Mehserle murder trial to be moved to L.A.

San Francisco Chronicle 11-19, 2009

OAKLAND -- The former BART police officer accused of murdering an unarmed
train rider early New Year's Day will be tried in downtown Los Angeles, a
judge ruled Thursday.

Judge Morris Jacobson's decision, after an hour and a half of arguments in
Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland, was a blow to attorneys for
Johannes Mehserle. They had sought a move to more conservative San Diego
County.

It elated family members of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old Hayward man whom
Mehserle shot during an arrest. They had disagreed with Jacobson's ruling
that Mehserle, 27, could not get a fair trial in Alameda County because of
widespread publicity and the specter of violent protests.

"I think I can get justice for Oscar in Los Angeles," said Cephus Johnson,
Grant's uncle.

Grant family attorney John Burris called the ruling "the most important
decision that will be made in this case other than the verdict." If the
case had been sent to San Diego County, Burris said, "Mehserle would have
walked."

Jacobson sent the case to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice
Center, where O. J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife
and her friend, and Phil Spector was convicted of the 2003 murder of an
actress.

The judge chose Los Angeles County despite a trial backlog there. Court
officials have said they cannot accommodate the case and its demands on
security for six months to a year, while San Diego County would have been
ready by January.

Defense attorney Michael Rains focused on the delay, saying Mehserle, who
resigned from BART shortly after the killing and is free on bail, needed
to put the case behind him.

"A fellow facing murder charges," Rains said, "doesn't just walk out and
find employment."

But Jacobson countered that the defense could at any time assert its right
to a trial within 60 days.

Citing the reaction to the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los
Angeles, Rains also argued that the trial could drag that city back in
time, and into "the boiling cauldron we wanted to get out of in Alameda
County."

Prosecutor David Stein suggested that the rioting that followed the
officers' acquittal in the King case might have been avoided had the case
been heard in a county similar to Los Angeles, instead of the relatively
white, conservative Ventura County.

Jacobson did not explain his ruling in detail but said it was based on a
number of factors, including the cost of the move and whether the counties
were similar to Alameda demographically. They both are, he said.

Jacobson said he would ask California Chief Justice Ronald George to
assign another judge to preside over the trial.

Mehserle shot Grant in the back at Oakland's Fruitvale Station while
arresting him after a fight on a train. Other passengers filmed the
shooting, and the footage has been seen by millions of people on the
Internet and on television.

Through his attorneys, Mehserle said he had intended to subdue Grant with
a Taser and accidentally fired his service pistol.

Race was again a key topic during Thursday's arguments. Mehserle is white
and Grant was black, leading some people to see the case as representative
of a pattern of police abuse of young men of color.

Stein called the case's racial component "undeniable." He said that for
the verdict to be considered legitimate, the jury should include African
Americans.

Legal experts said jurors in San Diego are more pro-police than their
counterparts in Los Angeles. Neither Stein nor Rains said they were
looking for a jury that was more likely to favor their side, but Burris
said that's exactly what was going on.

"Both sides were forum shopping," he said.

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