This is an awfully short article for being a long article. Why wasn't a manslaughter charge considered? Was one even asked for? What was the history of the killed man? How close were the two when Chambers fired? And what did Chambers do after the fact - did he run, call Police? And what about testimony from the bartender, or others in the bar, as to the interactions of the three that night - all of which surely would have been on the record.

Great job digging up this guy's case - but the article does him a disservice in its brevity.

I noticed outrage mentally to be concerned

Friv Boss

You signed up for jury duty when you got a drivers license.

Good article. The idea that massive prison sentences make for good justice is absurd, especially in cases like this one.

Bad luck that when he tried to escape the racists he happened to end up by their pickup truck.

On the bright side, there's one less racist Florida hick in town.

Maybe the problem is we're using drivers licenses to select the jury pool. Why not use tax records?

In fact, if we're not already, why not expand that to include all state IDs, all state licensing of all forms, all available state tax information (vehicle and boat registrations, tax return information, etc), and other available pools of information about residents?

You liberals want more gun control. In this case, a felon breaking gun control laws got punished. This is your desired outcome.

Also, he was drunk and about to drive. He should be in jail regardless.

I just sat on an all white jury with an African American defendant too--the large pool that day had, at most, 3-4 black people out of maybe 100-150. The pool of about 50 for that specific case had 1 black women and maybe 1 Asian man--that was it for people of color. Nearly everyone could have been broadly defined as middle class/professional-ish. I was pretty shocked that they could even proceed like that. One factor that differed is that the victim was a marginalized person of color also, so bias could be evenly distributed.

Unless you can magically change the "civic mindedness" of people in general, then the pool makeup will change very little. I was on a criminal case last summer (jury was gender and age balanced, but only one African American retiree), and the selection room seemed to be filled with people that looked like my parent's suburban friends. The same people that feel obligated to vote are the ones who show up, it appears.

Also, it seemed like everyone was angling to get out of being a juror. I don't think we should pay jurors more money, but we should force employers to pay full compensation for the service time (government employees get covered). It seems weird that hasn't been mandated, since the whole foundation of the judiciary rests on massive civil participation.

Drivers' licenses and tax records are both a flawed way of selecting jurors. Only citizens can be on a jury, but green card holders drive and pay tax. As a green card holder, I got fed up of returning several jury duty cards with the "sorry, not eligible" box checked. Waste of their time and mine. Since getting citizenship, I haven't had one of those cards.

Interestingly, without Washington State's stand your ground doctrine (referred to in Washington law as 'no duty to retreat') Chambers would not have had much of a self-defense case at all. He would have been required to show that he could not retreat or flee from his attackers, which, on an open street, would have been very difficult for the defense.

Yet I'd wager that most people who think Chambers should have been acquitted were also up in arms over Trayvon Martin and Florida's Stand Your Ground law.

One "easy" way to have more diverse juries would be to increase the jury compensation to match the average daily wage. It's currently $10 a day and has been at that level since the 50s. Anyone whose employer does not pay for jury duty will ask to be excluded from jury selection due to hardship and that effectively removes minorities since more often than not working class people are hourly employees.

Late last year I was in the jury for a criminal trial (also presided by Judge Doyle by the way) and we ended up with 12+1 upper-middle class professionals, which happened to be all white except for an Asian lady. The defendant was an African immigrant.

@11, I said nothing about race. I said to expand the pool of jurors beyond drivers licenses to ALL forms of state book keeping of adult citizens. If you're going primarily on driver's licenses it logically follows that you will have a false representation of the population of Seattle. A lot of people in Seattle neither would have nor need a driver's license.

This is a pretty one sided account of the trial. I'd encourage those who want more facts and less racial innuendo to check out the West Seattle Blog's daily coverage of the trial. I have very little sympathy for Mr. Chambers. He brought this on himself, and it's altogether fair he die on prison.

Hate to have to register to be a commenter, but since we were the only news org that actually gave enough of a damn to staff/cover this entire trial as it happened last year (a couple others dropped in briefly at the very start and very end), I'm here to mention that if you're interested in how it unfolded, our 20-plus courtroom reports are linked from our verdict report ... http://westseattleblog.com/2014/04/morga…

Now that I'm reluctantly registered, trying the link one more time. If it doesn't work, you can go to our site and put Lovett Chambers verdict in the search box at upper right. http://westseattleblog.com/2014/04/morga…

So the dude was a god damned multiple felon - a fucking bank robber - illegally in possession of a firearm on his person. And this is the martyr the Stranger chooses to make it's case for juror diversity? You couldn't find anybody better? Really?

Christ the rhetorical, logical. and ideological backflips The Stranger will go through to justify it's rampant hypocrisy when it comes to guns and race. I'm reminded of the Stranger story about the imprisoned rapper - who shot a dude with an illegal gun and the Stranger just wanks itself dry over his music but never even mentions how the fuck this felon got his gun to shoot a dude. And this just days after the Cafe Racer shootings.

If crime statistics are any indication the likelihood was extremely high Chambers was involved in further criminal activity at the time of the shooting. His wife gave him a gun, huh? Suuuuure she did.

Her husband a felon? Knowing a parol officer or traffic stop finding that gun would can his ass for a third god damned strike in a second? Bullshit. That fucker was using his illegal gun for criminal activity.

This dude was a criminal and bound to shoot somebody eventually.

I'm trying hard, very hard, not be a cynic here and NOT see this as a Win/Win: This dangerous asshole gun carrying felon is finally off the streets AND there is one less racist drunk lunatic redneck to worry about. It's an ugly thought.

I'd like it better if they both in prison. But if I'm going to be honest and just a little hopeless this is an okay outcome.

Lael:

Jury diversity may be as it should be?

Do you know the results for 2 & 3?

1) Kings County population

62.3% white (non Hispanic)

6.6% black

If chosen by population, alone, that would be 0.8 blacks per jury, 7.5 whites

For any given 5 trials, with 12 jurors, it would be 60 jurors - 4 black, 38 whites and 18 other, with 1 in 5 juries having no blacks.

2) Jurors are chosen through:

voter registration, driver’s license, and "identicard" records.

What percentages of those are black and white?

3) death penalty polling

I can find no polling by race in Kings County or Washington State.

Many polls show greater death penalty opposition from black respondents than whites.

Such would lower the the percentage of blacks as compared to whites.

Mr Lovett has prior convictions for kidnapping, rape and robbery. He also had a blood alcohol level of .2 6 hours after the shooting.

I suggest people look at the Seattle Times and West Seattle blog for more reliable information about this. A better comparison would be to the shooting of Jordan David by Michael Dunn. Why did that shooting get more outrage and coverage in Seattle then this incident which happened in our own city?

Zimmerman shoots Trayvon=racist hate crime
Michael Dunn shoots Jordan David= racist hate crime
some white guy whose name I don't remember shoots Reshina McBride= racist hate crime
Darren Wilson shoots Michael Brown=racist hate crime
Lovett Chambers shoots Michael Hood=injustice against the perp

I'm sure the racial makeup of the perps and victims in these instances have no bearing on where The Stranger's sympathy lays. It is just a coincidence that they see blacks as the victim whether on the giving or receiving end of a shooting.
ps- you mentioned that Lovett was convicted of bank robbery. You forgot to mention he is a convicted rapist too. Strange that a paper so obsessed with rape should omit that.

Lovett is a convicted rapist. Why was that left out?

This article sounds like it could have been written by his defense attorney. And shame on those who said the victim deserved it for being racist. The claims he was racist come from a rapist, kidnapper and bank robber. Also, Trayvon Martin was racist, sexist and homophobic and I heard no one say he deserved to die on those grounds alone.

This article is a joke, more like an op-ed piece. Glad to see Tracy on here trying to get the real story out there.

@9 - Nobody would be upset if he was convicted for gun charges. But that is irrelevant. He was convicted for a homicide where there was no compelling evidence to refute his claims of self-defense (assuming nothing was omitted from this article, I don't know the case).

This is an interesting article, but, the main flaw is that it only gives voice to one side of the story.

Regardless of my race, it would be difficult to convince me that someone with a record of bank robbery (and apparently other felonies) is "not prone to violence"

Of course we don't know the details of the case. But in my opinion, it might as well be that this fellow's history, rather than race, had an important weight for the jurors to decide if his self-defence story could be true or not.

@26 - You are missing the point. The point is the racial disparity. The difference in how police, prosecutors, grand juries, and juries treat cases when the shooter/victim is black vs white. That those people you listed were not convicted and this man was when all the cases had similar evidence only supports the outrage over Zimmerman and those other cases.

"King County Has a Diversity Problem in Its Jury Selection Process, and Lovett Chambers Believes It's the Reason He'll Die in Prison"

If this convicted rapist, kidnapper, bank robber and murderer says it's the fault of the system you know he's got to be right!

A felon in possession of a fire arm says that he had to kill someone to save his life?

Yeah, he's lucky I wasn't on the jury.

Some of us black people are tired of these excuses.

@32 Michael Dunn and the white guy who shot Reshina McBride were convicted.
There is more sympathy in this piece for the perp then the victim. They also smear the victim as a racist without proof whereas Trayvon was racist, sexist and homophobic. Reshina McBride was a drunk driver and Michael Brown assaulted an elderly Asian immigrant. Somehow the Stranger didn't find any need to bring up the character flaws on these shootings victims though.

@35 - That might be why I wasn't familiar with those cases. Usually the outrage is about the disparity in treatment and outcome. Those two seem like they were newsworthy just because of how obviously wrong the shooters were.

And I would say the character flaws in those victims weren't relevant. The shooters in those cases didn't claim they were shooting the victims because they had assaulted someone or because they were against drunk driving. In other words, those things had no bearing on why they were shot. That is different than this case, where the character issues are actually what the shooter is claiming made him fear for his life.

The stranger wasn't smearing the victim in this case by relaying the defense's defense any more than the media smeared Trayvon Martin by relaying the defense's assertion that Trayvon Martin had gotten on top of Zimmerman and made him fear for his life.

I would think the difference between the defendant's version of events (seems obviously relevant) and unrelated past incidences and events and attacks on the character of the victim (almost certainly not relevant) would be fairly obvious.

@34 - Wait, what? So you would convict a felon of murder if they weren't legally permitted to have a gun, no matter if it was self-defense or not? Convicting them of gun charges is one thing, but it isn't really relevant to whether it was justifiable self-defense or not.

@32: Give it up, man. hayden c is a racist moron who draws faulty comparisons, makes wild and unsupported claims, and pretends to be sticking up for my people (the Jews) as an excuse to smear black people. There's no reasoning with his kind of scum.

You've set back jury reform with this poorly reported and unbalanced piece - using a half-told tale to demonstrate an unjustice.

Indeed, after reading the full trial reports in the WSB, one discovers the jury rightly found that Chambers, drunk and angry, followed his victim and shot him mercilessly.

Why would you print this without that crucial and telling information - no less than the other side of the story? Have you hired an editor from Rolling Stone recently?

@38 Hayden_c may be a pile of shit but it is glaringly obvious the bias this article shows Chambers by only mentioning his bank robbery conviction and not his kidnapping and rape convictions.

And like Zimmerman the only person who can refute the self defense claim is conveniently dead.

It's certainly one thing to point out a case of jury diversity problems and the resulting racial bias that might cause. We don't doubt there are problems of racial bias in conviction.

But it is quite another to imply that a violent convicted multiple felon and rapist who shot guy to is a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Because in reading through the actual trial notes on the West Seattle Blog it's anything but clear this was a case of self defense and had Chambers been white it's doubtful we'd be discussing the self defense claim at all.

Of course in that case he stood a greater chance of being found innocent. If the victim was black. But we don't automatically have to choose sides because this asshole was black. He shot a guy. He was carrying an illegal gun. He had an extensive violent criminal history. Regardless of race it's good this asshole is behind bars.

@40 - The problem is that the Zimmerman verdict wasn't a miscarriage of justice. The investigation and the initial handling by police and prosecutors was, but the verdict itself was not. There was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he wasn't acting in self defense--as you say the only witness was dead. There really wasn't any evidence at all to refute his version of events (which, interestingly, did not implicate duty to retreat or stand your ground at all).

So, you are right, it is anything but clear that this case was self-defense. But it is also anything but clear that it was not self-defense. There is absolutely, at the very least, a reasonable doubt that he did act in self-defense. And you are supposed to be acquitted unless there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it wasn't self-defense.

In cases like this, it is hard to believe that things wouldn't have been different from start to end if the races were reversed. As we have seen in cases like the Zimmerman case, the police are much more likely to accept the story from the beginning, the prosecutors are much less likely to charge, the grand jury is much less likely to indict, and the jury is much less likely to convict.

There is a lot of general frustration, and a lot of frustration at the verdict in cases like the Zimmerman case. But the problem isn't really that affluent white people get away with too many crimes--our system is designed to let some guilty off so as not to convict innocent people--it is really that other people aren't given the same benefit of the law. In other words, that people of less means are often convicted even when there is a reasonable doubt. That is a problem even if they might have done it.

@41 did you read through the trial on the WSB link?

Chambers was excessively drunk and there is no evidence that he retrieved the gun from his car AFTER the confrontation (in fact he probably was carrying the entire time) or that he attempted to retreat.

While I agree if the races were reversed (victim black/shooter white) there would unfortunately be a greater chance of a self defense verdict. This sad statement on our racist system in no way obligates me to choose sides with Chambers or to demand we revisit what was, ultimately, a fair outcome.

Black or white that guy is a dangerous career criminal who should be in jail.

Sorry guys, but "pled"?

@42 - I am a little confused. Are you saying you don't think there was any reasonable doubt that he acted in self defense (it seems plausible that he did)? Or are you saying that you don't support "beyond a reasonable doubt" as a legal standard?

You state several times that he was put away for the rest of his life. He got about 10 years in prison. Less than the white guys who killed Jordan Davis and Rashina McBride. You also give a narrative of his version. From what I have read in the West Seattle Blog there are objective witnesses who strongly contradict what he stated. Your writer claims that the murder victim's friend is shady but then calls Lovell a family man. Lovell has been in prison for several decades for crimes from rape to kidnapping to armed robbery but he is a family man? You didn't specify what the murder victims friend did to get the label shady though. This piece is dishonest and disrespectful to the murder victim. To call it biased is an enormous understatement.

"They said, 'Look at that nigger there, look at the way he's walking, his mammy must have taught him how to walk like that.'"

I'll take "shit that never happened" for 800 Alex. What, were they wearing KKK robes with swastika capes too? Did they just finish feasting on live babies as well?

#46 When Reginald Denny got his head split open during the Rodney King riots, the 'justification' was that he was allegedly driving down the street, calling the mob by the 'N' word. As you say, stuff that never happened.

Thank you.

He has a great memory for a person who was near the BAC of a blackout. But to be fair, if he didn't kill the guy with a gun, he probably would have eventually killed someone with his car.

@44 I have no idea what you're asking me. What ever rhetorical coup you're planning to spring you're going to have to phrase questions better.

But first, I asked you if read through the trial coverage. Clearly you didn't.

If you had, you'd know there is no evidence he acted in self defense.

All you have is his testimony. The testimony of a totally drunk convicted rapist illegally carrying a gun. Those are the hard indesputible facts of the case.

All I see The Stranger arguing for is a standard where white and black murderers can both get off claiming self defense by leveraging equal but opposite racial bias from a better mix of jurists.

Call me crazy, but that's no solution to unequal justice. Two wrongs don't make a right.

I don't think this was a case of racial disparity on a jury sending Chambers away forever, as I'm quite sure that if a jury of 12 black men and women and ZERO white people had had this trial, they would have come to the same conclusion. His story didn't fly, he was a drunk felon (about to drive) that had a gun he shouldn't have had and killed a man with it. Buh. Bye.

The real problem as I see it is the voir dire. It is my understanding that in England, where the jury system was invented, a jury will consist of the first 12 British subjects called. While this does not eliminate those with prejudices and whatnot, it certainly includes a fair representation of the local population, the peers, which includes those with prejudices. Prejudices against cops. For example. An English jury could easily include at least one Jew and one Muslim, They would have to agree with each other and the rest of the panel for a verdict.

In America, with the voir dire, prosecutors can eliminate those jurors who show any indication whatsoever of having a functioning brain. Any indication whatsoever of having the slightest skepticism of government, particularly those who KNOW police are legally authorized to LIE to citizens in the course of their duties while a citizen who lies to a cop can be prosecuted for THAT.

That is RIGHT! Lying and ruses are part of the police officer's toolkit. They practice lying for the same reason they practice shooting their pistols at paper targets at the gun range.

But we of course prefer jurors who have no prejudices or meaningful life experiences at all. The voir dire eliminates these people from the jury pool leaving for the panel:

The nerds you knew in high school.

So even if you get a black juror, what you are likely to get is a black nerd!

Whose life experiences (lack of life experiences) will simply put the possibility that a police officer might lie on the witness stand, a skill he is practiced at, for the same prosecutor who is extremely unlikely to ever charge him with perjury should he ever fib on the witness stand, outside his PARADIGM.

That is right. PARADIGM.

Every cop is Dudley Dooright. Dudley would never lie, cheat, or leave his shoes unshined. Dudley always plays fair and is always the good guy.

That is the way the nerds we knew in high school see cops.

They're the people who wind up on juries.

@51 - Respectfully, it must be noted that defense attorneys are also allowed, through the voire dire process, to have potential jurors excused; it is a double edged sword.

Thank you.

I didn't go to jury duty when I got something in the mail about it. I might have, but they wanted me to go to Kent, when I'm 2.5 miles away from DT Seattle. I didn't have a car at the time, and didn't have cash in the bank or vacation days from work, so it just wasn't logistical.

And there's no *proof* I got the "summons" in the mail.

I do think that trials shouldn't be held without an actual 'jury of peers'.

I'm white, but identify as a poor, which in my case leads to compassion.

#43

Pled is the correct form.

#37

Yes. If a felon is walking around with a gun, he should be re-imprisoned for life, eventually we will run out of felons, and legal gun owners will rejoice.

I've been interviewed twice for jury duty. The first case out of the 60-70 people in the courtroom two were black, the defendant and the prosecuting attorney. In the second of the 20-30 again two, the defendant and the judge. This obviously, to me at least, reflects only one category where the pool is not reflecting the diversity of the larger community.

At least two problems beyond the obvious need to expand the pool exist;

First, compensation. Can you live in Seattle on $10 a day? A possible solution is to require businesses to continue to pay people while they are on jury duty. This could and probably should be at least partially offset by tax breaks for the business in question.

Second, perception. It seems to me that for a large part of our population jury duty is seen as a punishment that only idiots don't try as hard as they can to get out of. This needs to be changed. How to change it in a society that tends to have a 'grab everything you can and fuck everyone else' attitude to the world is going to be quite a bit more difficult.

Wow...

So let me get this straight:

-Chambers was drunk and about to drive.

-Chambers has been convicted of multiple violent felonies and was in possession of a firearm. While drunk.

-Chambers was harassed entirely at random.

-When Chambers got into his car the doors magically wouldn't lock, this apparently not having been a problem before.

-When he tried to escape on foot he just so happened to walk by the attackers truck.

I'm not saying I know what happened, there does seem to be some possibility of reasonable doubt. However, Chambers sure doesn't sound like a person many jurors would find very credible. If his account is true than my condolences to him and his family for the position he was put into.

The only value in this article is the discussion of how the socio-economic conditions that a large portion of black people in this country live plays into a cycle furthering those conditions by not allowing black people to receive fair trials. I do believe this is the case. I, however, think this is a TERRIBLE example of this issue.

Also, since when does the Stranger give a fuck about someone who used a firearm? Chambers is exactly the sort of person who the Stranger has historically rallied around keeping guns away from. Specifically their most recent promotion of I-594.

I honestly wonder if this is an instance of a news agency attempting to rally activists around someone who very likely fucked up in order to invalidate those activists later. I believe this was the reason that news agencies nationwide gave so much coverage to Michael Brown and largely ignored Eric Garner.

Case evaporated when he followed the guy back to his truck to shoot him, 150ft the wrong way from, escape, his home, other people. He followed him into what was basically an alley to confront him a third time and shot him.

All a jury would need was a map of where they walked to convict him.

Also how did the gun control crowd miss that his wife committed a felony in supplying him with a firearm? He defeated background checks by using her to specifically straw purchase, which is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in prison.

The wife enabled this whole incident and the death.

Black or White, Right or wrong. He broke the law. When you break a law, there is a penalty to pay. He knew before that fateful night that by having that gun. He broke the law a long time ago. He knew the consequences of acceptance of the firearm. While I'm sure he had a genuine fear for his life. He was guilty of a crime the day before that night.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?…

The Criminal Negligence here is most likely the gun. If he legally owned the gun, he'd most likely be found Not Guilty.

@23: " So the dude was a god damned multiple felon - a fucking bank robber - illegally in possession of a firearm on his person. And this is the martyr the Stranger chooses to make it's case for juror diversity? You couldn't find anybody better? Really?"

Because #blacklivesmatter. Obv.

@23: " So the dude was a god damned multiple felon - a fucking bank robber - illegally in possession of a firearm on his person. And this is the martyr the Stranger chooses to make it's case for juror diversity? You couldn't find anybody better? Really?"

You're seriously surprised? This is the Stranger. It's how they roll.

yet another massive fuck up, stranger. well done. 138 months is the rest of his life? is this guy 70 years old??

So how would a jury of black peers have made a difference? The guy shot someone three times. That's not self-defense. That's murder. Are we to assume that black people can't make that distinction, or that they would disregard the law because he was "one of them"?

@62 Shooting someone 3 times doesn't mean it wasn't self defense. Believe it or not, people don't necessarily drop to the ground when they get shot once. It's pretty common in even the most cut-and-dry self defense cases for the person defending themselves to shoot their attacker a number of times in a short burst. The goal isn't to hurt someone, which just one bullet might do. It's to stop the threat.

@61 -- if this guy had previous convictions for bank robbery and rape, this manslaughter conviction is a potential third strike. He would face a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole if that's the case.

The other interesting aspect of this case is that the jury didn't convict this guy of murder. They convicted him of a lesser charge of manslaughter. That doesn't indicate an inherently racist jury that refused to carefully look at the evidence in the case. It indicates the opposite -- a jury that gave this guy a break, and didn't convict of the most serious charge, instead convicting him only of what the evidence supported. What more can you ask of them?

East, South, and West Africa are the safest countries in the world because they have black populations, black politicians, black judges, black police officers, and a religion of peace. South and Central America are less peaceful because their religion is less peaceful?

I can't believe The Stranger still has this story on their website, seeing as how the whole thing is one massive and blatant journalistic fuckup.

Seriously, do the editors of this paper have any shame, or at the very least, any kind of professional integrity?