My old blawging buddy, WindyPundit Mark Draughn, took a deep dive into the remarkable jury reaction to the prosecution of Sandra Mendez Ortega for stealing Lisa Copeland’s engagement and wedding rings.
The case began with Copeland’s discovery in September 2016 that her engagement and wedding rings were missing from the container where they were usually kept. The engagement ring had been her grandmother’s, made in 1943, and the two rings were appraised at $5,000 in 1996, Copeland said. Copeland didn’t realize a third, inexpensive ring had been taken until it was turned in.
Fairfax City police investigated and interviewed the three women who had cleaned the home. All three denied taking or seeing the rings, court records show, and no one was charged.
If we stop there, Copeland is, unquestionably, the victim. And like most victims, she felt violated, betrayed and harmed. Is she undeserving of justice?
But after the interviews, Mendez Ortega reportedly felt bad about the theft, admitted to her boss that she had the rings and turned them over to him. The police were contacted and Mendez Ortega confessed to them as well, saying she returned the rings after learning they were valuable. The police had her write an apology letter to Copeland, in Spanish, which said in part, “Sorry for grabbing the rings. I don’t know what happened. I want you to forgive me.”
To her credit, Mendez Ortega admitted her theft and felt remorse. She certainly deserves credit for admitting the error of her ways, but how far does that go?
The case went to trial, and the jury found her guilty. But in Virginia the jury is not only the finder of facts, but also has the job of deciding the sentence. I’ve heard Virginia criminal defense lawyers complain that this can lead to very harsh sentences, because jurors lack the sense of proportion that a seasoned criminal judge would have. In this case, however, the jury went the other way:
What the jury did was extraordinary. They felt bad for the young woman, pregnant with her second child, and agreed that she had made a dumb, youthful mistake. Reluctantly, they convicted her of the felony. But the fine they imposed was her daily pay as a maid, $60. And then they took up a collection and gave her the money to pay the fine.
From one perspective, this is a heartwarming story, a reaction of great empathy toward the defendant. From another, this left the victim denied.
A happy holiday story, right? Well what if you’re the woman whose rings were stolen? Although she was not pleased when the jury returned from their deliberations with only a $60 fine for the felony conviction, crime victim Lisa Copeland was appalled when she learned that the jury had also paid the fine.
“I just pray that they’re never in my shoes,” Copeland said. She said Mendez Ortega never accepted responsibility for the theft. “If she had accepted accountability, I would be okay with all of this. The fact that she won’t accept accountability makes it wrong.”
Copeland said Mendez Ortega told a lies from the start and then unfurled a tragic life story that convinced the jury to impose a punishment of a $60 fine. “I was outraged,” Copeland said. “I was just flabbergasted. I didn’t think $60 equated to the crime at all.” She did not know the jury had taken up a collection for Mendez Ortega until she was contacted by a reporter.
A point almost always missed in the recitation or discussion of criminal matters is that the magic word, “justice,” is a product of either the way a story is told or confirmation bias. Justice is whatever plunks your heartstrings, and whoever ends up on the wrong end of the outcome is either wrong or isn’t worthy. What did Lisa Copeland do so wrong to end up with Mendez Ortega being the person most deserving of sympathy here? Why doesn’t Lisa Copeland deserve to get justice?
The answer, unfortunately, is that there is no such thing. There is your empathy, your sympathy, your choice of whose story strikes the right chord for you, but there is no right answer here.
Fox News also leads with the illegal immigrant angle, and runs essentially the same story under the headline “Couple’s fury as jury pays illegal immigrant maid’s fine after jewelry theft conviction.”
That’s referring to the victim, who comes across as remarkably unsympathetic in news reports. I don’t mean that she has no sympathy for the woman who stole from her (although she doesn’t seem to), but that after reading her statements to the media I have very little sympathy for her. Obviously, stealing from her was wrong, and it was also a crime, but in the aftermath of the trial, she comes across as disturbingly vindictive.
Whether Copeland was, in fact, “disturbingly vindictive” or was presented that way is one question. Whether she has every right to be outraged is another. Copeland was the victim here. It can’t be wiped away with the glib, “obviously, stealing from her was wrong,” but if her attitude wasn’t presented as sufficiently empathetic, the victim morphs into the villain. The victim of theft does not owe her thief sad tears for an unfortunate life for which she bears no responsibility. Hell, she was paying Mendez Ortega to do a job, then had her steal from her. Should Copeland have washed her car, too?
Copeland never saw the letter of apology, as the cops never gave it to her and it didn’t come out at trial. This isn’t Mendez Ortega’s fault. It isn’t Copeland’s fault either. Perhaps it would have soothed Copeland’s anger some, but so what? The jury’s nominal sentence, plus taking up the collection and paying it for her, left Copeland without any sense that her anger, her violation, the wrong done her, was vindicated. Was it so wrong that the jury’s actions ultimately demonstrated greater empathy for Mendez Ortega than sympathy for Copeland?
Good God. The jury may have said they didn’t want to convict her, but they did in fact convict her. So the victim is basically angry because the jurors didn’t enjoy it enough.What the hell?
To be clear, I don’t necessarily disagree with the jury or Windy. The jury had a job to do, and they did it. But I am also cognizant of Copeland’s position, that she was the victim here and somehow ended up the bad person. Is that justice? You may have an answer. I don’t.
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In 1999, when Ohio had its first execution in 36 years, our then Attorney General who had pushed hard for it loked at the protesters and the enthusiasts and said what was true of the killing and, though she wasn’t speaking more broadly, of much of what happens in our court system. “There are,” she said, “no winners here tonight.”
A simple, yet profound, truth.
So Copeland got her rings back, which (you’d think) would be her main concern, and Mendez Ortega has a felony conviction on her record, which will be a handicap even if she’s not going to be Big Boo’s bunkie. Seems like a pretty good balance of justice.
So you’ve decided what should be sufficient “justice” for Copeland because you’re special? It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
If justice is any damn thing a victim says it is, why should anyone else give a damn about it?
I don’t have words small enough for you.
There is no such thing as “justice,” but rather justice is a perception that each of us has of things that happen to or around us. The victim has one perception. The defendant another. You another. Other readers, another. Some may overlap. Some may be different. But they all have their own flavor of justice. Each of them is right, because justice is whatever they perceive it to be. There is no one “justice.” Are you following this at all?
If Copeland is dissatisfied she can always seek civil damages for conversion.
Other than she got her rings back, the cost of a suit would be prohibitive, the likelihood of collecting a damage award non-existent and the burden of another going through a suit, this isn’t a completely utterly fucking idiotic idea.
Got her rings back without having to hire an attorney or file an action, and so, the criminal law did not fail her utterly. She still had the angst of the theft by someone she had trusted, and of the days of not knowing if she would see the rings again, but trying to match that to any given punishment comes out of a hat anyway.
You mean damages, not punishment.
Damages for her, punishment for the criminal defendant, no rhyme nor reason either way. This story kind of comes down to, “Upon a day, a jury pulled x instead of y out of its hat.” But that’s what juries do.
I’m not surprised others fail to understand what this post was about. It was hard. People find it very difficult to let go of the concrete and consider the underlying concept of how “justice” is merely one’s perception. What the jury did was entirely irrelevant to the concept. Others, I get. But you?
In our system, what the jury does is “justice.” Then, people may subjectively disagree with that, but for purposes of the law and of how things are, it is the subjective disagreement that is irrelevant, not what the jury did.
Dear Papa,
The victim could always try tort law if she thinks the state’s punishment wasn’t just. She can have the fun of proving what her damages are under the circumstances. She’d be better off suing the employer, of course, and make them feel the sting because someone just has to pay, right? She still needs some damages. Maybe get her money for cleaning services returned or something? It’s still not justice, but that’s impossible.
In the long run maybe putting the thief in a cage for a bit might have been easier.
Best,
PK
Having just explained why that’s a mind-numbingly idiotic idea that only a blithering idiot would suggest, I’m reluctant to respond to your suggestion. Besides, you would just rat me out to your mother for harming your unwarranted self-esteem.
You just aren’t creative enough. Attorney fee-shifting statutes exist, Dad. Besides, who are you to put a price on justice for the victim? She can pay an attorney to tell her no if she wants to.
The criminal case ran its course, and it would be dumb to sue for damages that don’t really exist or are minimal at best. What else does she deserve if she can’t or won’t prove she was harmed?
You want your mother to have an aneurysm, don’t you?
Thank god for Gamso, or I would think there was stupid in the water today. I will never understand how you suffer these fools.
As an old judge once said, “fucking focus.” Where is he when I need him?
Edit: I may have to shut down comments today. I don’t recall them ever being this stupid.
My conversion suit suggestion was intended as a joke for the reasons you elegantly and didactically point out. Maybe I should have used a sarcasm tag.
But as a criminal defense attorney, have you not encountered your share of victims who are barely more sympathetic than the perpetrator, if that? Not that anyone deserves to be a crime victim in a general sense, but of all victimized people in the world, Coleman does not seem to be a likely object for tortured ruminations on the intangible, subjective, and fleeting nature of justice.
Whom I find sympathetic, or you, or anyone else, isn’t the measure of who others find sympathetic. The point is everybody wants “justice,” and it can legitimately be different accordingly to where you sit in the courtroom.
Yup. Should have shut ’em down. No question about it.
I really should have. This post was far too hard for most of these commenters, and I deeply regret Darwin’s being so horribly wrong.
Magic 8-ball says:
When a jury gets into your shoes,
There’s a pretty good chance you will lose,
Your shorts and your socks,
And your shirt. Don’t outfox
Yourself. Think when you choose!
Yeah, I was probably too hard on the victim. I’ve had stuff stolen, so I have a good deal of sympathy for her right after the theft. By the time this story catches up with her, however, she’s gotten everything back and the thief has been convicted. So…as Gamso quotes, “no winners here”…but she comes across as so angry that the other party didn’t lose enough. I find that unsettling. (I would make a terrible prosecutor.) I don’t know, maybe the reporter just selected some unbalanced quotes. And maybe I’d feel different if any of the people who stole from me had ever been caught and the jury seemed to have more sympathy for them than for me.
I would make a terrible prosecutor too, but I can still appreciate the victim’s point of view.
From the information provided, it sounds like the defendant was lucky to get a good attorney, who did an excellent job of presenting the case, and a disadvantaged person got a result that’s normally limited to people who have enough money to pay for the best justice available. I can feel sympathy for the victim, but it isn’t all about them, and they aren’t entitled to define what counts as a good result.
You have completely missed the point. Not by a little bit. Not by millions and millions of miles. By distances never before measured.
I blame myself for having failed you.
Justice is a feeling and one we share with primates. Those of us who subscribed to the western legal tradition ostensibly traded in feelings-based legal processes for rationality-based processes. There are some good historic reasons for doing this, such as disproportionate punishments for minor crimes when a mob wants blood. A lot of people aren’t satisfied until they get their pound of flesh but I don’t think criminal law is about the victim. It’s about society ensuring people are kept safe, public order is restored and people are deterred from committing crime. Yes, there is a role for denunciation, but it’s societal denunciation, not personal revenge. In my opinion, this is one of the few areas of life where collective interests are equal to or even greater than individual rights. In fact I can’t think of a single western democracy that bestows the right to get ones own back to ones personal satisfaction on its citizens. I, for one am glad about this.
I do find it interesting that, in a society that routinely minimizes the emotional impact in most of life’s arenas, we remain fixated on getting even in criminal matters, despite our shared history of horrific abuses of power and outrageous human rights abuses perpetrated in the name of justice
There is probably a post around here, probably one addressing the relative merit of victim retribution as a goal of the system (there have been quite a few about victim’s rights), where this would be a relevant comment. This is not it.
Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments. Turn off the comments.
And turn off the comments, please.
You’re trying to tell me something, right?
Not looking at trainwrecks is hard.
Especially when they’re near your back yard.
Morbid fascination saps willpower
You can try harder to stop now, or
Just ask for comments to be barred.
You write poorly. That’s why obviously intelligent people so often miss your point.
You lack common sense. Your utterly relativistic notion of justice would, if widespread, undermine any community.
You display a sickeningly untrammeled pridefulness. A reader shudders to anticipate just one more assertion of your self image as cock of the walk
What, then, draws most of your readers? Aside from the masochists who absorb your billingsgate with grateful silence, readers learn from you the graduate-level techniques of administering personal abuse. At this, you are a master.
Yet, here you are, Mary. Kind of you to waste so much of your precious time to come here, suffer through my poor writing and inform me of my many failings.
Is this good ol’ Mary, Angel of Justice, who feels some psychotic need to spread the word even though no one seems to appreciate her brilliance? Have you considered, Mary, that the reason you lack acolytes is because you’re not the “intelligent people,” but rather the poster-nutjob for Dunning-Kruger?
What never ceases to fascinate is the person obsessed with herself who can’t grasp why no one appreciates her genius, but is so obsessed that she must lash out to let people know. I hope they take good care of you at the home, Mary, but someone really should monitor your internet use more closely so you don’t hurt yourself.
I had forgotten about dear Mary, and her previous appearance here to bestow her brilliance on us. Nutjobs gonna nutjob. She’s hardly the first and won’t be the last. SS’s comment still brought a smile to my mean old face.
You just reminded me of something I forgot to mention. Namely, that, when challenged, you invariably respond with blanket, generic assertions, crass name-calling and oafish personal abuse.
Not “invariably,” Mary. It warms my heart that you keep coming back to tell me of all the things I do that hurt your feelings. When you don’t comment, I don’t think of you at all.
Of course mercy is unjust. That’s the point of it. “Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?”
You are right that there is no such thing as “justice” in the commonplace sense, because it is a contradictory (and usually unexamined) mush of just retribution and mercy, and as Aristotle taught us, contradictions can’t exist. We can’t live without either, but neither can we have both.
We are not to be criticised for compromising: Our values are in conflict so what else can we do? Nor for coming to different compromises: What else should we expect? Nor for thinking other compromises are wrong: They are, any balance will be both unjust in some measure and unmerciful in some measure.
No: Our fault is our failure to understand that we are compromising at all. Our fault is thinking we are right.
We want both justice and mercy. Few of us get a full measure of justice, and thank God for that. Nor do any of us deserve mercy, but we get it just the same, and thank God for that too.
It seems as if you’re saying something, but having read this thrice, I have no clue what it is.
Adam Smith anticipated your quandary in his book ‘The Theory of Moral Sentiments’. The animosities between offender and offended are categorized by Smith as ‘unsocial passions’, and he describes how the expression of those animosities can sway the impartial spectator. Smith proposes that only the offended party who responds with reluctance to persistent, significant provocations can count on the sympathy of the impartial spectator. The impartial spectator plays an important role in Smith’s notions of justice.
I have no quandary, and Smith’s notions of justice have nothing to do with this.