LA police cleared of conspiracy

Brian Liddy, one of the three officers accused

A Los Angeles judge has thrown out the convictions of three officers found guilty of corruption in a scandal which has rocked the city's police force.

Judge Jacqueline Connor said there was insufficient evidence to convict Brian Liddy, Edward Ortiz and Michael Buchanan, and that their trial had been unfair.

The defence has presented compelling arguments... that the defendants did not receive a fair trial

Judge Connor

A jury found the three guilty last month of obstructing justice and filing false reports. A fourth man, Paul Harper, was acquitted.

It was the first case to result from an investigation into officer corruption by the police department, whose reputation is still tarnished by the Rodney King affair.

The charges stemmed from three cases between March 1996 and April 1998, when the officers were members of a now-disbanded anti-gang unit in the city's Rampart police station.

Rodney King: Images of his beating shocked the world

In her ruling, Judge Connor said she could not respond to pressure on the courts to "fix the Rampart scandal".

"This court is only interested in evaluating the fairness of the proceedings and determining whether justice was done in this case," she said.

"The backdrop of the entire trial rested in the intense media coverage of the case and the larger issues of police corruption."

She added that jurors had probably been exposed to media coverage which had given the wrong impression that the key issue in the case was planting evidence - something she said was never alleged.

Disappointed prosecutors are now deciding their next step.

Million-dollar settlements

The so-called Rampart scandal came to light when a disgraced former officer, Rafael Perez, agreed to inform on his colleagues after he was caught trying to steal nearly $1m worth of cocaine from a police evidence locker.

In return for a lesser sentence, Mr Perez identified dozens of fellow officers who he claimed had abused their power by beating, robbing and even shooting innocent people.

Perez's former partner in the Los Angeles police department (LAPD), Nelo Durdan, is currently awaiting trial. He has been charged with attempted murder and armed robbery.

The LAPD is still reeling from the scandal

The prosecution claims he and Perez gunned down a 22-year-old youth, planted a gun on him and then lied in court to get him convicted.

Twenty other officers have left the force since the scandal broke and nearly 100 criminal cases have either been dropped or the convictions overturned because they were based on the evidence of policemen whose credibility is now under question.

The Los Angeles attorney's office has already agreed to pay $10.9m to settle cases connected to the scandal, and some estimate that the figure could cost the city $125m.

The LAPD has never fully recovered from the so-called Rodney King affair, when the vicious beating of a black man by four white officers was captured on video tape.