WOW: How did I miss this Los Angeles Dog Trainer editorial on the Inglewood case? (I am using a link to a site called “blackvoices.com” because the Dog Trainer links die within a week.) I hadn’t picked up on this until I read the response by the District Attorney’s spokesperson Sandi Gibbons.

The editorial says Cooley should have paid more attention to the case before the trial. “Perhaps then the deputy attorneys Cooley assigned to the case would have tried to pick a jury that more closely resembled Inglewood’s population, which is about half African American, instead of settling for a jury with only one black member.”

That is an incredibly ignorant statement. As Sandi Gibbons points out, the prosecutors fought to retain black jurors. She doesn’t make it as clear as it could be, but the only black juror on the jury had actually been excused by the defense — but the prosecution fought to have him reseated, arguing that he was improperly excused. The judge accepted the prosecution argument and reseated that juror.

Also, the jury pool comes from a much wider geographical area than just Inglewood, and includes several more affluent and largely non-minority areas.

I have criticisms of the handling of the case. (For instance, the only thing surprising about the ten-minute acquittal of Darvish was that it took so long.) But on this issue, the Dog Trainer editorial writer couldn’t be more off-base. It is not only outrageous to imply that prosecutors didn’t try to keep black people on this jury — it is just plain stupid. Is Robert Scheer writing editorials for the Dog Trainer now??