Crazy verdict in Milwaukee

[HippieLawChick]

At a party, some off duty Milwaukee cops beat up a guy for supposedly stealing one of their badges....the morons on the jury just found them not guilty. 

WTF??? The guy didn't beat himself up!!!!

I hope that they charge these guys federally.  There is talk of doing that b/c the cops said that they "put themselves on duty" when the incident happened.  The man they beat up, Frank Jude, was hurt so bad, he had reconstructive surgery on his face. 

The verdict was announced at midnight.  I feel like going down to the courthouse to protest.  I can't believe this Bullsh*t!

[dbgirl]

I remember hearing about this case on 20/20 and on Court TV.
It seems pretty clear cut - I don't understand the acquittal. Anyway, it is pretty f---d. I understand, however, that their defense attorney was pretty amazing.

How can they be tried again? It seems that would be double jeopardy. I'm interested in the legal theory behind that.

[Miss P]

It would be a civil prosecution for the violation of Jude's rights under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act.

This was one of the sickest police brutality cases I've read about: explicitly racist, a whole mob of drunken cops, Jude and his friend (and the white women who brought them to the party) just trying to get in the truck and get away, the first responding on-duty cops participating in the beating and cover-up.  Ugh!

[HippieLawChick]

Miss P is exactly right.  If the prosecute federally, the charges would be different, and therefore, no double jeapordy.

[cyberrev]

yeah, it's like drug chatges.  you can be prosecuted criminally both at the state and federal level, which i also think is bull

[dbgirl]

Well rev I hope you don't think it's bull to prosecute these guys again.

[cyberrev]

no, not as a civil matter.  as bogus as the verdict may have been, i think it would be a worse precedent for the federal government to say, well we didnt care for the outcome of the trial, so we'll prosecute until we get what we want.

[dodo97]

There were no real witnesses. It's that simple. Oh, don't get me wrong... PLENTY of people saw it go down. But no one is talking. The MPD was made out -- justifiably so in this case, I feel -- as a real good ol' boy network that is crooked as hell. The two police officers that did testify for the prosecution were apparently just given hell by the PD for doing so. But there were just no witnesses to back up the claims.

And the PD is lucky (if you can call it that) in that it's not getting quite the local attention it would normally get because the bodies of the two missing children were found dead from drowning, and that is the dominant topic locally right now.