The problem with juries...

[lederhosen]

...is that sometimes they're MORONS.

OC Register story (fairly work-safe) and OC Weekly (NSFW): Orange County policeman stalks a female stripper, pulls her over on a secluded strip of highway out of his jurisdiction, blackmails her into sexual acts, and gets acquitted after his defence counsel plays the "she was a slut who seduced him" card.

Never mind the fact that the guy had previously been warned by a sergeant to stay away from the strippers, had used his DMV access to run the plates of nine other female employees of the same strip club shortly before the incident, and that the GPS tracking the location of his patrol car had been mysteriously disconnected just before he set out to tail her outside his jurisdiction and pull her over.

(via tcpip)

Comments

[stephen-dedman.livejournal.com]

Would this have been in the same court where they acquitted the cops who beat up Rodney King?

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

No, but close. This one was heard in Orange County Superior Court; the Rodney King jury was from LA County, which is next along the coastline from Orange. (The Rodney King trial was actually held just outside LA County, in neighbouring Ventura, I think in the hope of avoiding the sort of riots it ended up causing.)

OC has a reputation for being very conservative by Californian standards, although like most demographic generalisations that's not the full story.

Note that eleven of twelve jurors in this one were male, which may have had something to do with the outcome; similarly, the jury in the King trial was mostly white with no blacks at all.

[fluffy-cloud.livejournal.com]

Irvine. Why am I not suprised that it was an Irvine cop?

[akedhi.livejournal.com]

I'm disgusted, unsurprised, and somewhat frightened all at once.

Disgusted because an officer of the law who uses his position to take unfair advantage of anyone - stripper, librarian, or particularly attractive circus clown - should at the very /least/ be fired from his job, and better yet, sent to prison for the maximum sentence and made to appear on the public websites like any other sexual predator. Not acquitted of all charges and let off without repercussion.

I am unsurprised because there is a stigma attached to any woman who displays her body, especially in a professional capacity, and even though the word 'No' is universal, it somehow matters that what a victim of rape or sexual assault was wearing at the time of her assault. A 'slut' cannot refuse sex, it's somehow wired into her makeup that she will always, without fail or question, want it, even if she thinks she doesn't. 'Bad girls' can't be raped, they were always leading the poor innocent man on somehow. You'd think that kind of thinking would have gone out with the days when showing one's ankles was inciting a man's lust and 'good girls' didn't do that.

And I'm frightened, because where one man gets caught and acquitted for something so blatantly wrong, it sets a precedent, even if it's not in a high enough court to set a legal precedent. I'm frightened because there are more than one of that officer, even if they aren't all in the police force. And I'm frightened that if something like that happens to me, or someone I know, it will have the same result.

Reactions

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

1 - Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking stupid bastard fucker mother FUCK.

2 - I have to show up for jury selection on Friday. I fear for my sanity.

Re: Reactions

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this is why smart people (i.e. us) shouldn't try to get out of jury duty. So, good for you for doing your civic duty.

Re: Reactions

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

Well, that and, y'know, figuring that everyone else's time is important, too, so it's not like I'm unique in being imposed upon.

I expect a great deal of Entitlement Baby syndrome tomorrow, though.

[terrycloth.livejournal.com]

This could be a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' thing, where the jury wasn't *sure* that his version of events was bullshit.

He did lose the civil suit and get fired over it.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

This could be a 'beyond a reasonable doubt' thing, where the jury wasn't *sure* that his version of events was bullshit.

Presumably that is what happened, but I'm mystified as to how they could've had even that much doubt - I don't think he denied that he'd DMV-ed nine other women from the same club, or gone out of his jurisdiction to pull her over, and there was no good explanation for how the GPS got disabled. From the article, it sounds like he had a very persuasive lawyer to get the jury past those things.

He did lose the civil suit and get fired over it.

AFAICT from those two articles, the suit was against the police department rather than him personally; they settled, but presumably he's not the one who pays. I didn't see whether he was fired or quit, but either way, apparently he now wants to rejoin the PD. I hope they have the sense to say no.

[cheshire-bitten.livejournal.com]

Gah, yeah I read about this a couple of days ago.... I really don't know how to respond in cases like this.

[remus-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Don't blame the juries for this. Odds are that the jury didn't see most of the evidence you listed. If the defending attorneys can get evidence withheld for any reason at all, they will.

It's the system that's broken, not the citizens.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

Odds are that the jury didn't see most of the evidence you listed.

From the OC Weekly's writeup, it looks as if they did :-(