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Jury duty: Me vs. the KGB chief
In the mid-1980s, I sat on a jury in a Beverly Hills court deciding the fate of actor Walter Gotell on a charge of drunk driving. The German-English actor is best known for his portrayal as a KGB chief in James Bond movies.
The actor admitted he had drunk liquor at a couple of bars, then visited a woman and, before leaving, had another drink, “one for the road,” he explained. He was pulled over for erratic driving, failed a breathalyzer test, could not walk in a straight line, and could not recite letters of the alphabet. At the end of deliberations, I was the only juror holding out for a guilty verdict.
As I recall, the jury was about evenly divided between Black and White members, who quickly chose a Black woman as the jury foreman. She wore a hat during deliberations.
In the mid-1980s, I sat on a jury in a Beverly Hills court deciding the fate of actor Walter Gotell on a charge of drunk driving. The German-English actor is best known for his portrayal as a KGB chief in James Bond movies.
The actor admitted he had drunk liquor at a couple of bars, then visited a woman and, before leaving, had another drink, “one for the road,” he explained. He was pulled over for erratic driving, failed a breathalyzer test, could not walk in a straight line, and could not recite letters of the alphabet. At the end of deliberations, I was the only juror holding out for a guilty verdict.
As I recall, the jury was about evenly divided between Black and White members, who quickly chose a Black woman as the jury foreman. She wore a hat during deliberations.
Walter Gotell
During the trial, the actor said he could not walk a straight line because he had suffered a stroke. He said his doctor said it was good for his health to have an occasional drink. He said that in the school he went to, they did not memorize the alphabet, so he could not recite the letters from memory. His attorney claimed the breathalyzer test could not be relied on because the device was overdue for an accuracy check.
In his testimony, Gotell said he had visited the woman to discuss becoming a godfather to her two sons, which to me seemed an account fabricated to win sympathy with single mothers on the jury.
During a break in the trial, a juror broke the rules by striking up a conversation with a prosecution witness. She was replaced with an alternate.
In his closing presentation to the jury, the prosecutor, a chunky Hispanic man, presented a picture concealed by twelve panels. He explained that removing each panel would be like revealing a new piece of evidence, which in the end, would show the whole picture of the evidence against Gotell. After he removed all the panels, the final picture showed an Alpine setting of a peasant woman holding a basket of cherries.
During deliberations, one juror said the actor was only arrested because police had to meet a quota.
After the defense attorney polled jurors to detect the outlier, the judge dismissed the charge against Gotell. The actor died in 1997.
During the trial, the actor said he could not walk a straight line because he had suffered a stroke. He said his doctor said it was good for his health to have an occasional drink. He said that in the school he went to, they did not memorize the alphabet, so he could not recite the letters from memory. His attorney claimed the breathalyzer test could not be relied on because the device was overdue for an accuracy check.
In his testimony, Gotell said he had visited the woman to discuss becoming a godfather to her two sons, which to me seemed an account fabricated to win sympathy with single mothers on the jury.
During a break in the trial, a juror broke the rules by striking up a conversation with a prosecution witness. She was replaced with an alternate.
In his closing presentation to the jury, the prosecutor, a chunky Hispanic man, presented a picture concealed by twelve panels. He explained that removing each panel would be like revealing a new piece of evidence, which in the end, would show the whole picture of the evidence against Gotell. After he removed all the panels, the final picture showed an Alpine setting of a peasant woman holding a basket of cherries.
During deliberations, one juror said the actor was only arrested because police had to meet a quota.
After the defense attorney polled jurors to detect the outlier, the judge dismissed the charge against Gotell. The actor died in 1997.
My mother, the whistleblower
In 1957, after her divorce, my mother Lillian began working for Gilfillan Brothers in Los Angeles as an electrical and mechanical assembler in their Radar Production Department. From there, she went a couple of years later to North American Aviation in Downey, California, where she worked as an electronic assembler on parts for military jets.
At North American she claimed that faulty components were being approved despite her objections. Looking back, these might have been shortcuts taken to increase profits but at the time my mother believed this was part of a communist plot to sabotage U.S. jets and she reported it to the FBI, which interviewed her. Apparently, nothing came of the investigation and she was fired and blacklisted from the industry.
Meanwhile, she had decided to take her complaints to a higher authority. She had heard that President Kennedy was visiting actor Peter Lawford at his Santa Monica beach home. With me in tow (I was 10 years old), we went to a Catholic Church in Santa Monica. As I waited in the car, she went inside where she apparently persuaded a priest to give her Lawford’s address. We drove to a house on the beach. Again, as I waited in the car, she went up to the door and rang the bell. No one answered. We drove back home.
In 1957, after her divorce, my mother Lillian began working for Gilfillan Brothers in Los Angeles as an electrical and mechanical assembler in their Radar Production Department. From there, she went a couple of years later to North American Aviation in Downey, California, where she worked as an electronic assembler on parts for military jets.
At North American she claimed that faulty components were being approved despite her objections. Looking back, these might have been shortcuts taken to increase profits but at the time my mother believed this was part of a communist plot to sabotage U.S. jets and she reported it to the FBI, which interviewed her. Apparently, nothing came of the investigation and she was fired and blacklisted from the industry.
Meanwhile, she had decided to take her complaints to a higher authority. She had heard that President Kennedy was visiting actor Peter Lawford at his Santa Monica beach home. With me in tow (I was 10 years old), we went to a Catholic Church in Santa Monica. As I waited in the car, she went inside where she apparently persuaded a priest to give her Lawford’s address. We drove to a house on the beach. Again, as I waited in the car, she went up to the door and rang the bell. No one answered. We drove back home.
Lillian Urbanek at Odetics
We took a six-month hiatus to visit relatives in Texas. My mother changed our last name and after obtaining electronic assembly training at a community college, my mother obtained a job at Lockheed in 1964. From there she went to Odetics in Anaheim, where she worked on robotics and recording devices for the space shuttle program, including work on the ill-fated Columbia shuttle. She obtained several commendations and awards at both Lockheed and Odetics. She retired in 1988 and died in 2005.
Prisons are good for the environment
Prisons benefit the environment by severely restricting inmate consumption of resources and fossil fuels. Prisons are the exact opposite of the car-centered suburban sprawl of single-family homes that environmentalists criticize.
Incarceration may provide other environmental benefits. On the outside, criminals. like most people, rely too much on plastic packaging when buying food. Prisons are more likely to buy food in non-plastic bulk containers such as sacks of rice or potatoes or very large metal cans.
More can be done, of course. We could adjust prisoners to a vegetarian or semi-vegetarian diet that would reduce pollution related to livestock. To save the planet, we need to put more people in prison, not less.
Prisons benefit the environment by severely restricting inmate consumption of resources and fossil fuels. Prisons are the exact opposite of the car-centered suburban sprawl of single-family homes that environmentalists criticize.
Incarceration may provide other environmental benefits. On the outside, criminals. like most people, rely too much on plastic packaging when buying food. Prisons are more likely to buy food in non-plastic bulk containers such as sacks of rice or potatoes or very large metal cans.
More can be done, of course. We could adjust prisoners to a vegetarian or semi-vegetarian diet that would reduce pollution related to livestock. To save the planet, we need to put more people in prison, not less.
Islam demonizes Black people
In Islam, Iblis is the leader of the devils, a leading angel who was thrown out of heaven after he objected to God’s creation of Adam. In a second account, Iblis was created from fires beneath the earth.
Per Wikipedia: Illustrations of Iblis in Islamic paintings often depict him black-faced, a feature which would later symbolize any satanic figure or heretic, and with a black body, to symbolize his corrupted nature.
Perhaps jihadists in Africa believe they can recruit Black people to do the devil’s work of terrorizing people.
In Islam, Iblis is the leader of the devils, a leading angel who was thrown out of heaven after he objected to God’s creation of Adam. In a second account, Iblis was created from fires beneath the earth.
Per Wikipedia: Illustrations of Iblis in Islamic paintings often depict him black-faced, a feature which would later symbolize any satanic figure or heretic, and with a black body, to symbolize his corrupted nature.
Perhaps jihadists in Africa believe they can recruit Black people to do the devil’s work of terrorizing people.
Ottoman depiction of Iblis
The remorse fallacy
A criminal’s display of remorse is often used by a judge in determining length of sentence or by a parole board in deciding if a felon will be released from prison. But are demonstrations of remorse a valid consideration for anything?
Does a display of remorse simply give an advantage to the sly, manipulative offender who can say what the judge wants to hear and a disadvantage to the stupid pigheaded criminal who can’t talk his way out of anything? Even a seemingly genuine display of remorse can be suspect. We know, for example, that many wife beaters will tell their spouse how sorry they are and promise never to repeat what they did, but they continue the abuse.
As for considering parole, the best and most objective standards would seem to be good behavior in prison, “aging out” of reckless youthful behavior, useful vocational training, and social contacts and job prospects outside the prison.
“I am not aware of any studies that show that insight and remorse are correlated to recidivism,” says Heidi Rummel, the director of the Post-Conviction Justice Project at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. (Source: “How to Get Out of Prison,” The New York Times Magazine, Jan. 5, 2020.)
Images Depósito del Archivo de la Fundación Sierra-Pambley, Archivo-FSP, CC BY-SA 4.0; Walter Gotell as General Anatol Gogol in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), fair use; Lillian Urbanek at Odetics, collection of Robert Urbanek; Iblis (Devil), Siyah Qalam, c. 15th-16th century, Topkapi Palace, public domain