On August 15, a jury acquitted a British police officer of dereliction of duty (I think) after he convinced them he had in fact been "on duty" while he was having sex in a room at the police station at Gatwick Airport.
The officer faced criminal charges when the incident was discovered, although the report did not say precisely what he was charged with. (His partner does not seem to have been charged with anything, and it is not clear whether (s)he was also a police officer, although the two apparently met via "uniformdating.com.") At his trial, he argued to the jury that he had not been ignoring his duty since he was equipped at all relevant times with an earpiece tuned to the police radio frequency.
"If there [had been] a call for me," he testified, "I would have answered it and I would have dealt with it."
That seems awfully unlikely, but according to the report "the jury quickly came to a unanimous verdict" of acquittal. Of course that was almost certainly because the jurors thought this was a victimless crime (if it was a crime at all), not because they believed that goofy story. The officer's lawyer conceded that his client had "misbehaved," but said "[t]his is a criminal court, not a moral court. It's doubtful this case would have been brought if he had taken an extended lunch break or gone for a game of golf." Hey, as long as you've got your earpiece in, no problem.
Link: Yahoo! News
