By Rich Lord / Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette
The defense zoomed in on broken
twigs, a discarded Bluetooth. The plaintiffs displayed a bloated face and alleged
a battered Constitution.
With that, the attorneys for
the two sides in the civil trial pitting Jordan Miles against three police
officers made their final arguments to the jury Thursday. Deliberations begin
today in a case that has come to symbolize differing perceptions on
police-community relations.
Mr. Miles' attorney, Joel
Sansone, portrayed his client's arrest on Jan. 12, 2010, as a "jump
out" conducted by three undercover Pittsburgh officers who wanted to get
the element of surprise on someone they thought might be a drug dealer, and who
then delivered "frontier justice."
Mr. Sansone urged that the jury
"send a message to the police. ... They must understand that we the people
won't suffer this."
The officers' attorneys said
the physical evidence proved "overwhelmingly" that the officers were
telling the truth, and Mr. Miles was making things up.
Attorney Bryan Campbell,
representing Officer Michael Saldutte, said a story Mr. Miles made up to
explain his arrest to his mother and grandmother "took on a life of its
own. ... All of a sudden this community rallies," and Mr. Miles can't back
down.
As U.S. District Judge David
Cercone explained to the jury, the case rests on whether a reasonable police
officer, confronted with the circumstances the defendants met that night, would
have probable cause to arrest Mr. Miles, and would have used similar force to
achieve that.
If the answer is no, then Mr.
Miles' Fourth Amendment rights have been violated. The jury can then award him
nominal damages of $1 or compensatory damages based on his suffering, and
potentially punitive damages if the officers acted "maliciously or
wantonly."
The officers had "every
right to stop [Mr. Miles]," said attorney James Wymard, representing
Officer David Sisak. "Eleven o'clock, dark out, hiding beside the house.
What do you want them to do? Keep driving? Go get coffee and doughnuts?"
"If they said they were
police, what would be Jordan's reason for running?" countered Mr. Sansone.
"They wanted to surprise him, and when they did so, he ran."
Attorneys for both sides
accused the opposing party of lying about the particulars of the arrest, and
then making up stories and possibly tampering with or destroying evidence, like
the Mountain Dew bottle and gun clip reportedly found on the scene.
Mr. Wymard pointed out that the
officers, and not the plaintiff, have said that Officer Sisak tackled Mr. Miles
through bushes. That coincides with a broken hedgerow and the twigs embedded in
Mr. Miles' mouth, he said.
And while Mr. Miles claimed he
was holding a cell phone during the incident, his mother's Bluetooth wireless
device was found in the snow on the scene, noted attorney Robert Leight,
representing Officer Ewing. That would support the officers' account that he
had his hands in his pockets.
The only neighbor who heard
anything was a woman who testified that someone yelled "help" three times,
said Mr. Sansone. That, he said, corroborated Mr. Miles' contention that he was
beset by an attack he did not comprehend.
"And the kid had the
temerity to try to get away [so] they exacted a little bit of frontier
justice," said the plaintiff's attorney.
Mr. Sansone built much of his
argument on evidence he found conspicuously absent: Signs of injuries to the
officers, and Officer Sisak's lost flashlight.
He mocked the officers' claims
that they were in "the fight of their lives" with Mr. Miles.
"Suddenly, this night,
[Mr. Miles] becomes a ninja," Mr. Sansone said. "And the biggest
injury any of them got was a little dime-sized hole" in the skin of
Officer Sisak's knee.
Based on a transport officer's
testimony that all three of the defendants searched the area with flashlights,
Mr. Sansone implied that Officer Sisak reported his flashlight lost to prevent
anyone from testing it for DNA. The plaintiff claimed he was struck by a hard
object, possibly a flashlight, after he was handcuffed -- a claim the officers
vehemently denied.
The defense contended that Mr.
Miles' medical treatment was driven mostly by his mother and his attorneys,
questioning the plaintiff's contention that he still suffers from
post-concussion syndrome.
Mr. Sansone wasn't shy about seeking
damages.
"How do you value the
suffering and the humiliation he will revisit every day of his life?" the
plaintiff's attorney asked. He cited Penguins captain Sidney Crosby's salary.
He pointed out that a Stradivarius violin once sold for $16 million, then in a
nod to the plaintiff's viola playing past, added, "Jordan's violin is
silent."
The closings followed 10 days
of testimony on the three-minute incident, which was also the subject of a
trial in 2012. That jury found in favor of the officers on a malicious
prosecution count, but could not reach unanimity on the false arrest and
excessive force counts.
Mr. Leight, who also
represented Officer Ewing at the first trial, called the sequel the most
hard-fought trial he'd had.
"This has been a very spirited
and contentious trial," Mr. Leight said, "and you've seen the very
best that a lawyer can be and the very worst that a lawyer can be."
