{"id":3685,"date":"2008-08-05T09:33:36","date_gmt":"2008-08-05T14:33:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/?p=3685"},"modified":"2008-08-05T09:33:36","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T14:33:36","slug":"bottom_line_juries_just_dont_like_hippies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/08\/bottom_line_juries_just_dont_like_hippies.html","title":{"rendered":"Bottom Line: Juries Just Don’t Like Hippies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe keep that in mind during the next voir dire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

. . .<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

Mr. Gross summarized his reaction in three words: “Stunned. Disbelief. Shock.”<\/p>\n

“The evidence is overwhelming,” he said. “I was the eyewitness. She was 10 feet from me.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Earlier: You Win Some, You Lose Some<\/a>; Rebekah, Stop The Madness!<\/a>; From Deranged Hippie Fugitive To Deranged Hippie Reject<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,45,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-staten_island","category-well_what_did_you_expect","category-youre_kidding_right"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3686,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3685\/revisions\/3686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}