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

[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.