing because the victim's family and the people of Massachusetts deserve closure to this case free from the whiff of impropriety and the lingering specter of potential injustice.
It was an extraordinarily rare post-trial hearing that took place one year ago this month in Cape Cod. But the ubiquity of stereotype and prejudice in how all of us tend to view the world makes you wonder how rare were the juror attitudes and preconceived notions that triggered this hearing. Were members of this jury particularly biased in how they saw this defendant and this case? Or did these jurors just happen to put into words the racial sentiments and expectations that many of us carry around daily, even into domains with life-and-death consequences like the courtroom?
EPILOGUE: FOR LATEST CASE UPDATE AS OF 12/13/10, CLICK HERE.
