They went to trial for this, and it was determined that the man DID NOT assault a police officer. They tried repeatedly charging him with felony assault, were unable to get a grand jury to agree with charging him, and so instead charged him with a misdemeanor assault, whereupon he was found not guilty.
Do not continue repeating that this man assaulted a police officer. It was definitively determined that he did not.
He definitely did, though. That the jury opted not to convict him doesn't change that fact. It's the inverse of the fact that when a jury convicts an innocent person, the person still didn't actually do the crime.
For the record, I agree with the jury's verdict here, but there's no question he threw a sandwich at someone, and there's no question that is legally assault.
So, in the US, being convicted of a crime requires the state to convince a jury of your peers that you're guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That's what crime is. There isn't some magical nebulous state where "okay it's a crime even though you're not guilty". That's the point of the system, so we can't get people like you who try claiming he's a criminal even though he's been found not guilty. Because there's no way for him to prove his innocence to you, you've already decided he's guilty and already decided to ignore proof to the contrary.
What's not in doubt is that he threw a sandwich at the officer. But, and this is incredibly important, that WAS NOT assault.
So you're saying that juries never convict innocent people? I don't think that's supportable by the evidence.
> so we can't get people like you who try claiming he's a criminal even though he's been found not guilty.
I didn't claim that he's a criminal. I said he obviously performed the act. No need to get personal. As I said, I agree with the jury and if I were on the jury I would have voted "not guilty" as well.
You are found "not guilty" if the prosecution fails to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt during a trial . This can happen because the evidence was insufficient, improperly obtained, or the jury was not convinced by the evidence presented. A "not guilty" verdict is not the same as being found "innocent"; it simply means the state did not meet the legal burden of proof required for a conviction
What happened is they did not meet the burden of proof it was assault
> [...]
> For the record, I agree with the jury's verdict here, but there's no question he threw a sandwich at someone, and there's no question that is legally assault.
I think you're approaching this as though it's straightforward jury nullification, which (as a layperson) I don't think it is. No one disagrees that he threw the sandwich, but my understanding is that the assault charge requires the officer have "reasonable fear of immediate bodily harm". The defense's argument was that there's no reason to believe the officer was actually afraid.
It's "harm or offensive bodily contact". Fear of harm isn't required.
However, given then context the act took place in, I think a reasonable person in the cop's position would feel fear of bodily harm. He had no way of knowing what was being thrown at him, he would only know that an object was thrown. Even if he had time to recognize the object was sandwich-shaped and in a sandwich wrapper, he wouldn't know what the object really was.
It's not assault
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/assault
That said, this is exceptionally minor in nature, and the reason I would have decided with the majority of the jury is because the consequences that the guy already incurred as a result of his actions seem proportional to me. Additional legal consequences seem to me to be politically motivated overkill and so not acceptable.
> Assault is generally defined as an intentional act that puts another person in reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact
The latter part is what the jury and everyone disagreed about. There's no reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact from someone who is drunk, threw a sandwich at you, and ran away.