Final Hearing Held Before Jordan Miles' Civil Case Goes To Trial
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The judge who will hear the federal lawsuit filed by Jordan Miles against three Pittsburgh Police officers made some rulings about what the jury will be told.
The final pretrial conference was held Monday morning. Some of the judge's decisions favored the plaintiff and others favored the defendant officers.
For example, lawyers for the three Pittsburgh police officers accused of using excessive force were able to convince the judge that the Facebook postings of Jordan Miles after his encounter with police can be used as evidence for the defendant officers to challenge his claims of mental and emotional distress since that confrontation.
And the defense will be able to show the jury their own two-minute reenactment of the encounter, but only to try to demonstrate the donkey kick they say Miles delivered just before he ended up bruised and beaten in the hospital.
Jordan Miles got something he wanted too – the ability to tell the jury about prior accusations against the three officers, Richard Ewing, Michael Saldutte and David Sisak, but only to rebut their claims of how they handled their encounter with Miles.
"Today we got in the prior bad acts for impeachment purposes," Kerrington Lewis, Miles' attorney, said. "That's very important to our case as to what went on before these men engaged Jordan. And we have a very important motion still pending and the judge's going to decide that – that's on the spoliation of the evidence which we hope that the judge rules on very soon."
Lewis is referring to the motion Miles filed earlier in the day on Monday, hoping to make sure the jury knows one of the officers testified he threw away the Mountain Dew bottle that may have been the basis for the officers' claim they thought Miles was carrying a weapon.
Jury selection in this case begins Monday, July 16.
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