disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory Volume 6 reVisioning Justice Article 5 4-15-1997 Interview: Alexander Cockburn. Judging the Jury Mary Gilmartin University of Kentucky Susan Mains University of Kentucky DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/DISCLOSURE.06.05 Follow this and additional works at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Gilmartin, Mary and Mains, Susan (1997) "Interview: Alexander Cockburn. Judging the Jury," disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory: Vol. 6 , Article 5. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13023/DISCLOSURE.06.05 Available at: https://uknowledge.uky.edu/disclosure/vol6/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory. Questions about the journal can be sent to [email protected] interview: Alexander Cockburn Judging the Jury by Mary Gilmartin and Susan Mains ·November 1995 lexander Cockburn visited the University of Kentucky campus as a speaker for the Fall 1995 public lecture se­ ries co-sponsored by the Environmental Studies Pro­ gram and the Committee on Social Theory. His pre­ sentation, titled, "The State of Environmental Movements in the US," raised many contentious issues which reappear during the interview below. Some of the concerns discussed during the public lecture fo­ cused on the impact of funding foundations and the Clinton adininistration, both on the "Big Ten" envi­ ronmental groups (e.g., the Sierra Club), and environ­ mentalism as a social movement more generally. This interrogation of business involvement in environmen­ tal activism is a venture with which Cockburn contin­ Alexander Cockburn writes for The Nation, ues to be involved, alerting listeners to misconceptions Los Angeles Times, left Capitol and (ounrerPun ch about environmentalism in the context of the US, and Punishment. oil on suggesting examples and strategies for encouraging canvas. Chris Huestis socio-political change. Perhaps best known for his column, "Beat the Devil," in The Nation, Cockburn also writes a syndi­ cated newspaper column (for the Los Angeles Times), a C 1997,disOosure. weekly column called "Nature and Politics" with Jef­ Committee on Social Theory. University of frey St. Clair, and co-edits the bi-weekly newsletter, Kentucky. Lexington, CounterPunch. He has also written several books: Cor- Kentucky. Cll ruptions ofEmpire (1988), The Fate ofthe Forest (1989, .~ with Susanna Hecht), The Golden Age is in Us (1995), ~ and his most recent work, written with Ken Silverstein, ~ Mary Gilmartin and Washington Babylon (1996). Known as an outspoken g' Susan Mains are members of the critic of many political concerns, he has achieved a ·c disOosure editorial strong following of activists, academics and "concerned collective in the .~ Department of c1nzens.,, .!! Geography, University of Kentucky. In this interview, Cockburn touches on a range of =:.. 63 ldisClosure M. Gilmartin and S. Mainsl64 6SIA. Cockburn interview topics related to the theme of justice. He explores the role of juries to have that much interest in simple civil liberties issues, what you and racially discriminatory sentencing, focusing on varying penalties might call basic social justice issues. There was too much emphasis on for drug charges. He discusses immigration and citizenship, particu­ theory and all the rest of that. As regards civil liberties and constitu­ larly in the context of Proposition 187. Social control veiled as public tional rights, England is an absolute nightmare. People have no rights interest provides a major focal point, as well as the implicit Malthu­ in England whatsoever, and I got pretty interested in that fairly early sian ideologies that inform welfare reform and the work of founda­ on. And if you come to this country you realize that constitutional tions in the "public interest movement." His observations, as always, protections really are constitutional protections and the Bill of Rights are provocanve ... really is a very important document and you've got a lot more in 12': ' .. '~ i,.4•9, ~. , . terms of substantive legal traditions to work with, quite apart from Europe, Juries _ a,~dt~e Right to Representation ·1:~~. ·· ~ .. battling away with pen and sword to advance the human cause. ~ • • • 1. To give you an example, a major issue at the moment concerns the dC: Since we are focusing on issues of justice we were interested in jury and the rights of juries and here's how an issue really crosses class exploring what influences in your background and when you were and political lines. There is a legal doctrine known as jury nullifica­ growing up led to you writing about what you do? How has that tion which goes back to the trial of William Penn in the seventeenth changed over time? century where Penn, a Quaker, was giving a sermon in England in AC: I was born in 1941 and I grew up in Ireland. My father had been which he was preaching a religious doctrine outside the law [see in the Communist Party for a long time. He left it in the 1940s. He Dunn and Maples 1986]. He was arrested and tried and the jury de­ didn't shove party doctrine down my throat, don't get me wrong, but cided that what he was doing was right and the judge put them in jail, you know he was obviously a political radical. I did have a lot of com­ in a pretty bad prison and they hung on. The leader of the jury was a pulsory education shoved down my throat and there was a strong so­ guy who'd actually had a plantation in the West Indies, and they con­ cial justice element in that. There was a lot of religion at school, with tinued holding out and were judicially vindicated. From this emerged emphasis, as in the Magrzificat, on raising up the humble and meek. the doctrine that the jury can set aside the law and the instructions of Needless to say, there's a tremendous amount of affirmation of the the judge, and decide according to the notions of their conscience, class system in the Bible as well. As in the hymn we sang, "The rich which is a matter between themselves and God. This is how the doc­ man in his castle/The poor man at his gate./God made them high and trine was originally phrased and survived, and is of course a very im­ lowly,/God gave them their estate." On both sides of my family the portant thing today. context was one of being pretty radical and supportive of social jus­ This is important for current concerns. For example, let's take an issue tice. My great great grandfather was a very famous Scottish judge like the disproportion between sentencing white people for powder called Henry Cockburn. Aliberal and author of a wonderful book, cocaine and black people for crack cocaine, where there's a hundred­ Memorials ofHisTtime (1856), a classic text of the Scottish enlighten­ to-one disparity. There's an increasing revolt by black or black-domi­ ment. On my mother's side, I was a member of a class-the Anglo­ nated juries against sentencing kids who've been picked up on the Irish class-which had waned in influence, but which had been a street, they've got five grams of crack in their pocket, and that means dominant and exploiting class, but my mother's grandparents had they've got to spend ten years in the slammer. The jurors are saying been pretty enlightened. Lady Blake was a big supporter of Parnell. this is bullshit-which it is. Now many people believe, a lot of liberals cu All the schools I went to had a pretty strong component of instruction believe, that it's very dangerous to have a jury that can defy legal in- ~ in social equity. struccions and the instructions of the judge, and they immediately :S dC: Do you think that your purpose for writing has changed over talk about racist juries in the south. Actually, what you find when you ; . ~ time .... look back in history is that something does happen when twelve .5 J\..,C~ Somewhat. There's a huge difference between being here and be- people go in that room. Of course there have been bigoted juries, no g ...0'ngin England. I was involved in left wing causes at Oxford, and then question about it- but juries in the nineteenth Century before the •;;; Civil War in the North were regularly refusing to convict people who ( % h?ndon around the New Left Review. But leftists there tended not ·-> l ..cu ~i/ disclosure M. Gilmartin and S. Mainsl66 67IA. Cockburn interview were being accused of sheltering escaped slaves. Susan B. Anthony, died in June. O'Neill went back to his district in Cambridge in Bos­ the original jury wouldn't find her guilty until the judge forced them ton and all the people there were saying we've got to do something to. In the example of discriminatory housing in Detroit in the 1920s, about this cocaine so he came back and immediately said to the rel­ this was a trial undertaken by Clarence Darrow. A black guy shot one evant committee chairman, "I want you to prepare an omnibus crime of a crowd outside his house threatening him and Darrow said to the bill in time for the fall elections"-the mid-term elections in 1986-­ jury, "you're a bunch of racists. You've got to face the fact that black and they duly went out and wrote up a bill. It was the first time that people are being discriminated against in housing," and the jury actu­ mandatory minimum sentences, including the present disproportion ally found in favor of the black guy even though two of them admit­ on crack and cocaine, was written into law, and the first time manda­ ted they were bigots.