On Murderers and Babysitters (Part Two)

Defendant also attached to his post-conviction petition a report by John Hagedorn, who is a sociologist and an expert on street gangs. In his report, he conceded that the gang-related evidence may not have changed the outcome of the guilt phase of the trial. However, he opined that the gang-related evidence "exercised considerable influence on the jury in the penalty phase of the trial. In other words, if the gang issue had not been such a major focus of the trial, I believe the jury would have been substantially less likely to ask for the death penalty.”

We disagree…

People v. Easley.  Supreme Court of Illinois.·148 Ill.2d 281 (Ill. 1992)

My involvement with Ike Easley’s appeals led me to immerse myself in studying the power of stereotypes.   One key lesson I’ve learned from my studies in social cognition is that a jury already has an image of a gang member in mind before a trial starts, what is called a prototype. This prototype is typically of a gang member as a “savage beast” and left unchecked, juries will be receptive to evidence that confirms their stereotype and reject any evidence that contradicts it.  My expert witness work is aimed at helping jurors question their stereotypes so they are more able to accept "discrepant information" or evidence that doesn't fit with pre-existing images. 

We think in metaphors which according to Winter “are neither true nor false, but have consequences, perceptions, inferences, and actions.”  This means if a gang member is like a savage beast then a jury will believe he is likely to have killed "like an animal" as alleged.  The savage beast metaphor includes the related notion that such wild animals need to be “put down.” Stereotypes can kill.

You probably guessed Ike's jury was all-white. But this was not by accident. The prosecutor excused every black potential juror with the argument that since they lived in black communities where black gangs also resided,  jurors were likely to be intimidated by the threat of gang retaliation. Despite criticism of this tack by the Seventh Circuit Ike did not face a jury of his peers.

But it gets worse, much worse. Because of the intense publicity in the area around Pontiac, Ike’s trial was moved to Will County and the city of Joliet. In the week before the trial, three El Rukn gang members had murdered a Joliet prison guard and newspaper accounts of this crime circulated among Ike’s jurors. Ike remembered the judge making comments about the El Rukn murder during the trial. If Ike's case evoked a frame of gang members as savage beasts who kill prison guards, the environment in Joliet at the time strongly reinforced that frame.

Pontiac Correctional Center

The prosecutor had been prohibited by the court to allege the killing was the result of a gang conspiracy. The court found there was no evidence of such a conspiracy and this was affirmed by the Illinois Supreme Court on appeal. Despite this admonition, the prosecutor claimed in his opening statement, during trial, and at closing that the killing was ordered by the Black Gangster Disciples. The image was the gang letting the beast Ike Easley out of his cage and telling him to “kill.” The Supreme Court ruled that while the allegation of a conspiracy was “improper” Ike “suffered no prejudice therefrom.” I disagreed.

Let me tell you about killing. Randall Collins says violence is hard. While there are “hit men” who are cold and mechanical about killing, most murder is done in passion and with adrenaline flowing. The court acknowledged after Ike was detained he yelled out ““all you honkey motherfuckers want is a nigger donkey to pin this case on, and I am your donkey, I am your killer.”  Ike denied to me that any gang meeting had ordered the killing.   In one of the most emotional exchanges of my life Ike talked about the “uncontrollable” urges that streamed over him once the violence had begun and he and Taylor fought for their lives. Afterwards Ike said he blacked out and  “I threw up like a motherfucker.”  These are emotions, triggered by an extreme event — the killing of Ike's best friend and revulsion toward his own violent act.  Therapists say people like Ike can be responsive to long term treatment.  To me Ike's emotional response to his violence was an indication of his humanity and an example of how killing violates deeply held norms.

The final “nail in the coffin” in enflaming the fears and prejudices of the jury was not mentioned in any of the court decisions. I pointed out in my statement that a “moral panic” atmosphere surrounded the trial. My field notes capture the pièce de résistance that inhibited reason from deciding this case.

Finally, in my mind, the most damaging event was the manner in which the jury was protected during trial. Defense attorneys have told me that sharpshooters were deployed to protect the jurors.   When the jurors asked why there were sharpshooters, they were told something like that "the gang may want to kill jurors." It is hard to underestimate the impact this must have made on the jury. 

It is not easy to use System 2 logical reasoning when you are in a state of fear. “Terror Management Theory” finds that people, e.g. jurors, when faced with threats to their own mortality are more likely to rely on stereotypes and not think analytically.  Duh. What do you think the jury was feeling while being told Ike’s gang might kill them? 

Consider the scene: An all-white jury, in a setting that recently witnessed a similar murder of a local guard by gang members, listening to a prosecutor who improperly alleged a gang conspiracy and then had the deliberating jurors surrounded by sharpshooters protecting them from being assassinated by the gang.  I don't care what the jury decided, it was not based on a reasoned judgement of Ike Easley’s potential for rehabilitation or any dispassionate consideration of justice. Fear, not facts, drove that jury to their fatal decision and sent me on my path of studying the power of stereotypes in court.

One final chapter remains: the clemency hearings and the commutation of Ike's death sentence.

Cohen, Stanley. 1972. Moral panics and folk devils. London: MacGibbon & Kee.

Collins, Randall. 2008. Violence : a micro-sociological theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Greenberg, Jeff, Sheldon Solomon, Mitchell Veeder, Tom Pyszczynski, Abram Rosenblatt, Shari Kirkland, Deborah Lyon. 1990. "Evidence for Terror Management Theory II: The Effects of Mortality Salience on Reactions to Those Who Threaten or Bolster the Cultural Worldview." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58(2):308-18.

Maruna, Shadd. 2001. Making Good:  How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild their Lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Winter, Steven A. 2001. A Clearing in the Forest:  Law, Life, and Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago.