An undisclosed number of courtroom deputies (two? four?) assigned to a criminal trial in Kent County, Md., wore masks bearing a thin blue line, not a slogan prominently displayed. The Aug. 29 Metro article “Thin-blue-line masks on deputies in court mean a new trial for one man” did not report any mistaken evidentiary rulings, jury selection oversights or prosecutorial misconduct.
So, a jury properly seated without any notion of bias favorable or unfavorable to law enforcement (standard questions in the jury selection process) convicted a defendant of violently attacking his teenage daughter, and The Post gave its readers an article focused exclusively on the divisive politics of the symbol. There is another, less political and equally newsworthy story here: Why the appeals court apparently presumed that the jurors were incapable of deciding the case solely on the evidence, in contravention of the trial judge’s instructions and the oath they swore.
Joseph A. Capone, Oakton
