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Charges dropped because he was useful
The report
Less than a week after Skalnik's theft arrest, a 12-year-old girl went to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office with her parents to make a report. She was given a polygraph exam and passed, and two eyewitnesses had seen glimpses of the assault. Skalnik was never given a polygraph. He was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct on a child under 14, a felony with a possible sentence of 15 years.
Charge dismissed
The charge came at an inconvenient time, because he had promised to testify in more cases and prosecutors had seen how effective he was on the stand. All he had to tell jurors was that he was a former police officer with law enforcement in his blood and a little financial trouble. A child molestation charge would change that. The state attorney's office dismissed it.
The girl was made to feel that no one believed her. Even in her own family she was seen as a troublemaker, and she ran away from home and did not trust anyone for a long time.
Why he stayed in jail
On the theft charges, Skalnik pleaded no contest and received five years with credit for time served, instead of up to 15. Prosecutors asked that he stay in jail rather than go to prison, telling the court he could be in danger from men he had helped convict. In prison, the people around him were already convicted. In the jail, he was among men awaiting trial, where he could keep helping them build cases.
How much power do prosecutors have over charges?
In the American system, the decision to file, reduce, or dismiss charges belongs largely to the prosecutor. In Bordenkircher v. Hayes in 1978, the Supreme Court wrote that when probable cause exists, the decision whether to prosecute generally rests entirely in the prosecutor's discretion. Judges rarely second-guess these choices, and a crime victim has no legal power to force a prosecution.
Why are polygraph results rarely allowed in court?
A polygraph records heart rate, breathing, and skin conductance, and an examiner interprets the changes as signs of deception. Those signs can also come from nervousness, so the test cannot cleanly separate lying from stress. A 2003 report by the National Research Council found accuracy well above chance but well short of perfect. Courts have been wary since Frye v. United States in 1923, which involved a precursor to the polygraph and gave rise to the general-acceptance standard for scientific evidence.
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