“Common sense,” empathy, and equal justice

It seems that every day, there is an awful news story about students being mishandled, abused, or assaulted in schools.  I don’t post most of those stories here, but when I saw a story about a teacher in the U.K. being acquitted in a case involving physical assault of a student, it really struck me how unequal justice might be when the jury cannot relate to the defendant. John Chapman of the   Daily Express  reported:

A judge last night said “common sense has prevailed” after a teacher who attacked a troublemaker pupil with a dumbbell was cleared of attempted murder.

Father-of-two Peter Harvey had screamed “die, die, die” as he hit the 14-year-old boy with a 3kg weight after snapping during a science class.

Last night he said the verdict was “not received by me with any sense of joy or triumph”.

But after a case which experts said highlighted the lack of discipline in Britain’s schools, questions were raised about the legitimacy of the prosecution at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer.

Judge Michael Stokes QC took the rare step of expressing concern about the case against Harvey, who had been pushed to the limit by an unruly class of badly behaved pupils.

You can read the rest of the news story here.  What struck me about the story is how people could relate to the teacher’s frustration and stress, feel empathy for him, understand how he might  "snap"  and become physical, and they acquitted him.   And they call this "common sense."

But how often do our schools and our juries not apply the same "common sense" to students with disabilities or those who have been bullied or harassed until they "snap?" 

Consider the recent case of John Odgren, who was convicted of murder.  Wouldn’t "common sense" have dictated that a student was as impaired and stressed out as Odgren might snap?  Or is "common sense" only applicable if we can relate to the other person?    If the jury had all been parents of an autistic child, would they have voted differently?  If the jury had been parents of students who had been rejected or not well-integrated socially, would they have related to Odgren and voted to acquit?

There is nothing "common sense" about the acquittal of the U.K. teacher.   What the verdict represents is empathy for an overtaxed adult who temporarily lost control.   It’s a shame that defense attorneys cannot always engender that same empathy for those with neuropsychiatric challenges who may also temporarily lose control in a world that often doesn’t understand them.