Local Author Reflects On Jury Role In Decades-Old Murder Trial
In May of 1976, 24-year-old Carol Menaker served with eleven others on a jury in the trial of Freddy Burton, a young Black prison inmate charged with the grisly murders of two white wardens inside Philadelphia’s Holmesburg Prison. After being sequestered for 21 days, the jury voted in three hours to convict Mr. Burton. Menaker returned to her home and her life. Freddy Burton remains in prison today, serving a life term without parole.
For more than forty years, Menaker tried to put this experience behind her. But the arrival of a jury summons at her Nevada City home in 2017 set her on a path to unravel the question: What ever happened to Freddy Burton—and is it possible that my youth and white privilege were what led me to convict him of murder?
Now she has written her account of journeying back in time to uncover the biases that may have led her to judge someone in whose shoes she never could have walked.
Joyce Miller interviews Menaker about “The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done: One Juror’s Reckoning With Racial Injustice,” which will be published April 11.
For more than forty years, Menaker tried to put this experience behind her. But the arrival of a jury summons at her Nevada City home in 2017 set her on a path to unravel the question: What ever happened to Freddy Burton—and is it possible that my youth and white privilege were what led me to convict him of murder?
Now she has written her account of journeying back in time to uncover the biases that may have led her to judge someone in whose shoes she never could have walked.
Joyce Miller interviews Menaker about “The Worst Thing We’ve Ever Done: One Juror’s Reckoning With Racial Injustice,” which will be published April 11.