i bet this jerk is in favor of getting rid of juries altogether. hell if our super smart government rulers accuse somebody of a crime we certainly dont need a jury to say they are guilty. Original Article Prosecutor calls Blake jury 'stupid' Richard Winton Los Angeles Times Mar. 24, 2005 12:00 AM LOS ANGELES - Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said jurors who acquitted actor Robert Blake of the murder of his wife are "incredibly stupid" and insisted his office put on a good case. In his first comments on the high-profile loss, Cooley told a group of reporters that the verdict shows prosecuting celebrities is extremely difficult in Los Angeles. "The Blake case taught us some lessons, that is for sure," Cooley said. "Quite frankly, based on my review of the evidence, he is as guilty as sin. He is a miserable human being." Chuck Safko, one of the jurors, answered with scorn of his own. "To hear him say we aren't a smart jury is sour grapes," he said. "They didn't have a good case. Their case was built around witnesses who weren't truthful." Blake, 71, was accused of murdering his wife on May 4, 2001, mainly based on the word of two Hollywood stuntmen who testified the actor tried to hire them to kill her. Only two jurors ever thought Blake might be guilty, according to interviews after the verdict, and through two weeks of deliberations, all 12 came to the unanimous verdict of not guilty. The comment shows Cooley is "small-minded," said Blake's attorney, Gerald Schwartzbach. It was worthy of a politician, not a lawyer, he added. Cooley's comments were unusual but not unethical, according to legal experts. "To criticize the jurors is unprofessional; it is unbelievable," said Laurie Levinson, a professor of criminal law at Loyola Law School who attended portions of the Blake trial. "I think you have to give the jury credit. They are a very conscientious jury. It was a reasonable-doubt case, and disagreeing with Mr. Cooley doesn't make them stupid." Cooley praised the prosecutor, District Attorney Shelly Samuels, who had won 48 of 49 murder trials before Blake. He said that his office had yet to conduct a formal postmortem on the case but that among the issues to be reviewed would be the effectiveness of jury consultants and whether assigning a second attorney would have helped. In celebrity cases, he said, prosecutors have to get into the minds of jurors and understand how they think about stars. Cooley said his office also was aware of the "CSI effect," a demand on the part of some juries for the kind of certainty shown on television programs such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, in which crimes are solved conclusively in less than an hour. "It does create false expectations," he told reporters. In what was a circumstantial-evidence case, Blake jurors in interviews said the evidence was insufficient to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, the high standard in criminal cases. One juror said prosecutors could not put the murder weapon in Blake's hands.