Penn Trial Assailed

Given the liberal bias of The Times, I am not at all surprised that the misconduct you find in the first Sagon Penn trial is laid at the feet of the prosecution. You completely overlook what most of us felt from the start, that the very best we could expect from that jury was no decision.

From the very beginning of this farce of a trial, it was a clear fact that attorney Milton J. Silverman intended to put the prosecution’s primary witness on trial as a racist. He knew that in doing so he could count on the black jurors to sympathize with Penn. This assured him of nothing less than a hung jury.

Then there is the matter of intimidation of the jurors. At one time, Judge Ben Hamrick cautioned spectators not to signal or communicate with the jury in any way. This warning occurred well into the trial, and it may have been incumbent on the judge to have cleared the courtroom long before, had he noticed any untoward activities on the part of the spectators.

The jury’s final decision was a gross miscarriage of justice. One police officer is dead, another maimed for life, and the “ride along” will bear the physical and mental scars that Sagon Penn rendered upon her. What is unconscionable is that no investigation of the jury has been called for. I believe that it is warranted.

EDWIN O. LEARNARD

San Diego