Cops Aren't The Enemy, Lisa Falkenberg

Regarding "Judge hid behind new rules in Waco biker grand jury selection" (Sunday City & State), that's an interesting choice of words that columnist Lisa Falkenberg uses to describe the motives of judge Ralph Strother for not only appointing a Waco police officer as a grand juror to investigate the Banditos shootings, but for making him the foreman. 

For Falkenberg, appointing a Waco police officer to - in part - investigate the Waco police department is beyond the pale.  After all, critics of the previous selection system known as Pick-A-Pal - where judges selected from a limited pool of upright citizens - had built their entire case on the notion that corruption was inevitable unless jury selection was random, and critics such as Falkenberg were particularly incensed that cops should ever be able to investigate cops, as attested to by the many articles that she has written on the subject. 

But the inevitable result of singling out police departments to be isolated in this manner is that grand juries are more likely to be composed of people that are not just ignorant of policeman and police departments, but actively hostile towards them.  You also end up eliminating Subject Matter Experts, since their very expertise and associations must necessarily disqualify them.  

Falkenberg has little faith in civil servants, but she ought to have perhaps a little less faith in her own profession as well.  Clearly she believes that massive wrongdoing has taken place under Pick-A-Pal, but might not a reasonable person ask how could this happen when for decades, the Pick-A-Pal selection process provided reporters the same tiny pool of subjects in each jurisdiction to investigate again and again for any evidence of corruption or favoritism?  Seems to me, the closest critics could ever come was to note an appearance of impropriety based on a juror's associations.

My recommendation is that - rather than comment from the sidelines - she strap on those gumshoes and investigate detective James Head, the jury foreman.  And while she's at it, she might report on how much "random" jurors picked specifically for their ignorance, innocence and gullibility are influenced - not only by sharp tongued attorneys - but a media openly hostile to policemen.

Pete Smith
Houston, TX