Another Win For The Good Guys

After a week long trial in the political prosecution of Dr. Catherine Wilkerson the jury found she was NOT GUILTY on all counts.

Victory--Monday 12/03/2007

Defense co-counsel Hugh "Buck" Davis delivered an impassioned closing argument today in the trial of Dr. Catherine Wilkerson that put on full display both the political stakes of the case and the dishonesty of police and prosecution. Attorney Davis pointed out that only one witness, UM custodian Michael Lafleur, ever testified to any overt physical act by Dr. Wilkerson and that testimony was not credible nor was it corroborated by any other of the 19 witnesses. Davis made it clear that the University of Michigan and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie were trying to criminalize speech and protest. Huron Valley Ambulance paramedic supervisor Dean Lloyd was pinpointed as the man who instigated the attack by Ann Arbor Police Officer Kevin Warner on Dr. Wilkerson after she criticized Lloyd's dangerous use of a toxic substance on a man he said he thought was faking (medical records admitted into evidence on Friday indicated that he had suffered a traumatic brain injury). Lloyd, said Davis, told Warner to take away Dr. Wilkerson's free speech rights and "to his everlasting shame," Warner obeyed. In his final remarks, Davis compared Dr. Wilkerson's case with the case of the LS&A 109 who staged a sit-in at the University of Michigan in 1970 against the Vietnam war. Davis pointed out that the LS&A 109 were technically guilty but that jurors had acquitted those he represented because they had acted ethically in opposing the war. By contrast, he argued, jurors today had in their hands the fate of someone who was technically innocent but whom the prosecution was still trying to convict precisely because she had acted ethically. 

Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Margaret Connors had the final word in her rebuttal. She defended Dean Lloyd's use of ammonia, arguing that he thought his patient was faking. Connors never acknowledged or, apparently, never understood just how damaging this admission was to her own case. It was clear that she was personally stung by Mr. Davis' remarks; at one point, she even sputtered that she was a doctor, too, because she had a Juris Doctor degree. The mainstay of her presentation involved a large sheet of paper on an easel. The sheet had the statutory elements of the crimes Dr. Wilkerson was accused of, though tellingly "assault" was blacked out. As Connors rehearsed once more the sad, fabricated police and prosecution narrative of the case, she would place a check mark next to each element she had putatively proven. When she was done the sheet had dozens of red check marks on it. But the jury wasn't buying any of it, after four-and-a-half hours of deliberation they returned two verdicts of "not guilty."