# P1 Exclusive: Good Cops, Bad Verdict: The case today...and lessons learned



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*10-8: Life on the Line
- Sponsored by Blauer
*
with Charles Remsberg

*P1 Exclusive: Good Cops, Bad Verdict: The case today...and lessons learned *

_*Ed Note:* Previous installments (check out parts one and two here and here) detailed the infamous case of black drug addict Malice Green, who died after a violent struggle with two white Detroit officers, Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn. Despite a "lynch-mob" atmosphere, the officers hoped medical testimony in their racially-charged trial would persuade jurors that Green was killed by "agitated cocaine delirium," not by flashlight strikes to his head. But as Nevers recounts in this exclusive series for PoliceOne and in his book,_ Good Cops, Bad Verdict: How Racial Politics Convicted Us of Murder_, the odds were against them._
_Part 3 of a 3-part series_

Surprisingly, considering the frenzy to convict that prevailed before and during the trial, the two juries charged with judging Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn deliberated for more than a week. Their verdicts were what Budzyn had expected, but they shocked Nevers: guilty of murder in the second degree. 
If you saw the TV footage or a newspaper photo of Larry Nevers burying his face in his hands and sobbing, it's an image you'll not soon forget. 
As "ringleader" of the alleged Maglite beating, he drew a sentence of 12 to 25 years. Budzyn got eight to 18. Before sentencing, the county prosecutor had written the judge a letter, reminding him of the NAACP's interest in the case. The police union called the outcome "a victory for the drug dealers, addicts, pimps and prostitutes in the city." 
After the verdict, one of the white jurors claimed on TV that he'd felt pressured into voting with the majority. But nothing came of that. 
Nevers was off to a place he never thought he'd be, sharing a 10-foot cell with his "partner in crime." For their safety, they were incarcerated in a federal medical facility in Texas, instead of a state prison in Michigan where they'd be with violent offenders they'd arrested.
Nevers washed towels in the laundry. Budzyn passed some of his time pushing a fellow inmate around in a wheelchair, a black man who'd once been chief of Detroit P.D. and was doing a term for the disappearance of a million dollars in department funds.

Full Article: http://www.policeone.com/patrol-iss...d-Verdict-The-case-today-and-lessons-learned/


----------

