Bobby Cutts and Weighing a Bias Against Law Enforcement as a Juror

Ohio police officer Bobby Cutts is on trial for the murder of Jessie Davis. Should any previous biases for or against police officers affect a juror's judgment?

The last time my wife was called for jury duty she admitted to me that she hoped that if she were be selected as a juror the trial and the jury decision would not hinge on the testimony of a policeman or city detective. As she is very straight laced and has never violated a single law or had any contact with law enforcement I was at a loss to understand her statement concerning the viability/credibility of law enforcement. To the best of my knowledge she and we had no reason to doubt the integrity of our local police force.

Seeing the questioning look on my face she explained how she had been negatively influenced against policemen in general after watching wall to wall coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial. Initially she was convinced of Simpson's guilt, but as the trial wore on and powerful defense attorneys led by Johnnie Cochran, F. Lee Bailey and Alan Dershowitz presented evidence of the mishandling of evidence and hints of planted evidence by the Los Angles detectives Furman, Vanatter and Lange she began to have doubts of Simpson's guilt and seriously questioned whether racism and an overly zealous desire to convict at all cost was driving the detectives to misrepresent if not plant evidence in the case.

After building a highly speculative case against the veracity and motives of the detectives on the case F. Lee Baily shocked the world by providing a tape recorded some ten years earlier in which detective Furman used the "N" word repeatedly in reference to Afro-Americans. Furman had earlier denied ever having used the word while under oath. He was later indicted for and pleaded no contest to charges of perjury.

Many observers of the trial, including my wife, decided that this one proven lie validated all of the other implications of lies made by the defense.