Represented by peers, but jury that you deem as your peer!

I find it hysterically interesting that many of the individuals in the ‘Kilpatrick Enterprise’ trial had their attorney’s scream to the high heavens about  not getting a jury of their peers. However, now that a jury has been seated; low and behold, the make-up of the empaneled group far outweighs the percentage of African American people in the nine county district from which the pool of potential jurors were drawn. So I guess the ‘change of venue’ argument would appear to be nothing more than some horse and pony show that will be denied about as quickly as going through a McDonald’s drive-thru at three in the morning.

The question is often asked; “What exactly constitutes a jury of your peers?” Does one look at the lawyers that represent you as your peers or those that look most like you as the peer? Hmm, what a contradiction when trying to make sense of the strategy being employed by those on the defense side of the courtroom in Judge Nancy Edmunds’ room 858 of the U.S. Federal Courthouse in downtown Detroit. I guess some people want it both ways and as the next act in the life of Kwame Kilpatrick plays itself out, only time will tell what the future holds for the so-called ‘Kwame Enterprise’.

Let me make something very clear with regard to all of the talk about whether or not the defendants will get a fair trial. This case will be about everyone keeping an open mind and the jurors assessing what is presented to them before making a final determination on guilt or innocence. All this crap that has been bandied about with regard to the white man and/or government out to get a successful black man is pure garbage and ignorance to say the least. I work as a human resource professional and I say to people all the time; no one has the time to make an employee so much of a focus that a decision is made to fire them; people fire themselves.

I said that to say this; if the evidence shows that Kwame Kilpatrick and his co-defendants were complicit in doing some illegal things, they have no one to blame but themselves. No one made them do what they are accused of doing and they made the cognizant decision to carry out the acts on their own. And at the end of the day, the peers that they asked for to judge them will make a decision accordingly. I am sick of hearing the argument that he has done nothing different than his white political counterparts; of which I beg to differ based on the fact that he appears to have allegedly been caught.

Then this latest ploy to play on the fears of potential jurors by painting a picture of if you acquit us, your life will be ruined by the media. Really now; please spare me the histrionics! I like anyone else expect and hope for nothing more than for these men to get a fair trial. Anything less is an attempt by the pessimistic enablers to paint a picture that the American justice system is as fractured as the days of true the injustices in this country. We are beyond that in my humble opinion and the real injustice would have be for nothing to have happened at all based on what is being alleged here.

At the end of the day though, I am still confused when it comes to this group of defendants. They appear to want to be represented by their peers, while wanting to be judged by those that they see as their peers. That dichotomy in and of itself seems to be the height of hypocrisy based on the way they tried to exploit the jury selection process and those that would eventually serve as the peers judging them.