From:    Albertus Magnus                        Area: Base of Set
To:      All                                    16 Apr 95 20:57:54
Subject: Miami Trial Techniques                 UpdReq 

MIAMI - A dead chicken here, some goat's blood there. And maybe
some ashes sprinkled on the judge's or the prosecutor's chair.
Voodoo is at work at Miami's Metro Justice Building.
Miami has sizable populations of people of Cuban and Haitian
extraction. Some Cubans believe in Santeria, a religion whose
gods respond favorably to rituals and sacrifices of food and
animals. Some Haitians believe in voodoo, which also employs
ritual sacrifice.
The use of sorcery to try to sway the outcome of judicial
proceedings is becoming so common that courthouse managers have
named a voodoo squad of janitors. They mostly look for sacrificed
animals. "Sometimes we find one chicken. Sometimes we find three
or four," said Raul Guasp, a courthouse maintenance man. "It
depends on who is on trial."
Dead chickens and dead goats are sometimes found on the
courthouse steps, especially those along one street which
courthouse employees have renamed Chicken Lane.
Rigoberto Zamora, a Santeria priest, says the road separating the
courthouse from the Dade County Jail is a strategic spot, since
putting a hex there asks spirits to protect people in jail and as
they cross the street to court.
Spirits of the dead animals are offered to the gods, who are then
supposed to enter the minds of judges or prosecutors and persuade
them to drop charges. Weird things go on inside the courthouse,
too.
A bailiff once found two dead lizards, their mouths wrapped shut
with twine during a break in a cocaine trial. The trussed up
lizards are meant to silence a snitch.
Relatives of defendants sometimes sneak into an empty courtroom
and spread voodoo power on the judge's chair or prosecutor's
desk.
Names of the judge, prosecutor, defendant and others are written
on pieces of paper and burned. The ashes are mixed with ground-up
twigs, and the powder is supposed to sway the jury, judge or
prosecutor.
Attorney Louis Casuso recalls that he and Dade Assistant State
Attorney David Waksman were prosecuting a Santeria priestess
charged with cocaine trafficking. They returned from lunch to
find their seats covered with white dust.
"All of a sudden I get this nose bleed," Casuso said.
Waksman finished the trial and won a conviction while Casuso
stuffed toilet paper up his nose. Casuso says he thinks the nose
bleed was a coincidence.


201434369420143436942014343694201434369420143436942014343694718