Duggan, Goetz, and the issues of race and juries.

There have been several black commentators express concern or surprise over the jury's verdict at the inquest into Mark Duggan's death. Their concerns seem to revolve around the apparent contradiction between the jury's finding that Duggan was not armed when the police faced him, yet still finding that the police officer had an honest belief that lethal force was necessary because Duggan was armed.
Diane Abbott Tweeted

 

Diane Abbott MPVerified account‏@HackneyAbbott

If the #duggan jury believe that he did not have a gun in his hand when he was shot, how can they find it was a lawful killing? #baffled

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Tottenham community activist Stafford Scott states it is a perverse verdict:

"I don't understand how there could have been an honest but mistaken belief about seeing the gun," Scott said. "And that is why the verdict is – in legal language – 'perverse'." 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/19/mark-duggan-lawful-killing-inquest-verdict?CMP=twt_gu

In my opinion, neither view can be sustained with a correct understanding of the legal process. We may not know the jury's thought processes, but that is not the same as being a perverse verdict. A perverse verdict is exemplified by the acquittal of Clive Ponting for leaking secrets about the sinking of the General Belgrano:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/16/newsid_2545000/2545907.stm

There has been a thorough examination of the issues in the USA in an even more striking case, People v Goetz. In this case, a New Yorker shot four black youths after they asked him for $5. He shot one of them a second time, saying "You don't look too bad, here's another." He argued this was self-defense as he thought they were going to rob him.

This was in an era of high crime on the New York subway, and many New Yorkers would have sympathized with the fear of crime and even applauded his actions. He was found not guilty of attempted murder and assault, but guilty of illegal gun possession.

Jody Armour addresses the issues of the Goetz trial in her paper 'Race Ipsa Loquitur', (46 Stan. L. Rev. 781 1993-1994) which should be read by anyone seeking to understand the wider issues potentially raised by the Duggan case. To quote the abstract:

In this article, Professor Armour explores some of the legal implications of the disturbing notion that, given the perception that blacks are more prone to commit violent acts than non-blacks, it is rational for criminal defendants claiming self-defense to consider race in assessing the risk of violence posed by a supposed assailant. Professor Armour identifies three distinct types of self- defense claims that a defendant may advance, each of which requires the introduction of race-based evidence and arguments to establish the reasonableness of the defendant's actions. While recognizing that a supposed assailant's race may be formally relevant under self-defense doctrine, Professor Armour argues against legal recognition of race-based self-defense claims. Professor Armour's thesis implicates a wide array of jurisprudential concerns: the nature of the moral norm implicit in the reasonable person test; the acceptability of using statistical generalizations in adjudication; and the conflict between instrumental and non-instrumental thinking about legal liability. Professor Armour ultimately concludes that admitting race-based evidence in self-defense cases gives effect to private prejudice in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

The subjective test for an honest belief in self defence has to be modified by policy- and equality-based concerns to prevent explicit or implicit racial bias denying BME people an equal chance of justice.