Jury Deadlocked in Duanna Johnson case!

“Deadlocked” my ass! This is some Bernard Goetz shit right here. I cannot believe that a jury can be so blatantly prejudicial. I mean seriously, what more evidence is needed to get a conviction. The officer can be clearly seen beating the victim (unprovoked).

This is why so many cases of trans-abuse and hate crimes go unreported. Because many victims feel the justice system will let them down just as it is doing Duanna.

MEMPHIS, TN – The jury in the Duanna Johnson jailhouse beat down case is hopelessly deadlocked.  On Friday, April 16, 2010, they once again failed to reach a verdict.

And Johnson’s family and friends say they know why the jury is reluctant to convict the former Memphis Police officer accused of the attack.

A jury of seven women and five men has been deliberating for three days, and still no verdict, even though the 2008 beating was caught on videotape.  That’s good news for Bridges McRae, the former Memphis cop on trial right now for violating the civil rights of Johnson, who was a transgender prostitute.

But it’s disappointing for Duanna Johnson’s loved ones who say this case should have been a no-brainer.

“This should have been decided the day before yesterday,” says Johnson family friend Larry Jackson.

He has his suspicions about why the majority white jury in the case is still undecided.

“There are those that still feel that old-status, Jim Crow quota,” says Jackson, “you know, that whatever is done to people of color is right.”

Joan Bailey, who often counseled Johnson, thinks there’s another reason for the difficulty in reaching a verdict.

Duanna, who was born Dwayne Johnson, chose to live as a transgender woman.  And a transgender victim, says Bailey, may not be a sympathetic victim to a jury.

“They should give them the respect that is due them,” Bailey tells myEyewitnessNews.com.  “They’re citizens of the United States and have protection under our constitution.”

A videotape that went global on the internet clearly shows McRae beating Johnson.  He testified that it was self-defense.  Five other witnesses called his attack “unprovoked”.

McRae refused to talk about the hung jury with reporters outside the federal courthouse, referring all questions to his attorney, Frank Trapp.

“You’d always like to have a not guilty verdict,” says Trapp, “because that’s what we think the evidence shows.”

With Duanna Johnson’s 2009 murder still unsolved, those who know her mother, Hazel Skinner, say she deserves some justice for her child.  This police brutality case, they contend, is being watched far outside Memphis city limits.

“The entire world is looking at this case,” says Larry Jackson, “and how it’s going to be played out.  We’re trying not to make it a racial thing.  We want to make it a thing about justice.  And we hope that justice will prevail.”

The judge dismissed the jury for the weekend.  They’ll start deliberating again on Monday.

If found guilty by a unanimous verdict, Bridges McRae faces up to 10 years in prison.  If the jury cannot reach a verdict, it will be up to federal prosecutors to decide if they want to put McRae on trial a second time.

He was fired from the Memphis Police Department in 2008, shortly after his altercation with Johnson inside the Shelby County Jail at 201 Poplar.

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