Verdict in White Trial Leaves Unanswered Questions

The 2010  shocked many Maplewoodians. The transgender woman, who had attended Columbia High School, was fatally shot in her cousin's Maplewood apartment after meeting two men at an Irvington nightclub.

One of the men, , was , which included murder, bias intimidation and two weapons offenses. His co-defendant, , testified against Chambers at trial. Foster was the only witness to the crime.

Chief Assistant Prosecutor Thomas Fennelly told Patch his office couldn't speculate about why the jury had voted to acquit.

"We respect the jury system," said Fennelly. "We were confident in our case going forward."

White's murder stunned the local community and led to for the victim, as well as a .

Some Maplewood and South Orange residents seemed taken aback by the outcome of the case. In a Maplewood Online thread started shortly after the verdict was announced, one commentor posted: "Stunned by the jury verdict. Seriously, this happened here, in Maplewood." Others noted the prosecutor faced challenges because of a lack of physical evidence (the handgun was never recovered, for example), and the case relied on the word of one defendant against the other.

Steve Mershon of Rainbow Families of Maplewood and South Orange said in an email to Patch he realized "not all cases lead themselves to tidy resolutions" and local police and prosecutors may well have done a thorough, detailed, and professional investigation and still have come up short on evidence. 

However, Merson continued, "Not surprisingly, the transgender community around the country considers this to be yet another in a long line of cases where severe violence and/or murder affecting transgender victims goes unpunished, often due to transphobia by a judge or jury, or due to poor police work resulting from uncaring or transphobic police or prosecutor's office officials. I don't know if any of that is the case here, but I am left with the troubling knowledge that justice was not done (a murder was committed, and the perpetrator, whoever it may be, has gone unconvicted and unpunished), and a troubling fear that some officials may have failed to execute due diligence."

Mershon noted several unanswered questions, such as an "inadequate" body of evidence turned up by the police and prosecutor's office and a lack of fingerprints found at the site. Also, two women who were in the bathroom at the time of the murder, one of whom was White's cousin, testified they heard someone yell, "You a dude?" and then heard three gunshots, but the women were unable to identify who made the statement.

"It seems like the police and prosecutors had a surprisingly weak and ultimately inadequate set of evidence going into the trial, leading to an acquittal of the prime suspect," said Mershon.  "(Also) there are the questions about jury selection. What steps did the prosecutors take to assure that members of the jury were not transphobic, as many potential jurors in Essex County would likely be, to avoid having bias enter the jury's decision making process?"