Texas Justice (uh-hmm...)

[Ivo Skoric]

True. But, I am not as appalled that he is not convicted, as I am 
appalled that the land of the free is home to the biggest prison 
population on Earth. Today, the U.S. incarcerates seven times more 
people per capita than its main rival - communist China - with the 
sharpest increase in the incarceration rate in the past decade - 
prison population had grown 80% in the last decade (NYT 11/02/03). 
Then obviously I can't hide cynicism when somebody with the story 
like Durst (or O.J.) walks free. What is the message I am getting? It 
is that, in the society that sheepishly idolizes wealth, money puts 
you above the law. It would be interesting, though, as Laurie 
suggested, to see whether Durst contributed to Bush's campaign.

ivo

On 12 Nov 2003 at 13:20, Damato, Anthony A wrote:

You're entitled to your suspicions, but if you are opposed to
totalitarian states, you should be vigilant against convicting
anyone for what he did after the crime was committed.

Tony D'Amato
http://anthonydamato.law.northwestern.edu/



At 12:58 PM 11/12/2003 -0500, Ivo Skoric wrote:
>Isn't this fantastic? There are kids who get in prison for years over
>possession of small amounts of weed. This guy, already suspect in two
>"disappearances", kills a person, cuts him in pieces, flees the place
>with a truckload of cash and 5 pounds of cannabis, skips bail, gets
>caught shoplifting, and he is free to go. Did he also panic when he
>'accidentally' disappeared his wife, so that he had to travel
>disguised as a woman? What would he need to do to actually get
>convicted? ivo
>
>On 11 Nov 2003 at 22:12, Miroslav Visic wrote:
>
>No death penalty this time. In Texas they don't execute
>millionaires...
>
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>
>
>Eccentric New York millionaire Robert Durst, who said he accidentally
>killed a hot-tempered neighbor in self-defense and then dismembered
>the body in a
>
>panic, was found innocent Tuesday of murder.
>
>Jurors deliberated over five days, following nearly six weeks of
>testimony, before deciding that the real estate heir did not murder
>71-year-old Morris Black, who lived across the hall from him in a
>low-rent apartment building.
>
>Durst, 60, who is under suspicion in two other killings and who posed
>for a time as a mute woman, testified in his own defense for nearly
>four days. He insisted that Black was shot accidentally during a
>struggle over a gun, and said he used two saws and an ax to cut up
>the body. The victim's head has never been found.
>
>Durst appeared stunned when he heard the verdict from state District
>Judge Susan Criss, standing with his mouth slightly open and his eyes
>filling with tears. He hugged his attorneys afterward, saying: "Thank
>you so much."
>
>After the killing in late September 2001, Durst was a fugitive for
>six weeks until he was caught in Pennsylvania when he tried to
>shoplift a $5 sandwich even though he had $500 in his pocket.
>
>At defense attorneys' request, jurors considered only a murder
>charge.
>They could have asked that jurors consider a lesser charge, such as
>manslaughter, in addition to murder, but opted for an all-or-nothing
>strategy.
>
>If he had been convicted, Durst could have been sentenced to five to
>99 years in prison and been fined up to $10,000.
>
>Prosecutors called Durst a calculating, cold-blooded killer who shot
>Black to steal his identity. They said all his actions afterward,
>including cutting up the body and twice fleeing Galveston, were part
>of an elaborate plan to hide his guilt.
>
>But defense attorneys contended Black was shot accidentally while the
>two men struggled for a gun after Durst found his neighbor illegally
>in his apartment. The defense said prosecutors failed to show jurors
>any motive for the killing or disprove self-defense.
>
>"Whatever (Durst) did after Morris Black was dead cannot change how
>Morris Black died," defense attorney Dick DeGuerin said in his
>closing statement. "You can't convict Bob Durst simply because of
>that."
>
>District Attorney Kurt Sistrunk said Durst cut up Black's body
>without
>hesitation, meticulously cleaned the crime scene, reserved a flight
>to leave the area and dumped the body but later returned to retrieve
>the head because it could identify his victim.
>
>"Is it well planned and calculated? You bet it is," Sistrunk said.
>
>Durst moved to Galveston in November 2000 disguised as a woman to
>escape
>
>scrutiny in New York after an investigation was reopened into the
>1982 disappearance of his first wife, Kathleen. He used the name
>Dorothy Ciner, a childhood friend.
>
>After he jumped bail in Black's killing, Galveston authorities
>learned
>he was wanted for questioning in his first wife's disappearance and
>in the Christmas Eve 2000 shooting death in Los Angeles of a friend,
>writer Susan Berman, who was set to be questioned about his missing
>wife.
>
>He met Black while wearing his disguise but later dropped the
>masquerade and they became friends.
>
>Durst's attorneys said the friendship soured because of the elderly
>man's increasingly aggressive behavior. Durst and other witnesses
>testified Black often got into fights and arguments.
>
>Neighbors "could hear Morris Black two blocks down the road when he
>was in his rages," said Debra Monogan, who once lived upstairs from
>Black in South Carolina.
>
>Prosecutors said Black was abrasive but not violent.
>
>Durst testified that he found Black in his apartment on Sept. 28,
>2001, and that Black armed himself with a gun Durst had hidden.
>During a struggle, the weapon fired, hitting Black in the face, he
>said.
>
>Durst testified he did not recall details about dismembering the
>body, but when pressed by a prosecutor he said he remembered "a
>nightmare with blood everywhere."
>
>"I remember like I was looking down on something and I was swimming
>in blood and I kept spitting up and spitting up and I don't know what
>is real and I don't know what is not real," Durst said.
>
>He said he preferred not to use the term "murder" to describe Black's
>death.
>
>"I like dying better. Killed implies like I killed him. I did not
>kill him," Durst said.
>
>"It was self-defense and an accident," he said.
>
>When he learned police had found some of Black's remains, Durst said
>he fled to New Orleans with five pounds of marijuana and more than
>$500,000 in cash.
>
>He returned to Galveston and was arrested. He posted bail and fled,
>and was captured six weeks later in Pennsylvania when he was caught
>trying to steal a $5 sandwich and bandages while he had $500 in his
>pocket.
>
>Durst's family runs the Durst Organization, a privately held,
>billion-dollar
>New York company.
>
>
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>There are no unconquerable fortresses. There are only bad conquerors.