Defendant (a lawyer) charged with 1st degree rape. In spring 2002, a former client of PJA claimed that she had been raped repeatedly during the course of their attorney-client relationship. These accusations spurred an overzealous police detective to conduct a well publicized series of investigations into PJA's personal sex life. The "investigations" - all classic cases of shoddy police work - culminated in a media frenzy and three separate rape cases being filed against PJA. The second case filed was the first to be tried - alleging the 1st degree rape of a woman who claimed to be in an attorney-client relationship with PJA when she was made pregnant "without her knowledge and against her consent" in 1996. After forcing the charges down to 2nd degree rape, Mr. Pierce tried the case to a jury for four days. By vigorous cross-examination of the complaining witness, using her own medical records and her prior testimony to attack her credibility, Mr. Pierce won an acquittal for PJA in less than two hours of jury deliberation. The remaining cases were dismissed.