Mark Belling will have had the details in the 4-o’clock hour. For those who can’t pick up the WISN-AM signal, they stream on the Net, and I hope that Patrick got the warning message to turn on the recorder in time (I do have a horrid, static-filled copy of Mark reading the letter, but no way to get it on the computer).
Here is the text of the letter by one of the jurors sent to McCan’t and copied to Belling:
Dear E. Michael McCann,
My name is (BLANK). I was one of the 12 jurors on the tire-slashing case. After just turning 18 this past summer, I was very honored to be summoned for jury duty on such a high-profile case. I feel that serving on a jury is one of my fundamental rights as a U.S. citizen. The experience has left me totally disgusted with our justice system in Milwaukee. I endured a lot of personal sacrifice to serve on this jury as the spring semester of college started in the middle of the case, so now I’m behind in my classes.
I was shocked that after only 7 1/2 hours of deliberation, the case was taken out of our hands by you and plea-bargained away. When we began deliberation, it was 7-5 favoring not guilty; but by the time we handed the judge the note stating that we were hung, the vote was 9-3 favoring guilty to being party to a crime.
What ever happened to sequestering a jury? I feel you never gave us the chance to deliberate properly. I feel the plea bargain you gave these individuals is a total travesty of justice, and I hope you have trouble sleeping at night thinking what crimes these individuals will do next.
McCan’t can’t let the hot cocoa go cold at the DA’s office fast enough.
