When the jury in the TN trial of Ronald Killings delivered a verdict of not guilty, I believe they followed the judge's instructions, which included an admonition that they had to hold the prosecution to a heavy burden of proof and, if they had a reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt, they were required to find him not guilty.

It was the current justice system that made several mistakes, in my non-lawyers' opinion. These mistakes include:

• The state should never have prosecuted a police officer for reckless homicide as a consequence of his performing his duties. If the law enforcement agency by which he was employed could not adequately punish him for his mistakes (by firing him, denying him pension, etc.), then the state ought to have prosecuted him only on lesser charges.
• The state ought to have prosecuted him first on charges of destroying evidence. If the jury in that case found him guilty, or if he pled guilty, then the evidence of the two empty liquor bottles he allegedy threw away after the accident ought to have been presented to the jury. The eye witnesses, including the neighbor who testified she saw him "walk into the grass," ought to have been permitted to tell the jury exactly what she saw; the grandmother and neighbor who recovered the liquor bottles ought to have been permitted to testify; the investigators who located the liquor store and surveillance tapes ought to have testified; the evidence of the blood test ought to have been presented by the defense and the prosecution ought to have been permitted to cross-examine that evidence and to present rebuttal evidence questioning the validity of the test.
•     Sidebar: In most states, I believe, it is illegal for anyone to operate a moving vehicle with open liquor bottles inside.
• The state ought to have presented more-detailed information about sheriff department protocols and procedures concerning cellphone use in vehicles speeding to a crime scene; if the department's standards and procedures permit the type of use that the defendant engaged in, then the jury would have been instructed not to hold the personal cellphone calls against the defendant, but the citizenry would at least know that their sheriff has shoddy procedures.
•     Sidebar: It's difficult for me to believe that once an officer is authorized to speed to a crime scene without lights or sirens, he is also authorized to continue a personal phone conversation.
• The state ought to have presented more-detailed information about standards and procedures of behavior when an officer is involved in an accident involving bodily injury; any deviations from these standards should have been clearly explained to the jury.
• The state ought to have been given an opportunity to present the autopsy evidence, because the autopsy might have given the jury additional information about the speed at which the car was traveling.

The system is what disturbs me: In the Killings case it looks to me as if everything was done to protect the police officer involved in a fatal accident and very little was done to insure that in the future the citizens were being adequately protected. The system managed to schedule the two cases so that key evidence in the reckless homicide trial was not available, because it had yet to be proven to be true. The system managed to let the county medical examiner avoid testifying against a fellow county employee. The system even managed to over-charge the defendant, apparently to assuage community anger, and then not to present a good case for the charges.

And, ultimately, a jury from another jurisdiction was called up to hear a tragic case; they did not hear all the facts. The more I look at the jury system, the more I think things are way out of whack. Elected, political prosecutors only prosecute cases that make headlines; they over-charge those cases; they try to avoid grand-juries and instead throw the onerous responsibility onto petit juries; the rules of evidence have become increasingly complex and now make little sense; juries aren't prepared for the responsibilities thrust on them.

I'm especially concerned when criminal trials involve police officers. Police officers carry weapons and are authorized to use them against their fellow citizens; police officers are authorized to travel at high speeds on busy, residential streets; police officers are authorized to draw blood for tests and collect other types of evidence. In all these activities, we, the people, have no choice but to trust them. The problem is that police are only human; they not only make mistakes, they also sometimes do things to protect their own interests when they shouldn't.