MIAMI – A jury has reached a verdict in a case involving a man who was left bruised and bloodied after a rough arrest.
Edward Palad was in court for charges of battery on an officer and resisting without violence.
The jury, which deliberated on Tuesday, found Palad guilty of resisting arrest without violence and not guilty of felony battery on a police officer.
During the trial, the prosecutor leveraged her opening statement to remind jurors a law enforcement officer was the victim in the case.
The defendant, Palad, who in March was 20-years-old and intoxicated, police said, when he slapped a sergeant two times on his back before resisting arrest, they said.
Palad's defense attorney started his opening statement by showing the jury a photo of his client, face bloodied and on the floor, before letting jurors hear police body-worn camera footage capturing a rough takedown at Ninth Street and Ocean Drive.
The state said these injuries were the result of Palad resisting arrest, had he complied, police would not have needed to employ these tactics, so-called “distractionary strikes.”
State prosecutors struggled to prove to the jury the battery happened. Two officers brought in by prosecutors to testify against Palad said they never saw him slap the sergeant.
The state said you can hear Palad on the body camera footage confess to striking a sergeant.
As he took the stand, Palad seemed to suggest that wasn't a confession, but rather a statement of astonishment, that that was the reason police told him they roughed him up.
The jury reached their verdict Tuesday evening. Palad was found not guilty on the felony charge for battery on an officer and was found guilty for resisting without violence. The judge ordered him to pay the court costs as his sentence.