Disgusting Durst

Life is may often be stranger than fiction, but in this case, it's also much more sad and disgusting:

Robert A. Durst, the New York multimillionaire who admitted that he had butchered his 71-year-old neighbor's body with a bow saw and dumped the parts into Galveston Bay, was acquitted of the man's murder on Tuesday. Mr. Durst told the jury that despite what happened afterward, the killing itself had been accidental and an act of self-defense.

What the hell? You can admit to killing someone, sawing up the body, dumping the body parts in the bay, and be acquitted? And all this was after Durst's first wife mysteriously disappeared, his "confidant" was murdered without explanation, and he'd been running from the cops and displaying all kinds of off-his-rocker behavior. Yet a jury said, "Oh, yeah, all that's a little odd, but it's ok. We don't think you should be punished for any of that."

Apparently, the experts are scratching their heads, trying to understand this obscene verdict:

Legal experts in Texas said yesterday that local mores might play some part in understanding the not guilty verdict, but could not explain most of it. Several factors were possibly at work, they said the most obvious being the stunning strategies of the defense team, Mike Ramsey, Dick DeGuerin and Chip Lewis, who overcame what looked like impossible hurdles standing between Mr. Durst and acquittal.

But they're never going to figure it out because they're not even seeing the most gross and obvious factor here: Class. Durst is a rich white man, and rich white men can simply get away with murder in our society. Does anyone think that if Durst had been poor he would have been acquitted? Or if he'd been black or Hispanic or, god forbid, "Arab," would he have been acquitted? Somehow I think not. But our society gives rich white men a pass. In fact, we encourage them to get rich by lying, stealing and cheating, so when they're successful at that, and they actually outright murder someone and chop up the body, we say, "So?"

Call me crazy, but I think we should reverse our twisted assumptions. Think about it: One of the best ways to get rich in our society is to lie, cheat and steal, and very often the people who do this are white and male. See Enron, Worldcom, etc., not to mention the countless manufacturers who have moved production overseas to exploit cheap labor and the lack of environmental regulations and worker protections. Therefore, we should begin from the assumption that wealthy white men are more suspect, more morally culpable, more liable to do bad (and criminal) things, than are poor or working class people, and/or people of color.

But nevermind. For a second I forgot: We live in a classless and colorblind society. The Durst verdict proves that, doesn't it?

Posted November 13, 2003 05:34 AM | law general