Justice delayed

It looked for a while as if the jury in the case of Bobby Cutts, a former Canton, Ohio, police officer facing trial for the murder of his pregnant mistress, was going to rank with the O.J. jury for blatant stupidity. It took the jury four days to find Cutts guilty in the murder of Jessie Davis and related charges, even though it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that Cutts was, to use a phrase I first heard from an old country prosecutor in South Carolina, "guilty as homemade sin." The prosecution could scarcely have had a better case if the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir had watched Cutts kill the woman. The basic facts are this: Cutts killed the woman, disposed of her body and tried desperately to cover up the murder. Also, this solid citizen, after murdering the woman, left their 2-year-old son alone in the house where the killing took place. Cutts' tearful testimony in his defense, which was basically his entire defense, was comical. Police investigating the murder found a pool of bleach in the home where Davis was killed. Gee, you might think Cutts was using that bleach to destroy evidence of the murder. Not so, he told the jury. Cutts explained that after he "accidentally" struck Davis in the throat with an elbow, he tried to "revive" her with bleach, and apparently a gracious plenty of it. Do you really think that's something Cutts learned at the police academy or by observing emergency medical personnel at accident scenes? If in doubt, Bobby, hit 'em with some Clorox. I'm probably just woefully ignorant of the healing powers of bleach. Probably all around the country, every day, there are scenes like this: "Honey, Grandma just fainted. Quick, fetch me the bleach. And her skin's mighty dry. Grab the Downy, too." Gimme a break. That bullcrap story alone should have been sufficient for the jury to determine that this guy was lying out his ... uh, backside ... and that nothing he said was believable. They should have returned with a guilty verdict in about the length of time it would take to pick a jury foreman. The only real question they had to answer was whether the killing was premeditated. I guess, in the end, justice was served. It just took a helluva long time.