Engelman: ...Our next speaker is a,
a lady that's got a lot of guts. She was the, chairperson of the
jury in the criminal trial, in San Antonio. Following that trial- and seeing
what the judge did- she wrote letters, she protested, she's- just one heck
of a lady. Her name is Sarah Bain. Sarah? [applause M: "Yeah!"]
Thank you, Ron. Good morning, everyone. [M: "Good morning." F: "Good morning." M: "Good morning."] Uh, as Ron introduced, I was the head(had?), the honor of being the foreperson of the trial, that took place in San Antonio. That was needless to say, an extremely powerful moment, days, weeks, for me. I still don't have the trial itself out of my system. There has been so much that's transpired since that trial, evidence that's been made public, that was not available at the trial. I've had my views altered as a result of that information that has now been made public. But going back strictly to the 40 days at the trial, I'd like to give you some of the thoughts of the jury at that time.
As we were deliberating, one of the ex- [Engelman adjusts microphone] (to Engelman:)that's OK- one of the, bits of information that was vitally important to us, was whether or not the helicopters that were notoriously circling overhead, did any firing. In the course of the trial, we had testimony from pilots. We had testimony from some of those that were on board the helicopters. We had even military personnel who said that, all of them saying, absolutely not. There were no guns on those helicopters. We did have testimony at the trial, specifically from Jack Zimmerman, who was an attorney from Houston that came in during the 51-day, uh, siege, as a representative of Mr. Schneider, who testified that when he came into the Mt. Carmel Center, that it was very obvious that there were bullet holes that came through the roof. And he went into great detail, explaining how you could recognize an incoming shell. Sadly, we had his testimony, versus the testimony of many others. Utilizing more or less what was the preponderance of the evidence, it was our opinion at the time that apparently the helicopters had not done any firing. Most of you are aware now that there is much evidence that supports the truth, that the helicopters did fire. This is important, vitally important, to help establish whether or not the Branch Davidians that were, housed at the time of the raid at Mt. Carmel- whether or not they were in a defensive mode, or as the government would lead us to believe, that they were on the offensive. With the helicopters firing- actually that, that truth has come out from one of the, ATF negotiators, in the many, many, many hours of negotiation tapes, during a conversation with David Koresh, who, covered the truth by utilizing the statement, there were no mounted guns on the helicopters. As a jury, we didn-, it didn't matter to us whether or not there were mounted guns on the helicopters- we pretty much assumed that that would not have been the case- we would have been in total violation of utilizing military weapons against citizenry, had that been the case- our main concern was whether or not those on board had done any firing. When he in essence said there may have been firing from the helicopters, just not by mounted guns- when I first heard that section of the negotiation tapes, which was here, last year, in, uh, Mr. McNulty's video, uh, documentary- "Waco: Rules of Engagement"- when I first heard that, my stomach really churned. As I've mentioned, that had been one of the real sticking points, during our deliberations.
Once the trial was over, we were in our deliberations. Once we had determined our verdicts, we turned them in to the judge at approximately 10:30 in the morning- we had an hour and a half wait until one o'clock, or a two and a half hour wait until one o'clock when the, uh, verdict was going to be read publically. During that time, we jurors were basically sitting discussing, the, the trial, and continuing to try to start, calming down a little bit after we had finished with our duty- And many of us sat back, those of us who felt rather upset about the fact that we had really felt it necessary to come down with any guilty verdicts at all- we sat back and said, well, the Branch Davidians have now been held accountable for the deaths of the four ATF agents. We can rest assured that the ATF, will have someday to be made accountable for the deaths of the six Branch Davidians who died on that exact same day. We took some consolation in that. We're still waiting. Therein is some of the major frustration is the fact there has been no accountability on the part of the government. It matters not to me whether there is a trial and every single person is exonerated. I just simply feel that there needs to be a trial- they need to be made to answer for the reasons why, they had to conduct the raid, and it needs to be in a public forum, not personnel matters that are handled behind the scenes. And I believe that for the peace of mind of many Americans, that that might help to bring a little bit of closure to the incidents that took place on February 28th and April 19th of '93. Of course, in addition to having a trial for the ATF officers and their responsibility for the deaths of six Branch Davidians, there has to be some accountability made by the FBI, for their activities on April the 19th, actually for their activities during the entire 51 days. But specifically for their activities on the 19th. Why did they feel that it was necessary at that time, to, insert CS gas? Why did they determine at that time, that the insertion of CS gas had to be done by- tanks? Why during that time, did they allow the FBI tactical team, to overshadow the FBI negotiators, who seemed, behind the scenes, to be really wanting to bring a peaceful end, to the entire siege? Someway, the FBI tactical squad got the upper hand, and we all know the result of that. If there is anything that I would ask, that those of you who are present, especially those of you who are from out of Texas, would carry back to your area, is to remind everyone who could still- considers the Branch Davidians to be murderers- they were found not guilty of the count of murder, they were found not guilty on the count of conspiracy to commit murder. That was done by, a jury of 12, after over 40 days of listening to evidence in trial- some that had, if it had been valid, if we had considered the evidence valid, would have indeed said they were murderers. The government did not prove that- at all. Those were two of the easier counts, that we had to make our determinations on. Because of our determinations on the not guilty, for murder, or for conspiracy to commit murder, the jury then turns around and makes what I still consider to be their, our, our fatal flaw. The third count we kind of abbreviatedly called the firearms charge. Uh, Jack DeVault alluded to that. To be found guilty of the firearms charge, we had to have found that the Branch Davidians possessed, or used, firearms. It was hard to say that they did not use or possess firearms. Where we as a jury made our fatal flaw, was in not paying close attention to the instructions that were in front of us, in black and white, that they had to have been found guilty of utilizing the, weapons, during the commission of a crime. That's where we put our period. We had already found several of the defendants guilty of manslaughter. I'd like to address that in a moment. We believed that they had been utilizing weapons during the commission of the crime of manslaughter. Where the court had put its period, was a little bit farther down the instructions, that said that they had to have been found guilty of the crime of murder. We had already exonerated them from that charge. Finding them guilty on count three- thank you very much jury- now has many of the Branch Davidians in prison for 30 years. I have a big burden on my shoulders because of that.
Back to the count of manslaughter. Because
of the instructions that we received, the definition of manslaughter carries
with it, the idea that someone acted as a rational person would
have acted, when they are under a siege of provocation. We considered the
Branch Davidians to have acted logically. They certainly were, under a
siege of provocation. Because of that, they were found guilty of, as everyone
has termed it, the lesser charge, of manslaughter. What we are again waiting
for, is for the provoceurs [sic], to still have to answer for their
charge. We're waiting for the accountability, that our very guilty verdict,
our, the very verdict that we came down with on the count three, or on
the manslaughter charge, excuse me, said took place. That there was
provocation. Why is the government, government not being answered, being
caused to answer, for that provocation. Because of my frustration, because
of the burden that I do feel, I also do not know exactly what the proper,
tactic is, to cause such a, accountability to occur. I'm hoping that someone
has more leadership ability than I do, has better ideas of the workings
of the government, has better ideas of the, workings of our court system,
and can pull something together, to see that eventually, the accountability
is brought to bear. In mentioning that with a gentleman that I met just
this morning, he said he just did not see how that would happen. The Indians,
are still waiting. [applause] I said, but that was not- [applause]
I mentioned that that was not very encouraging. I feel that, this is my
fifth year to come out to Mt. Carmel. I'm hoping that it will not be another
five years, that I still am feeling this burden, and this frustration.
I'm hoping that there will soon- not later- be this accountability
that we're all waiting for. Thank you very much. [applause]
Engelman: Thanks, Sarah. Appreciate that...
After transcribing this speech, I discovered someone else had also made a transcript, and posted it to the "Rules of Engagement" discussion board. An abridged version can still be found at various locations, but the original full version has apparently been deleted to make room for new messages. Thus, I have decided to put the original file "as is" on my site. Alternate transcript by "Samuel Adams"
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