If he doesn't take the stand I think there's a decent chance he gets some sympathy.
If he does take the stand I give the jury about 10 minutes until they are throwing rotten vegetables at him, followed shortly by the city of Milwaukee reinstituting the pillory.
They're going to rape him either way. It's kind of up to them to prove their responses were justified, at least if Fatty manages to show any of their responses, when taken out of context, look unreasonable. So you can bet his lengthy history of things like threatening to murder his estranged wife and unborn child are going to be brought up, him describing himself as a violent drunk with guns, video of him assaulting a female police officer, etc. Sure, that weak bitchslap didn't connect and turn it into an actual battery, but that's still illegal.
If anything, they let this squealing pig off easily. If the jury is of a normal racial composition for the area, they'll take one look at the video of him acting like a complete asshole, his tiny faucet dick in the breeze, and they'll personally know someone who got their ass kicked for way less.
Since it's the cops themselves calling for a jury trial, they probably know exactly how unlikeable Man of Pig is and are going to take advantage of that, plus it will drive up the costs and if they get a fee award, he'll be utterly fucked. A federal court jury trial is not cheap.
Frankly, I think the trial court was wrong and the defendants put on a strong QI showing, and if I were running it, I'd take the immediate appeal they're entitled to as a matter of law under the collateral order doctrine, since it's an immunity argument. I'm not sure they can't still do that, but they can probably raise it again at any stage in the proceedings where it comes up again, such as during or after discovery as part of a summary judgment motion.
Anyway, if they don't take an appeal (which would necessarily stay the proceedings with a QI argument), next step is scheduling, some kind of meet and confer, exchanging discovery materials, starting with the mandatory disclosures under
FRCP 26, documents, depositions, electronic records, etc., interrogatories, and presumably their own requests for admission if they haven't sent those yet.
Too bad we won't see most of that because there's going to be a lot of it and it's going to be hilarious. You know the cops know they've been dealing with a raving wacko lunatic, so they've probably kept very, very meticulous records precisely for the eventuality that Fatty ultimately would do what he's done.
