Legal experts praise DA in Georgia
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The decision by Georgia district attorney Fredric D. Bright not to file rape charges against Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is receiving plaudits from legal scholars who agree he did not have a case that warranted prosecution.
"I think the sentiment is that Bright did a thoughtful job reviewing what he had in front of him and came out with a very sensible decision," said longtime University of Georgia law professor Ronald L. Carlson.
"I think the guy made a very reasoned and correct decision. That was my first reaction and that remains my reaction."
Al Lindsay, a defense attorney and law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, agreed: "There was no other decision to make, in my mind.
"I was quite impressed when [Mr. Bright] made his statement," said Mr. Lindsay, who read the case file that was published on the Post-Gazette's website. "Looking at this file, I think the decision was correct based on the evidence."
Still, retired Pittsburgh police Cmdr. Ronald Freeman, who headed the major crimes unit, said that had he been in charge of the investigation, he would have filed charges against Mr. Roethlisberger.
"I was shocked they didn't file charges. I listened to the entire press conference, and just based on that I felt he should have filed charges," said Mr. Freeman, who said most of what he knew of the evidence came from Mr. Bright's news conference Monday.
But Mr. Lindsay, a former federal and state prosecutor, said it was his conclusion Mr. Bright "would have been way out of bounds to prosecute."
He noted that to win a rape case, Mr. Bright would have had to prove both that Mr. Roethlisberger had sexual relations with the accuser and that the sex was by force. The reason not to seek prosecution, he said, "is he's stuck with [the accuser's] statements" that were at first unclear, because of her intoxication, about whether she had been raped.
First Published April 17, 2010 12:00 am
