Different experiences of the justice system, so to speak, may certainly be a factor. I've just done a translation in a court case - which I might write a separate article about, in which one (admittedly fairly irrelevant) part of the evidence given by all 3 police officers, who claimed they had to frisk the detainee to get his ID card, as he refused to hand it over, was acknowledged by the judge to be untrue, as there was camera evidence from his phone showing him refuse several times, but then hand it over, with no frisking involved.

The judge just says 'well, maybe they frisked him after the recording', despite this being inconsistent with their evidence in court (if they already had his ID, 'we frisked him to get his ID' must be untrue, whenever it happened).

Now, if it's been proven that they lied about one thing, how much else may they have concocted? The defendant has an apparently North African/Middle Eastern name, and I can't help but suspect this may have been a factor in the judge just giving the benefit of the doubt to the cops. Perhaps having read that ABC article in his lunch hour.