This was recently in the Chronicle when Harris was acquitted, mostly because a prominent defense attorney was on the jury
A San Francisco homicide trial notable for the presence of a prominent defense attorney on the jury ended in deadlock Tuesday — but not before the panel cleared the defendant of first-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.
The jury split 7-5 in favor of guilt on a voluntary-manslaughter charge against Mikel (sic) Harris, 45, in the May 8, 2009, death of Andre Fluker, 41, outside Harris’ room in a Tenderloin residential hotel.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/crime/detail?entry_id=67841#ixzz0zW2DCbsI
the incident happened at The Dalt hotel, on the first block of Turk street, in the same building as the beloved and legendary McDonalds Books where a friend of mine lives and when it first appeared in the news last year, I sent him a link, and then he sent me back an email, which included info about a restraining order my friend had against Harris because it turns out he lived right below Harris and had been harrased by him. This was included in this post right here on Bluoz
when the acquittal verdict was reached and appeared in the Chronicle, I made reference to this last link in the comment section that there may have been more to the story the jury never heard about, and sure enough, there was. You ‘ll see in the comments that Bluoz was contacted by the assistant District Attorney, Asit Panwala, and I then hooked them up via email and my friend ended up testifying at the new trial which concluded yesterday with a guilty verdict on a new charge of ‘voluntary manslaughter. A short statement yesterday from Asit just after the verdict was reached
The jury came back today with a conviction on voluntary manslaughter.
They also found true the allegation that the defendant used a deadly
weapon, a knife. The defendants faces at most 12 years. The jurors
commented that the short amount of time that the victim went out of view
from the camera suggested that this was not self defense because not much
could have happened.
Yours,
Asit S. Panwala
Assistant District Attorney
San Francisco District Attorney’s Office
for some strange reason, the Chronicle isn’t reporting it this time. and if anyone had any doubt before, blogs can and DO help with crime
