Bottom Line: Juries Just Don’t Like Hippies

Maybe keep that in mind during the next voir dire:

A former member of what is believed to be New York City’s only commune was found not guilty on Monday in the shooting of a co-founder of the commune.

The former member, Rebekah Johnson, 45, was acquitted by a jury in State Supreme Court on Staten Island of second-degree attempted murder in the shooting of the co-founder, Jeffrey Gross, 53. He had identified Ms. Johnson as the person who aimed a handgun at him as he returned from a movie on May 29, 2006, and shot him repeatedly. He also said she stepped over him after he fell to the ground.

The jury took less than five hours to clear Ms. Johnson, who had also been charged with assault and attempted grand larceny.

. . .

The Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., issued a one-sentence statement that said, “While we respect the verdict of the jury, it is my belief that we presented a clear and compelling case which satisfied each element of the crimes for which Rebekah Johnson was indicted.”

Mr. Gross summarized his reaction in three words: “Stunned. Disbelief. Shock.”

“The evidence is overwhelming,” he said. “I was the eyewitness. She was 10 feet from me.”

He was shot on the stairway leading to his home, one of 10 buildings owned by the Ganas commune, a group that sanctions wife-swapping among its 100 members but moved to evict Ms. Johnson in 1996. He said she ambushed him.

“I said to the court, ‘I said to the jury, I immediately recognized it was Rebekah Johnson,'” he said in a telephone interview on Monday, after the verdict. “She had a gun pointed at me, I said, ‘Please don’t shoot,'” and he watched her pull the trigger. “I knew exactly who it was and I knew who it was as she climbed over me.”

Earlier: You Win Some, You Lose Some; Rebekah, Stop The Madness!; From Deranged Hippie Fugitive To Deranged Hippie Reject.