NY cops accused of rape are acquitted

You have to be fucking kidding me!!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110526/ap_on_re_us/us_nypd_rape_complaint

I hope we find out how the jury acquitted these guys .. Maybe they didn't rape that woman, but I guaran-fucking-tee the one officer took advantage of that woman and engaged in sex with her.

The fact they returned to her aprartment w.o telling dispatchers where they were going or where they were raises a LOT of red flags.

I feel for this woman.

 

Interesting insight thanks Ragu. This is almost as astonishing as when the Steffi Graf fanatic got off without a night in jail for attempted murder of stabbing Monica Seles. He wasn't a threat to do it again, said the German judge. Unbelievable.

 

In my first job out of law school, our firm represented a Fortune 100 company for all of their employment cases in a region. If a case was within a certain number of days before the trial, we were required to bring in a mock jury. We'd use the videotaped deposition testimony of the key witnesses and have two lawyers from our firm makes opening and closing statements.

Watching the "juries" deliberate was unreal. The biases which they bring to the table, the facts which they assume, the crazy conclusions which they reach. Scary.

 

This story contains some ridiculous details. One of the officers stated that he sang Bon Jovi verses to her? WTF? Why wasn't he charged for that?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/26/kenneth-moreno-franklin-mata-acquitted_n_867467.html

The NYDN is reporting that both officers were fired. Good. Not enough, but good.

 

Cases like this bring to mind why so many prosecutors are willing to settle ahead of time, even if it means reduced jail sentences.

Adam Carolla once argued that you should just use a lie detector for every case. Yes, you'd get 1 to 10 percent of cases wrong. However, how many do you think the legal system is either punting on or screwing up as is?

 

Victim releases a statement:

http://m.nypost.com/;s=flcoGbXSIKOtQGKHrAPj935/f/mobile/news/local/am_devastated_and_disappointed_kZJ6fx9RuYBFYVKfFthGrN

Terrible ordeal. She deserved better.

 

How the jury could decide that the victim really wanted cops to come back 3 times AND FAKE A 911 CALL, simply because she was drunk is ridiculous. Maybe if she alleged she had just been attacked/groped and feared for her safety. But she was just a drunk. This is going to be an OJ situation where the victim will have to get some retribution with civil damages and forget about the unbelievable criminal jury verdict. [Disclaimer, of course I did not get to watch the victim's testimony.]

 

Many years ago, I was on a jury in a murder case. The defendant wasn't charged with actually killing the guy, but with being part of the setup that lured the guy to his death. Except, the one witness the prosecution presented, who also was involved in the setup but got immunity, recalled key facts absolutely wrong, according to the physical evidence.
There were a bunch of sidebar conferences, at which I inferred the judge was disallowing stuff the prosecution wanted us to hear, because the prosecution basically didn't put on a case and rested after the one witness.
I thought, "great, I'll be home for dinner."

I was, a few days later, after many hours of deliberation.
Two jurors thought that since the police had gone to all the trouble to charge the guy, we should convict him of something, just for the heck of it.
Another -- the real holdup -- didn't like the way the defendant looked at her during the trial, she said. It was a really evil look!
The foreman was way more patient than I was, and he went through every piece of evidence with this woman and finally got her to concede that we couldn't convict. If he hadn't, I might still be in that room.

 

I will say that in my 21 years experience have found jurors to for the vast majority of the time taken their duties seriously and extremely diligently. However, jurors come to a case with their experiences, which means bias and predeterminations in many ways. Arbitrators (private decisions makers who get paid huge $$) though, the vast majority of the time seem to be less emotional and more likely to determine things based on the evidence presented.

 

This part was the cover of the Post today:

"Hearing that verdict brought me to my knees."