JURY'S VERDICT FOR DRUG AGENT DOESN'T SQUARE WITH REALITY

An old saw says trials don't so much reflect reality as create their
own. Never was that maxim clearer than when a jury filed back at 10:40
a.m. Tuesday to announce they had found state drug agent Michael
Walker not guilty in the shooting of Rudy Cardenas.

It was the wrong call, a mistake, a verdict that ignored common sense.
With plenty of cover, Walker shot the wrong man in the back. His
unarmed victim was running away. As prosecutor Lane Liroff said, "If
you shoot someone in the back, it's the same as the Old West. It's not
self-defense."

What Walker did to Cardenas on a February day in 2004 wasn't just the
product of a split-second decision gone horribly wrong. It was the
crowning folly of a Keystone Kops chase by state drug agents who knew
better.

Sure, defense attorney Craig Brown put on a vigorous and well-funded
defense. Walker came across as a likable guy. The defense created a
computer animation of the shooting that suggested Cardenas could have
turned on Walker.

Toward the close of the two-month trial, a cadre of well-built
officers sat on the right-hand side of the courtroom, silently
supporting a comrade. Brown urged the jurors to put the badge on
themselves mentally before judging Walker.

But in the end, for all Brown's eloquence, the verdict should have
been guided by common sense. When you shoot someone in the back, it's
not self-defense.

The truth is that you might have made a case for second-degree murder.
The adrenaline in that chase -- and the refusal to make sure they had
the right man -- constituted a kind of malice, a reckless disregard
for procedure.

The trial nonetheless offered plenty of evidence that pierced Walker's
story of self-defense. First, there was a videotape, which showed that
the fatal shots occurred 8.6 seconds after Walker pulled up on Fourth
Street outside the Shires Memorial Center apartments and began chasing
Cardenas down an alley.

Walker's version was that he pursued Cardenas down the alley quickly
but not full-out, and that the pursued man tried a couple of times to
get over the chain-link fence before running 30 feet forward. Then,
Cardenas turned toward him for a threatening three seconds. All that
couldn't have happened in 8.6 seconds.

Next was the way Walker's story got inflated over time: He told San
Jose police that he "thought" Cardenas had a gun. At the trial, he
was certain he had a gun -- even though none was found.

And finally were the stories of the witnesses. One, Sherrie Green,
said she saw Cardenas running away "like Flo-Jo," the storied
Olympic runner Florence Joyner. That doesn't square with a man turning
to threaten Walker.

Why couldn't the jury find Walker guilty? I know the jurors were
conscientious and worked hard. But trials create their own reality. In
the sixth-floor courtroom of Judge Rene Navarro, the six men and six
women of the jury could see Mike Walker, a friendly guy, a guy with
buddies, a man not so unlike themselves.

For all the discrepancies in his story, they gave Walker the benefit
of the doubt. If he thought he saw an armed Cardenas turning toward
him, well, that constituted reasonable doubt, didn't it?

Outside the courthouse, the protesters chanted "No justice served!
No justice served!" as defense attorney Brown talked about the
verdict with reporters. For once, I had to agree with them.