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Re: her being a stripper and credibility. Here's what you're confusing, Knife. You're confusing facts with proof of a crime. It's absolutely true that no one disputes that she was stopped and that he gave her a hand job and that he ejaculated on her. What's in "dispute" from a legal perspective is whether or not the hand job was forced. The attorney put enough doubt in the jury's head about how much force the cop used to get the hand job that they were not willing to say he was guilty of sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt. For better or for worse, being a stripper makes it easier for a jury to believe that if a cop pulled out his wang in front of you, you'd just give him a hand job instead of telling him to go fuck himself and get jailed or actually raped or whatever else might have happened.
analog hit the nail on the head with this one. In a case of sexual assault or rape, if a girl does just about anything but say "No" and any threat of force short of lethal/serious bodily injury occurs, it's VERY difficult to convict. A girl who says "I'm not sure" or "That's really creepy" when threatened with arrest doesn't have a strong case if she follows through. Yeah, that kind of makes my skin crawl, but my guess is that the prosecutor's shot for the highest penalty sexual assault crimes possible which carry a heavy burden of proof and a strong showing of forced sexual contact against the victim's will. If they'd gone with a lesser charge, I'm inclined to believe they would've had more luck.
This case is grotesque across the board. The "right" outcome would probably send them both to jail-her for reckless driving without a license and drug use/possession while driving and him for some variety of sexual assault and absue of his position. I don't think it's a farce in the same way the OJ trial was a farce, nor that it shows that the system is completely broken. It does show that sexual assault cases are horribly complicated and, no matter the physical evidence, always boil down to a he-said/she-said. In a hero cop v. high stripper who (without being explicitly forced) gives him a hand job, it's not surprising that the cop got off.
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