Nothing mysterious, no evidence. Everyone figured his buddy would squeal to spare himself jail time. Nada. The 17-yo girl in question wouldn’t testify either. Also, she had since started an OF site and prosecution felt she would get torn up as a witness.
However, is this really the same as “no evidence”? -
The recommendation comes in part because prosecutors have questions over whether the central witnesses in the long-running investigation would be perceived as credible before a jury.
Sounds like they did have evidence, but it was more about the reaction of the jury to the witness for other reasons.
No objective evidence. It’s tough to build a case around key witnesses and testimonies that are easily assailable by the defense, especially ones that could play well to a jury.
It’s not fair, and this all very, very likely happened as the court documents allege. But proving it in a court of law is a whole different thing.
Prosecutors generally try not to take cases they’re not confident they can win. They’re underpaid and overworked and try and follow the 80/20 rule, which is that they can do more good prosecuting the 80% of cases that are slam dunks, than waste tax payer money chasing 20% of the cases that require just about “everything to go right” for them to come out on top.
It’s one of the many things flawed within our justice system right now that a DA won’t pursue this because the blowback of losing the case would end their career.
Nothing mysterious, no evidence. Everyone figured his buddy would squeal to spare himself jail time. Nada. The 17-yo girl in question wouldn’t testify either. Also, she had since started an OF site and prosecution felt she would get torn up as a witness.
After educating myself, agree - nothing mysterious.
However, is this really the same as “no evidence”? -
Sounds like they did have evidence, but it was more about the reaction of the jury to the witness for other reasons.
I had understood that the girl wouldn’t testify and the DA didn’t want that in any case?
No objective evidence. It’s tough to build a case around key witnesses and testimonies that are easily assailable by the defense, especially ones that could play well to a jury.
It’s not fair, and this all very, very likely happened as the court documents allege. But proving it in a court of law is a whole different thing.
Prosecutors generally try not to take cases they’re not confident they can win. They’re underpaid and overworked and try and follow the 80/20 rule, which is that they can do more good prosecuting the 80% of cases that are slam dunks, than waste tax payer money chasing 20% of the cases that require just about “everything to go right” for them to come out on top.
It’s one of the many things flawed within our justice system right now that a DA won’t pursue this because the blowback of losing the case would end their career.