Trials
McLucas's trial set new records for the scale of judicial proceedings in Connecticut. It was the first in Connecticut to have metal detectors installed at the courtroom doors; jury selection took six weeks, a Connecticut record, and the jury deliberated for six days, another Connecticut record. Despite impassioned accusations from protesters that McLucas was being railroaded into the electric chair by a "racist jury," the jurors (ten white, two black) acquitted him on the most severe charges, convicting him instead on the sole charge of conspiracy to commit murder. His defense attorney declared, "The judge was fair, the jury was fair, and, in this case, a black revolutionary was given a fair trial." McLucas was sentenced to twelve to fifteen years in prison. His two collaborators in the murder, who had pleaded to second degree murder, were released after four years.
In October, 1970, Bobby Seale went on trial alongside Ericka Huggins, a New Haven Panther who had been present in the apartment during Rackley's captivity and, according to testimony, boiled water to torture him with. This trial was an even larger undertaking, involving a full four months of jury selection. The defense emphasized that it was only Sams' testimony that tied Seale and Huggins to Rackley's murder. The jury was unable to reach a verdict, deadlocked 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggin's acquittal. On May 25, 1971 Judge Harold Mulvey stunned courtroom spectators by dismissing the charges against Huggins and Seale saying: " I find it impossible to believe that an unbiased jury could be selected without superhuman efforts- efforts which this court, the state and these defendants should not be called upon to either to make or to endure".
Read more about this topic: New Haven Black Panther Trials
Famous quotes containing the word trials:
“Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 10 (1919)
“Misfortune is never mournful to the soul that accepts it; for such do always see that every cloud is an angel’s face. Every man deems that he has precisely the trials and temptations which are the hardest of all others for him to bear; but they are so, simply because they are the very ones he most needs.”
—Lydia M. Child (1802–1880)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)