On September 12, 2002 the "Riders" trial, which is putting three former Oakland police officers on trial after being fired and later charged with 26 felony and misdemeanor charges, began. The former police officers are being accused of beating and framing some suspected drug dealers. The 26 counts against them include conspiracy, planting evidence, kidnaping, obstruction of justice, filing false police report, and abusing suspects that occurred during a two week period in the summer of 2000. A rookie police officer, Keith Batt, went to his supervisors when he was formerly working for the Oakland Police Department and told them about this alleged abuse. He claimed that the officers used "stop and grab" tactics and that they would take random suspects off the street, handcuff them, and put them in the patrol car before they would question them about their activities. Jude Siapno, Clarence "Chuck" Mabanag and Matthew Hornung have been waiting to hear the juries verdict since May 29. The jury however has reached a verdict on four counts but cannot reach a unanimous vote on the remaining 22 counts. The two sides have opposing views on what action should be taken at this point.
The attorney for Jude Siapno, one of the accused police officers, and the other lawyers are now urging the judge to accept the verdicts that have been reached and declare a mistrial on the remaining charges. One of their arguments for justifying this is that they think enough time has been taken out of the lives of the jurors for this case. One of the defense lawyers said in his opening statement that the police officers were inappropriate, even uncivilized and guilty of bad appearance and vulgar language but that they are innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. Mike Rains, the lawyer for Clarence "Chuck" Mabanag, claimed that the officers were just overworked cops who were under a tough mandate to reduce the level of drug crime on the streets.