From [HERE] Attorneys for police accused of beating Jordan Miles want two trials, not one, when the civil case stemming from the incident goes before a jury in a month. The jury should first decide whether city of Pittsburgh officers David Sisak, Michael Saldutte and Richard Ewing had reason to arrest Mr. Miles, then 18, in Homewood on a January night in 2010. Only if they find against the police should a second trial, focused on the damages, be held, wrote attorneys Bryan Campbell and Chris Conrad, who are defending the officers with help from the city Law Department, in one of a slew of motions filed Monday. "If the trial is not bifurcated," they wrote, the officers "will be unduly prejudiced because evidence of damages could improperly affect the jury's determination of liability."

The officers said they confronted Mr. Miles because he appeared to be "sneaking around" with a heavy object in his coat that they thought was a concealed weapon. When he was approached by the officers he ran away, but the officers soon caught up with him and beat him into submission by delivering violent blows that left his face swollen and distorted. Police also used a stun gun and pulled out a chunk of his hair. He is 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds and was unarmed (was he "unduly prejudiced?" -bw).