To Anna Kratky, a young assistant St. Louis circuit attorney, it was a case of a man who violently lost control on a cold January night.

The police had received a 911 call that a man was beating a woman outside a South St. Louis two-family house. As two officers arrived, they found a woman sitting on the stoop, crying. She had a cut on her nose and was stripped to her waist, wearing only a bra, holding a torn shirt in her hand. She was with her teenage son. He had placed the 911 call.

She told the officers that her boyfriend had slapped and punched her in the face. She said he ripped the shirt from her back, grabbed their 18-month old son from her lap and retreated with the child into the apartment — locking her out.

He emerged from the apartment as the officers arrived. Holding the child in one arm, he ordered the officers off the property. They told him he was under arrest for domestic assault.

He smelled of alcohol. He was belligerent. He clutched the child as a shield and began to throw punches.The officers radioed for help. It took some force to subdue the man. He was taken to jail, charged with domestic assault, endangering the welfare of a child, resisting arrest and assaulting two law enforcement officers.

 

To Lynne Perkins, a plain-spoken defense lawyer, the story was different. The victim and defendant were now married. There had been no argument between them that evening. There had been no assault. The teenage son had placed a false 911 call.

The officers never spoke to the wife when they arrived on the scene. They immediately began exchanging words with the defendant. Then they beat him and carted him off to jail.

There was one more crucial fact in the defense case: The defendant is blind and could hardly have acted as the police claimed he did.

That’s how the evidence came in. The police told one story. The defendant’s wife and her teenage son told another. The defendant appeared in court wearing sunglasses and using a white cane.Both sides couldn’t be right.Then came a neighbor lady. She knew the defendant and his wife — not as social friends, but as neighbors.

She was surprised to hear the defendant was blind. She had seen him drive a car many times.

She heard a woman cry for help that night, soon before the police arrived. The following morning, the defendant’s wife had asked her if she could see bruises on her face.It was up to the jury to decide whose story it believed. I was a member of that jury, serving as its foreman.

The case was tried earlier this month. The importance of our work had been impressed on us continuously from the moment we reported for service — mainly by the consistent example of respect and good order set by the judge, the lawyers and court personnel.

It wasn’t a high-profile case, or even a big case, except for the defendant and his family, but it was part of something very important: The American system of justice works only when citizens do their duty.We sorted through the evidence. We focused on the judge’s instructions. Everyone spoke in turn and listened carefully as views were shared around the table. We were there as citizens but related to one another as neighbors from all parts of the city.

We recognized the solemn nature of our task. We could hear the defendant’s son, now 2 years old, playing down the corridor from the jury room. We had taken an oath to decide the case based on the evidence and according to the law. We found the defendant guilty on all five counts.

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("Blind Justice" first appeared as an "editorial notebook" by Eddie Roth in the September 29, 2009 edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)