You didn’t read the article. The jury sided with the father. Mama shouldn’t have tried to stick it to him through her new policeman husband. Policeman husband should have been on the carpet and investigated for his role in this fiasco. Everyone lost, especially the daughter. The bratty apple doesn’t fall far from the vendictive mama tree.
This. Perhaps a civil suit for abuse of power is in order.
Did you read the article? Actually the jury was directed by the judge to find him not guilty based on the judge's opinion that there was not enough evidence to find him guilty of theft. Therefore the jury didn't side with anybody but the judge.
The question should have actually been pretty simple. Can ownership of the object in question be established (e.g. who paid for the object? and pays for the bill for the object's usage? etc.) If the object clearly belonged to someone else, and he took it, and he refuses to return it, a theft charge should be pretty clear.
Some on this thread seem to think cocaine and cell phones are interchangeable in regards to questions of ownership and parental authority; that notion seems a bit odd to me.