in Tennessee has been following the Laura Dickinson murder trial, and has this report for us. Also, here is a
from the Grand Rapids Press that supplements David’s information; it seems to amount to a case of juror nullification.
On Tuesday, Judge Archie Brown declared a mistrial in the murder trail of the man accused of raping and suffocating an Eastern Michigan University student named Laura Dickinson last December. The jury was hopelessly deadlocked. The jury voted 10-2 in favor of conviction of the defendant, Orange Taylor III.
As he was being led from the courtroom, Taylor pumped his fist in celebration toward his family.
“You have a hung jury so there must be some indecision,” his father, Orange Taylor Jr., said later. “He’s not that type of person. True enough, he’s young, but he’s not a murderer.” Taylor Jr. also said, “My son will be vindicated of all charges. He was a young man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The case, he said, has given his son “a mega-dose of reality. I think this will make a better person out of him, but this was a painful way for him to mature.”
From the quotes above, you would think that Taylor had been wrongfully accused in a case that had no evidence. In fact, the victim was found naked below the waist, sprawled on the floor, with a pillow covering her face. Taylor’s semen was found on her and fibers from a jacket found in Taylor’s home were on both sides of the pillow. Surveillance cameras showed Taylor sneaking into the dorm, and leaving with a bag lifted from Miss Dickinson’s room.
I watched most of the Court TV coverage, and even the defense attorneys the network uses for commentators, were unanimous that Taylor was obviously guilty. However, two women jurors held out for not guilty. One was black, the other white. A black man on the jury voted to convict.
A black woman named Lauretta Codrington was one of the not guilties, and gave interviews. “We couldn’t place the defendant in (Dickinson’s) room before she died,” said Codrington, who lives in Ann Arbor and owns a sports management company.
Dickinson had died early on December 13, 2006. A custodian found her body, now decomposed, on Dec. 15. The university officials hastened to announce that Miss Dickinson died by “natural causes,” even though law enforcement was investigating it as a murder. Taylor was arrested on February 23. Police had checked out her boyfriend, male acquaintances, and even her brother as suspects. Taylor’s DNA matched the semen found at the crime scene.
This morning, I watched tape of Lauretta Codrington’s TV appearance on Court TV. She discounted the surveillance camera and the DNA. She didn’t believe the bag came from Dickinson’s room. She also forgot that the defense attorney had conceded that Taylor was in the room. Taylor’s five-hour interview with the police had been played for the jury. Codrington said the police “led him to make those statements. Also, she “doesn’t trust the police.”
Court TV host, Lisa Bloom, picked up on this “African-Americans don’t trust the police for good reason.” Her co-host, Vinnie Politan remarked that women weren’t good jurors in this case. Bloom had a sad look at this remark.
Codrington complained that most of the jurors started deliberations “already believing he was guilty.” This was after they had watched the trial.
This trial was a minor replay of the Simpson fiasco. A black woman refused to convict a black defendant despite the evidence. It will be retried in January. It is worth noting that Taylor and his family took this as “vindication,” and were saying that he would be “proven innocent.” The vote had been 10-2 for conviction.
The above is my summary. The information came from the internet and my viewing of the trial on Court TV.