Visual evidence again proved to be an unrelenting witness to the truth in the trial of former Judge and District Attorney W. Michael Ryan in Northampton Mass. Ryan was accused of assault and battery on a police officer as well as disorderly conduct for reaching to take back his wallet after a pat frisk.
Reviewing the video and stills, a jury promptly returned a verdict of innocent on all charges. The video, produced by the mobile video recorder in a Northampton police vehicle, showed a gentleman reaching for his wallet rather than attempting violence. Parsing the movement with a number of still frames, it should have been amply clear that a reach is not a slap.
The video came into question because normally mobile video recorders have audio that preserves the verbal exchanges of officers with citizens, but this video did not. Somehow, the officers responsible “forgot” to unmute the mic, although the detained judge was advised that he was being “audio and video-recorded.” The spectre of spoliation of evidence is raised if there should have been audio and somehow no audio was recorded on the copy given to defense.
In spite of the question of what the audio might have revealed, there were at least four critical points that tended toward the exoneration of the accused, among them subtle movements discerned only after forensic analysis. When everything was put before the jury, vision led to vindication.
