From: [i--s--t] at [delphi.com]
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns
Subject: Davidian Trial Report Mar 2
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 94 01:00:36 -0500

The following is the text of an article in the San Antonio Express-News
of March 2, 1994, reporting on Branch Davidian trial.
==========================================================================
Juror finds wrong on both sides
 
By Matt Flores
Express-News Staff Writer
 
  A juror in the Branch Davidian trial said Tuesday he was irritated by
early news reports that suggested the defendants were given a blanket
exoneration, saying the jury took great pains to punish the guilty.
	The juror, who asked to remain anonymous, said he also was disappointed
U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. voided seven convictions for
weapons possessions.
	"There were bad people on both sides," said the juror, a 42-year-old
insurance adjustor from San Antonio.
	Smith ordered that jurors remain anonymous during the trial.  But when
he released them Saturday, after the verdicts were read, he told them
they were free to talk to the news media.
	None wanted to face the horde of reporters waiting outside the courtroom
Saturday, but since have talked individually in private interviews with
reporters to explain the thinking behind their actions.
	The eight-woman, four-man jury acquitted the 11 defendants of the most
serious charges -- conspiring to and aiding and abetting the murder of
four federal agents during a raid of the Branch Davidian compound last
year by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
	Instead, in response to the agents' deaths, the jury convicted five of
the defendants of aiding and abetting voluntary manslaughter.
	That was done, the insurance adjuster said, because the jury did not
completely buy the Branch Davidians' self-defense theory, considering they
had 45 minutes to prepare for the ATF onslaught and because the jury had
been instructed to consider self-defense against "assailants."
	"They used the words `assailants' ... Assailants to me means somebody
bad," the juror said.
	"I looked at those pictures of the four dead agents," he said, referring
to a poster introduced into evidence by prosecutors that bore four color
photographs of the agents.  "I could not consider them assailants."
	"We were at a crossroads -- if we would've found (the defendants) guilty
of conspiracy, we would be telling the ATF, `You did nothing wrong ...'
But we thought the defendants overstepped their rights, too," the juror
said.
	The juror said that while he believed officers were within their
authority to order the raid, the agents "overstepped their bounds" in
allowing the gunfight to escalate.
	Like other jurors, he criticized the ATFs' handling of the raid and the
FBI's handling of the 51-day siege that followed, which ended April 19
when a fire raged through the Branch Davidian compound.
	"I think that the ATF agents were inexperienced; they were doing things
that they just weren't ready for," the juror said.
	"It was eye-opening to see how the ATF and the FBI operate ... I guess
I've lost some respect for both of those agencies, judging from the way
they handled this from start to finish."
	He added that, in general, testimony from ATF agents during the trial
contradicted statements they had made to Texas Rangers during an investi-
gation of the siege near Waco.
	In other developments Tuesday:
	* The eight defendants still in custody were transferred from Bexar
County Jail to Coryell County Jail, where they will stay until sentencing
or, in Ruth Riddle's case, until Smith makes his decision on whether to
restore the weapons conviction against her.
	* Acquitted Branch Davidian Norman Allison, 25, was bound for Manchester,
England, from Houston under a voluntary deportation order, according to
his attorney, Tim Evans of Houston.
	* The widow of slain ATF agent Todd McKeehan of New Orleans filed a
lawsuit Tuesday against the Waco Tribune-Herald and the reporter who
produced a special report on the sect before the failed raid, as well as
a television station, alleging negligence leading to the shootout.