As soon as it was discovered that another person, who’s appearance was not that dissimilar, who had been accused of nearly the exact same crime on the exact same premises two weeks earlier, and was in the exact location where the assault took place exactly when it happened, within arms reach of the complainant, and who could not be definitively ruled out as the perpetrator by indisputable video evidence, and the police knew about that suspect but did not fully investigate the possibility that he was the one who actually committed the alleged crime, THEN the case was only ever going to end with not guilty verdicts.
This epitomizes the very idea of reasonable doubt. A trial like this could serve as an exemplar in criminal law classes to illustrate the concept.
That the district attorneys office there pushed ahead despite this likely insurmountable flaw in their case and seemed to formulate no strategy to rectify this issue with the jurors is really a damning indictment of their basic competency.
When you’re a prosecutor, sometimes you have to deal with potentially fatal weaknesses and problems with your evidence. Not every prosecution is served up on a platter. But the key is (1) you had better have a bona fide good faith basis to believe the defendant is genuinely guilty and that you can prove that, and (2) you had better have a PLAN. You don’t just dump your witnesses on the jurors and watch helplessly while the defense shoots your theory full of holes—by pointing out contradictions and exculpatory evidence that you knew existed!!!
This whole thing reeks of professional malpractice. It’s a disgrace to the profession.
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