A personal-injury lawyer was found not guilty of drunken driving yesterday in a New York City trial in which jurors rejected the testimony of two police officers who admitted to fixing tickets in unrelated cases, the New York Times reports. The trial was the first to gauge the degree to which jurors care about the sweeping ticket-fixing scandal that may involved 300 officers.
One juror said that some of the other jurors found the ticket-fixing revelations to be a significant problem in trusting the police officers and that they mattered to her too. She said that she and other jurors, who needed only 45 minutes to reach a verdict, were more influenced by what they felt to be insufficient evidence and persistent inconsistencies in the testimony of the officers. “There were a lot of things that weren't proved,” she said. “There was a lot of stuff that was missing.” Another juror said, “They have to prove that he was drunk, and they didn't.” She added that the ticket-fixing played a smaller role in her thinking, but said, “how can you trust such people?” Because it has been so widespread, ticket-fixing is expected to infiltrate numerous unrelated cases in coming months.