For many years, certain groups of
persons were exempt from jury duty in New York.
This included attorneys, physicians, dentists, and even certain
businessmen. In total, there were 27
statutory exemptions and the judges were also permitted to grant exemptions to
other persons based on individual circumstances.
As of January 1, 1996, the rules were
changed, and the exemptions were eliminated.
The new rules did make some minor exceptions, and also gave those
summoned to put off jury duty once for a period of time, but required a
doctor’s certificate if an exemption was requested based upon a medical
condition. Before the doctor’s
certificate became a requirement, women could almost always be excused by just
telling the judge quietly that they couldn’t sit for a long period of time, and
the male judges never inquired the reason - they just excused the woman.
Shortly after the new rules were adopted, I received a summons for jury duty in the Rensselaer County Court. A jury was being selected for a criminal case. I fully expected to be excused by a peremptory challenge by the prosecutor because I had previously practiced criminal defense law in that court ranging from minor misdemeanor cases to homicide. I also expected the defense attorney to excuse me by a peremptory challenge because I had been an assistant district attorney prosecuting crimes in that court and had also been the Count Attorney for 13 years. To my surprise, neither attorney exercised their right to a peremptory challenge and I was sworn in, being the first practicing attorney in Rensselaer County to serve on a criminal jury. [Actually, another attorney was also seated. She worked for a state agency but had never herself acted as an attorney for a client because, she told me, she was president of the local gay and lesbian society and believed that as such the court or a juror might not be sympathetic to her client. The judge admonished her during the trial for sleeping during testimony.]
The two defendants, who appeared to be in their mid-60s, were charged with attempted burglary and kidnapping. The facts were actually quite amusing. The crimes took place at a strip shopping center in the town of East Greenbush. The testimony of a town police officer was that during the evening in question, he and a fellow police officer sat in their patrol car, generally hidden from view from the shopping center, but at a position from which they could observe a drug store at the corner of the strip mall. They were staking out the drug store because a store employee had complained that the previous evening a black man had entered the drug store and spent some time checking out the various aisles, but left without buying anything. The employee believed that this black man was casing the store in preparation for a robbery, and the policemen were watching to see if that happened. Although this robbery didn’t occur, the policemen did notice two men (the defendants) on the flat roof of the building. The defendants were attempting to cut through the roof of the building to get into the closed bank below. The policemen identified themselves and ordered the defendants to come down, where they planned to place them under arrest. However, when the defendants came down, they disarmed the two young policemen and hid them, and themselves, in a culvert behind the shopping center. Apparently, someone at the scene called the New York State Police, and in a short time, the State Police officers found and arrested the defendants and freed the police officers. The defendants’ attorney offered no witnesses or evidence and appeared to think that his best, if not only chance for getting an acquittal or hung jury was to stress the injustice of the drug store employee and the police to think that because a black man had been in the store but not purchased anything that it was cause to believe he was planning a robbery. His remarks were to the jury as a whole, but particularly to the foreman of the jury, a black man who was a social worker.
I found my experience as a juror to be
very interesting and educational. The
jury was a mix of men and women, some of whom were very interested in the
experience and some of whom were just upset as having to give up time from
their normal lives to fulfill their civic duty.
During the first morning of testimony, I noticed that some were fidgeting
and some were mumbling to each other. I
raised my hand, and when the judge inquired why I had done so, I told him that
the jury would like a restroom break, which was quickly granted, and thereafter
the judge ordered frequent restroom breaks.
As an attorney, the jurors frequently asked me to explain what was
happening when the attorneys were called to the bench and spoke in low voices
with the judge, or why sometimes we were ordered back to the jury room in midst
of testimony. As was the rule at the
time, we were not permitted to take any notes and were not even permitted to
have a copy of the written criminal indictment.
Jurors were required to just rely on their memories of the testimony and
the judge’s charge when we were sent to deliberate. For some reason, the court would not provide
coffee in the jury room until we were sent to deliberate. Some jurors were quite animated in their
discussion of the facts, and the foreman mentioned that he had been stopped for
“driving while black” by East Greenbush policemen in the past. While some jurors thought that a conviction
for the kidnapping charge was too harsh under the circumstances, as it was
unlike their notion of a traditional kidnapping, such as a kidnapping for
ransom, the decision to convict on both counts was unanimous. However, before sending word to the judge
that they were ready to report, the jurors sent a message to the judge asking
if they might also make a statement criticizing the East Greenbush police for
their incompetence, but the court refused that request, and the foreman
announced the verdict. After we were
formally excused, the judge came to the jury room and told us that the
defendants, brothers from another state, had recently been released from a federal
petitionary where they had been sentenced for bank robbery.
Update: In 2021 I did some more research and spoke with the attorney who represented one of the defendants. I learned that the two defendants were the most notorious and successful bank robbers in the United States, and had ties to President Nixon and Jimmy Hoffa. This is what I learned from speaking with him, doing research in old newspapers, and also reading a book written by __________, one of the defendants. I also spoke communicated with his two daughters.
October 9, 1996, was a terrible day for both the East Greenbush Police Department and the most notorious bank robbers in the United States.
It all started the previous evening. A clerk in the drug store at the westerly end of the Shop-n-Save Plaza (now the Greenbush Fair Plaza) on Columbia Turnpike complained to the East Greenbush police that a Black man had entered the store that evening, walked up and down the aisles, and left without purchasing anything. The clerk was uncomfortable and believed that the man was casing the store for a future robbery.
Based upon the complaint, East Greenbush police officers Glen Rauch and Daniel Keegan staked out the drug store the following evening, hiding behind the westerly brush line. As they watched the drug store, they observed a van with Ohio license plates drive into the plaza, near the drug store, next to a branch of the Albany Saving Bank. Three men exited the car carrying a canvas bag, although there is some confusion about whether they walked toward the bank or immediately hid in a wooded area next to the plaza.
Officers Rauch and Keegan went to the men and identified themselves. The three men immediately started to run away, and Officer Rauch followed in pursuit. He caught one of the men, James Dinsio, and while grappling with him, Dinsio's brother, Amil, a man in his 60s, came from behind and joined in. While the three fought, one of the Dinsio brothers disarmed Officer Rauch and put the officer's gun to his head, threatening to kill him. They pulled Rauch's coat over his head and dragged him to a culvert behind the plaza, and all three of them hid in the culvert while Officer Keegan summoned the New York State Police for assistance. When the help arrived, the Dinsio brothers surrendered and were arrested and indicted for seven crimes, including robbery and kidnapping.
The Dinsio brothers were tried together in June 1997 in the Rensselaer County Court. Each had separate counsel. The daughter of one of the brothers joined them at the defense table. She was an Ohio attorney, but she did not actively participate in the defense.
During deliberations, many of the twelve jurors were confused about the separate charges. They were frustrated that they were not permitted to have a copy of the indictment in the jury room. Much of the discussion centered around the East Greenbush police officers, who some called the Keystone Kops. The jury foreman, a Black man who was a social worker, complained about having been previously stopped for "driving while black" in East Greenbush. The jury even sent an inquiry to the judge asking whether, in addition to delivering its verdict, the jury could also voice its criticism of the East Greenbush police department, but the judge did not permit it.
The jury announced its verdict of guilty of both brothers on all counts, and the defendants were, at a later date, sentenced to prison for twenty-five years. Following the verdict, County Judge McGrath informed the jury that the brothers recently had been released from a North Carolina prison where they had served sentences for bank robbery.
The defendants appealed their convictions to the Appellate Division, which modified some of the charges. The defendants were then resentenced to twenty years in prison. Amil Dinsio appealed without success to the Court of Appeals and to federal courts, including an unsuccessful attempt to have his conviction reviewed by the United States Supreme Court. [Google: People v Dinsio to read appellate court reviews of the legal aspects of the case.]
Until recently, I didn't know that the Dinsio brothers were among the most notorious and successful bank robbers in the United States before their East Greenbush arrest. In his autobiography, Inside the Vault, Amil Dinsio admitted to more than one hundred bank burglaries, including the largest in U.S. history, the burglary of a bank vault in Laguna Niguel, California, in which the brothers and their team took more than eleven million dollars in cash, which they believed to be illegal bribery money belonging to President Nixon, together with large amounts of jewelry taken from safe deposit boxes. After paying to launder the money and expenses, the team members netted approximately three million dollars each. Most of the stolen money was recovered when the Dinsio brothers were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to twenty-year prison terms.
