Understanding the Verdict
Well, the jury is in and the guards and nurse of the Bay County Boot Camp have been acquitted of all charges in the death of Martin Lee Anderson. In Tallahassee protestors are in the streets blocking traffic in front of the State Capital building in what appears to be a futile effort to make people care about this story as more than entertainment news. My review of the internet press is that the outside world is trying to figure out what happened. After all, there’s a video that clearly shows the guards beating the young man until he collapsed. How do go from that video to an absolute acquittal on all charges?
I think several factors need to be considered in understanding this verdict. First, I don’t think the jury acquitted simply due to racial issues. However, I do think the jury recognized that the defendants, several Sheriff’s Deputies and Nurse, are not your run of the mill common criminal defendants either. That is, none of the defendants set out with criminal intent. I suspect it was very easy for the jury to buy into the idea that the death was accidental, which I also believe. However, the other reality is that their actions were clearly abusive and that abuse accidentally caused this young man’s death. Are they murderers? Not in the classic sense, but I do think they have blood on their hands.
The problem with the boot camps is that they were founded in a desire to punish that evolved into a system of torture and abuse. Those of us who worked with juvenile delinquents back when the boot camps were running all heard stories of the abuse, but never had any proof. Our clients are generally viewed simply as delinquents and their stories as lies. Also, the idea of a teenaged hoodlum suffering through military style disciplines appeals the societal blood lust which I believe is tacitly, if not overtly, condoned. However, to be fair, I’ve also had clients tell me that they felt they got more out of the boot camp program than they did the more traditional behavior modification/counseling programs. I know for myself, Marine Corps boot camp made a great difference in my life. However, I also know that my Marine Corps drill instructors were given strict guidelines in our training and that we were never abused in that way the video showed Martin Lee Anderson being abused.
There’s a lot of speculation regarding the outcome of the trial. One of my colleagues, who watched the closing argument, suggested that the Prosecution of this case was done very weakly. The Tallahassee Democrat quotes the defense attorney as saying the Prosecution’s witnesses killed their case due to conflicting testimony. You’ve got to wonder how supposedly experienced prosecutors managed to so screw up a case. I wonder about this, after all the relationship between the State Attorneys and Law Enforcement is a very close one. Add in the fact that most prosecutors endorse the idea of boot camp programs and it’s conceivable that a prosecutor might not get fired up about the case. I read online that the United States Attorney’s Office is now looking into the matter and is conducting a review of the trial. It’ll be interesting to see what comes out of the review.
My personal feelings about the trial are that I don’t think it was such an easy case to win. You’ve got very sympathetic defendants who were acting in a completely undisciplined system. The rumor mill has it that the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) had protested the Boot Camps violations of DJJ rules only to be politically silenced and ignored. My guess is that abusive treatment was so common-place and accepted in the boot camp that nobody even thought to question it anymore. After all, it’s difficult to say something is morally wrong and abusive when your job depends upon playing along and there’s tremendous political support for your actions. I am not at all fearful that any of these defendants will ever harm anyone again and I’m sure the jurors weren’t either. They’re simply not “evil” people in the classical sense. On the other hand, they are examples of that most fearsome and dangerous of all humans, the otherwise good person who through self-interest and blind obedience, has become insensitive to the suffering of another human being such they stand idle in the face of government sponsored torture and abuse.