Attorney Says Juror’s Remarks Grounds for Retrial of Marine

The attorney for a 20-year-old black Marine convicted of violating the civil rights of a white Marine in a fight outside an Oceanside liquor store requested a retrial Tuesday based on comments by the jury foreman after the verdict.

In a Nov. 26 story in The Times, the foreman of the all-white jury, Nick Stanger, 48, was quoted as saying “we didn’t care about the race” of Derick Branch in finding him guilty of a racial hate crime.

Branch’s attorney, Robert L. James, cited the article Tuesday as he argued that, if race played no role in the jury’s deliberation, then his client could not be guilty of a racial hate crime.

“If race didn’t play any part, how could they possibly reach a verdict that somebody interfered with another person’s civil rights based on race?” James said in an interview.

Branch and a co-defendant, 27-year-old Kevin Smith, were convicted of misdemeanor counts of battery in an August attack on four white Marines who pulled into the parking lot of Bell’s liquor store in downtown Oceanside.

Branch was convicted of one count of violation of civil rights, and Smith was acquitted of the same violation.

Branch hit one of the Marines, Cory Williams, in the face as he got out of the car to buy a pack of cigarettes, and Smith threw blows at Brady Wimmer, who was driving the car.

Wimmer testified during the trial last month that he heard someone in the parking lot shout at him: “This is a black store, a blood store, and white boys aren’t allowed here.”

On Tuesday, Smith was sentenced to six months in custody for the battery.

In the newspaper story, Stanger was quoted as saying the fact that Williams was deprived of his “constitutional rights” to buy a pack of cigarettes was enough to convict Branch of the civil rights violation.

“We didn’t think of race or hate as an element. It was that one individual person’s stated purpose was to buy a pack of cigarettes, and he was not allowed to do that,” Stanger was quoted as saying.

The motion for a retrial for Branch will be heard Jan. 9, 1992.