2 NYPD officers acquitted of rape in '08 encounter

[NoGOPZone]

Source: Associated Press

Two New York City police officers were acquitted Thursday of raping a drunken woman they'd been called to help, but were convicted of official misconduct.

Officers Franklin Mata and Kenneth Moreno look stunned, but remained stolid after hearing the verdict.

They were called to help a drunken woman get out of a taxi in 2008. The woman testified that she passed out and awoke to being raped in her apartment.

Moreno told jurors he lay alongside her in her bed for a while, but they didn't have sex.


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

[NashVegas]

1. Wow

Just wow.

We may as well let Dominique what's-his-face out of prison right now.

In fact, let's just declare that rape is no longer a crime.

[Blue_Tires]

2. holy damn...

[Plucketeer]

3. "he lay alongside her in her bed for a while"?

How compassionate ARE the cops in NYPD? :crazy:

[Ian David]

6. Drunken people make him sleepy. n/t

[Recursion]

9. I've lain next to a drunk person in bed to make sure she's still breathing

and lying on her side, and actually out enough to not get up again, etc.

It's not an absurd claim on its face, though I don't know anything about the facts of the case.

ON EDIT: OK, the fake 911 call is really, really sketchy.

[Plucketeer]

14. Fake 911 call, AND....

admitting he'd used a condom as she requested. (!?) WTF???

[Recursion]

15. He did not admit to using a condom

He admitted to telling her "yes I'm using a condom" in response to her repeatedly saying "are you going to use a condom?"

But, yeah, the 911 really, really kills his credibility on this. Though as much as I hate it in the absence of physical evidence I can understand that it's difficult to make a case beyond a reasonable doubt.

[LisaL]

23. I didn't believe there was going to be a conviction, in a case

where they found DNA from other men on the bed, but none from the accused. Of course you never really know what the jury is going to do, but this verdict is not surprising at all. Absence of DNA creates reasonable doubt, however believable or not the story of laying in bed but doing nothing might seem.

[Recursion]

26. Well, particularly given the physical evidence...

...we have to at least acknowledge the possibility that somebody else did this, and this cop was some combination of hyper-vigilant or hyper-creepy.

But, all that said, I keep coming back to the fact that I have lain in bed with a drunk out of her mind woman to make sure she didn't aspirate in her own vomit. It's not implausible on its face.

[NashVegas]

11. As Much As Juries Believe They Are

Apparently.

[defendandprotect]

4. Where did they get these jurors? More farce -- for the benefit of corrupt police officers...

and a strong new message to other officers that they can do what they please --

[VWolf]

5. I never expected a conviction in this case

Two cops? There could have been video of the assault and they wouldn't have been convicted.

Quite frankly, I'm surprised then even got the misconduct charges to stick.

[bongbong]

8. Not just that

There could have been a video AND A CHILD of the police officer (paternity tested) and they still would've been found innocent. It's a disgusting police state we live in, former name "USA".

[aquart]

13. That's ridiculous. Seriously.

In a police state you EXPECT the cop to rape you. We actually don't.

And something else. I've watched good cops in action. I saw them coming and going all night from my mom's place to set up a legal lineup so that my sister could identify the men she saw coming out of the neighbor's yard. They'd been robbing Asian families all over the neighborhood and my mother and sister followed their car to their home and called the police and the cops worked their tails off to make sure everything was by the book. The neighbors got their stuff back and a lot of other families never got robbed. No graft, no slipshod work. They were completely grateful to have reliable witnesses and they checked and double-checked and triple-checked their story.

[Fool Count]

19. No, you don't. Cops didn't rape anyone in Nazi Germany or

Stalin's USSR, but no one would doubt that those were certifiable "police states".

[aquart]

20. They didn't?

You must give me the source of your statistics.

[Fool Count]

21. Should I also give you a proof that I don't beat my wife?

Show me one credible source claiming that Germans or Soviets were raped by their police. There isn't any, because they weren't.
Not even the most rabid anti-communist ideologues ever accused Stalin's security apparatus of systematic rapes. That would
have been just crazy even for them. And those are the people who accuse him of killing 100 million people no less. What makes
you think that they did?

[Rageneau]

7. As Twain said...

"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men who don't know anything and can't read."

Maybe it's time to do away with the jury system and try everyone in the court of public opinion.

[saras]

27. No, it's time to stop rejecting the smart and sane from juries

I think we should get rid of nearly all challenges

AND

make jury service ABSOLUTELY required for EVERYONE.

The government deals with your employer, and makes whatever arrangements are necessary.
Jurors are chosen at random from whatever system includes the largest number of people.
Being related to people in the case excuses you. Mental incompetence excuses you. Nothing else does.

Even utterly random people, biases and all, would be better than deliberately selecting the most clueless, as we currently do.

[Dawson Leery]

10. In most cases (with cops), an investigation never even occurs.

[aquart]

12. Can a cop get convicted for anything in New York?

"He lay alongside her in her bed for a while"????

Is he going back out on patrol?

[Recursion]

16. That part didn't get me as much as the fake 911 call

The story that she fell and got wedged between the bed and the wall, he pulled her up and stayed with her to make sure she didn't aspirate was at least plausible. But faking the 911 call to go back is a real problem for his credibility.

[chrisa]

18. It was actually not plausible in the least bit,

as any cop who isn't a complete dumbass would call the EMTs if they suspected alcohol poisoning. The only thing, other than rape, that they might have been doing was just sleeping and watching TV, and pretending to work, but in that case why not just admit it?

[chrisa]

17. Yeah, he just laid with her in the bed, but nothing happened. He just wanted to help and talk.

Tune in next week when the NYPD shoots someone in the face to teach them about gun safety. :eyes:

[LisaL]

22. Whatever you might think, absence of DNA creates reasonable doubt.

[MellowDem]

24. Correct ruling by the sound of it...

Rape is a serious crime with huge consequences, so juries are usually not likely to convict if there is reasonable doubt. No DNA evidence is huge, as is the fact that she was incredibly drunk. While all of the other stuff is circumstantial evidence that one could make inferences from, convicting someone on inferences for rape is not something a lot of people would be comfortable with.

If she was raped, it is sad indeed, though the lack of DNA evidence would be astounding, unless she waited a while before getting checked out. But this was the correct ruling otherwise, as it is definitely not certain that a rape actually did happen from the evidence available. I have a hard time understanding why women's groups would be for convicting others on not enough evidence just because the crime is rape.

[Evergreen Emerald]

25. The verdict is less about police and more about women

We only need to look at recent (and not so recent) societal events regarding alleged victims of rape and how we treat them. Juries are no different.

Police officers: I believe they are held to a higher standard than others in our society--when they screw up they are (and should be) held accountable.

[BlueIris]

28. Vile.

The outcome is not shocking, considering they are police officers, but any outcome of this nature offends me.