Found Not Guilty. I Don't Know If This Is Justice or A Swing Vote

Remember the Alabama judge, Herman Thomas, who was accused of being gay and making prisoners do something strange for a sentence change?

CNN -- A former Alabama judge accused of checking male inmates out of jail and forcing them to engage in sexual activity was found not guilty Monday on charges of sexual abuse, attempted sodomy and assault, his lawyer said. Attorney Robert Clark said former Judge Herman Thomas was found not guilty on several charges and the judge in the case granted a directed verdict of acquittal on all the other counts.

The Mobile County district attorney did not immediately return CNN calls for comment. Thomas, 48, denied wrongdoing. Clark said on October 20 that the judge was trying to mentor the inmates and did not assault them. The judge does not deny bringing the inmates into his office, Clark said last week. “He was mentoring them. He was trying to get them to do right, to be productive citizens.”

Thomas cried after the verdicts were read, Clark said Monday. “He hugged me and he hugged his wife. And he had a courtroom full of supporters. It all worked out in the end,” the attorney said. One of the alleged victims testified October 19 that he doesn’t know why his semen was found on the carpet of a small room used as an office by Thomas, according to The Mobile Press-Register newspaper. But he did say Thomas spanked him with a belt on several occasions, the newspaper reported, and that the paddling took place inside a jury room, in the small office and at a Mobile, Alabama, fraternity house.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/26/alabama.judge