Source

Lt. Brian Rice, 42, faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office in the death of the 25-year-old Gray, who died last April from injuries suffered while being transported in a police van.

To date, two officers involved with the arrest and transportation of Gray—Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson Jr.—have been acquitted of all charges in the case. Officer William Porter’s trial ended in a hung jury and he is scheduled to be tried again in September.

Nero and Goodson each sought bench trials, with Baltimore City Circuit Judge Barry Williams determining their fate, as has Rice.

Officer Garrett Miller is scheduled for trial at the end of this month. Sgt. Alicia White is scheduled for trial in October.

At issue in Rice’s case—and in each of the trials thus far—was the failure to properly secure Gray in the back of the police transport van while in custody. Defense attorneys in the other cases have argued that the officers did not receive proper training in the securing of the detainees, and that they hadn’t been aware of new departmental guidelines requiring the seatbelting of all detainees. Defense attorneys have also argued that officers are allowed to use their discretion in seatbelting detainees who may be considered a physical threat.

Prosecutors had hoped to introduce some 4,000 pages of documents—evidence related to Rice’s training, according to The Baltimore Sun—into court, but were denied this week by Williams. The judge ruled that the prosecutors had sought and turned over the documents to Rice’s lawyers too late in the process.

Rice was one of three Baltimore bicycle patrol officers who chased and detained Gray at the Gilmor Homes public housing complex in West Baltimore early Sunday morning on April 12, 2015. He was also one of the officers who first placed Gray into the back of the police transport van.

As the highest-ranking officer on duty that day at the Western District police station, Rice had authority over the officers on the scene, prosecutors argued in their opening statement. Legal observers largely agree, however, that prosecutors face an uphill battle in the Rice trial, particularly given their failure to earn a conviction on any charges against Goodson, the van driver, who had direct custody of Gray after he was placed in the transport vehicle.

Nonetheless, University of Baltimore law professor David Jaros noted that the public still has yet to hear the statement Rice gave investigators after Gray’s fatal arrest and ride.

“Because we don’t know his statement, we don’t know if there’s different support for some of the key elements that we couldn’t find in the prior trials,” Jaros told the Sun. “We also have a slightly different set of circumstances.”

It still remains unclear why Gray was arrested and ultimately placed into the back of the van—other than that he’d initially run from police in a so-called high crime area after allegedly making eye contact with an officer. Gray was eventually found to have a small knife in his possession, but whether the knife was legal or illegal in Baltimore City hasn’t been an issue in court.

Allegations of police brutality have received renewed attention this week in the wake of deadly and controversial police shootings of citizens in Louisiana and Minnesota that were captured on video.

Some have questioned City State’s Attorney General Marilyn Mosby for going forward with charges against the remaining officers in lieu of any convictions thus far. But University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law professor Douglas Colbert said after Goodson’s acquittal that, if nothing else, the public is learning how criminal, policing, and judicial systems function in the city.

“It’s like two totally different judicial systems, and I’m talking about white folks, in upscale neighborhoods, who generally have positive interactions with police,” Colbert said. “I think it’s important for them to see how different the interactions of people of color with law enforcement often are.”

Source

Source

Baltimore police officer Edward Nero was acquitted Monday morning of all four charges he faced related to the arrest of Freddie Gray, who died of spinal cord injuries suffered while in police custody last April.

Nero had pled not guilty to assault, reckless endangerment, and two counts of misconduct in office. He had opted for a bench trial instead of a jury trial and Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams announced his ruling at 10:35 a.m. this morning in a packed courtroom after closing arguments concluded last week. A small group of activists gathered outside the downtown courthouse to protest the decision.

Prosecutors had alleged that the 30-year-old officer arrested Gray without probable cause, thereby committing second-degree assault. They also accused Nero of negligence when he failed to seatbelt Gray after helping to load him into the back of a transport van. Defense attorneys for Nero, as well as those for Officer William Porter, whose previous case related to Gray’s arrest and death ended in a hung jury, argued that ultimate responsibility for buckling detainees rests with the transport van driver.

The second-degree assault charge had carried a maximum of 10 years in prison while the reckless endangerment charge carried a five-year maximum term.

Rep. Elijah Cummings held a press availability Friday to urge Baltimore residents to respect the outcome of the trial regardless of the verdict. “The future of our community will not be defined at the moment of the verdict, but in the days and years that will follow,” Cummings said.

Gray, who was handcuffed and eventually shackled at his legs—but never buckled into a transport van seat per police guidelines—died a week after he was found unresponsive in the back of the police van after its arrival at the Western District station. Protests erupted not long afterward, and looting, rioting and arson broke out on the night of his funeral, prompting a citywide curfew.

Baltimore Deputy State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe described Gray’s arrest as unjustified in her closing argument Thursday. Defense attorneys said Nero and Officer Garrett Miller, who were both on bicycles when they stopped Gray on the morning of April 12, 2015, had a legitimate cause to initially detain Gray because he’d run from police in a high-crime area.

Williams said in reading his verdict that Nero had essentially acted in a manner that “a reasonable officer” could be expected to act during his relatively minor role in Gray’s arrest and transport—as testified by Miller, eyewitness Brandon Ross, and presented in available video. Williams also said the state failed to document that Nero had received proper police training in the transportation of detainees, or that he’d opened and read a mass departmental email sent to his account three days before Gray’s arrest, which explained that seatbelting detainees was a requirement.

Baltimore defense attorneys and legal analysts following the trial were not surprised by Nero’s acquittal.

“The decision is what I expected. The state took a risk in bringing these charges [against Nero]. Some would say unreasonable risk,” attorney J. Wyndal Gordon said outside the courthouse afterward. ‘This case was kind of dead in the water from the very beginning. The evidence wasn’t there.”

Gordon said if the prosecution could not overcome defense arguments in the Nero case—essentially that he acted reasonably given his training and police department practice—they were unlikely to win convictions against other officers facing similar charges. “There is a slim, nominal, sliver of hope for prosecutors with [Officer] Caesar Goodson, the driver of the van, who [police experts have testified] basically bore the duty for securing Freddie Gray.”

As far as police leadership accountability, Gordon pointed to the $6 million city civil settlement with Gray’s family. “As far as holding police leadership criminally responsible, I don’t see it.”

Tessa Hill-Aston, Baltimore chapter president of the NAACP, noted the difficulty for Gray’s family in going through six separate trials. She indicated frustration that officers assigned to minority neighborhoods—”who are chasing and arresting black men and probably don’t want to be there in first place”—haven’t received proper training, according to the department’s own testimony. She also indicated frustration that the responsibility for the failure to properly seatbelt Gray has been passed from one officer to the next thus far at the two trials.

“Police rules have at least changed for the better since [Gray’s death]—I’ve read them.” Hill-Aston said. “In the future, no officer will be able to claim it was someone else’s responsibility—a superior officer or the driver. It is everyone’s responsibility now.” She added that she retains some optimism that at least one of the six officers will eventually be held criminally responsible in Gray’s death. “I have hope. I have to.”

Longtime Baltimore defense attorney Warren Brown believes Judge Barry Williams will subsequently recuse himself from Officer Garrett Miller’s upcoming trial—since Miller testified at Nero’s trial—and most likely from the other trials as well, which could cause further delays. “Legally, he’s not required, but after serving as trier of fact in this case, I think he will,” Williams said. “I also think he must be getting tired of all these trials.”

Warren Alper­stein, a Baltimore defense attorney whose clients include police officers in civil and criminal cases, told The Washington Post that a guilty verdict in Nero’s case could have a “dramatic chilling effect on Baltimore police officers, who would be reluctant to conduct a lawful stop and detention for fear that if they make a mistake they will be prosecuted despite acting in good faith.”

Before the Nero trial, University of Maryland law professor Douglas Colbert said he believed that “the prosecution is sending a message there have been far too many arrests in Baltimore that have occurred without probable cause.” Afterward, Colbert said that while Nero certainly is relieved to be able to go back to living a normal life, other police officers will be more careful to arrest people only when they have probable cause, to interrogate individuals before they are handcuffed, and provide people the protection when arrested that they need.

Nero was the second of six officers to stand trial in the case. Officer William Porter’s manslaughter trial ended in December with a hung jury. He is scheduled to be tried again in September.

Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., the transport van driver, faces the most serious charge—second-degree depraved heart murder—and his trial is scheduled to begin next, on June 6.

Officer Garrett Miller, who faces similar allegations as Nero, and Lt. Brian Rice, who faces a manslaughter charge, are scheduled to go to trial in July. Sgt. Alicia White, a supervisor who arrived on the scene of Gray’s arrest and transportation, also faces manslaughter charges, among other allegations. Her trial is scheduled for October.

All the officers have pleaded not guilty.

Source

Officer William Porter, whose trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office ended in a hung jury on all four counts last week, will be retried June 13.

The trial date for State of Maryland v. Caesar Goodson Jr.—the second of six officers facing charges related to the death of Gray last April from injuries suffered while in police custody—remains January 6.

Goodson, the driver of the police transport van where the 25-year-old Gray suffered ultimately fatal spinal cord injuries, according to the state medical examiner’s office, faces the most serious charges in the case, including second-degree depraved heart murder.

The new trial date for Porter was selected at a scheduling conference held in Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams’ chambers Monday with the attorneys for the case, according to a press release from the state court system. The June trial date will be formalized and approved at a brief administrative court hearing Tuesday, which Porter is not expected to attend. At the end of his first trial, Porter was advised of his right to appear in administrative court and has since waived his right to appear, according to Maryland courts communications staff.

According to a 2002 study by the National Center for State Courts, roughly 6 percent of state cases taken to jury trial end up in a “hung jury,” a slightly larger percentage than in federal court. Researchers in that study found that the level of complexity in a case, the ambiguity of evidence, police credibility, and defendant believability—all issues in the Porter trial—increase the likelihood of a jury being unable to reach a verdict.

Protests after last week’s declaration of a mistrial in Porter’s case around the courthouse and City Hall were peaceful.

Coming trials in the Freddie Gray case include that of Sgt. Alicia White, also charged with involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. Her trial is set for January 25.

Prosecutors have said they wanted to try Porter first because he was a material witness in their cases against Goodson and White. It’s not clear how the rescheduling of Porter’s trial until June—after the trials of all the other officers now—will affect the prosecutions strategy going forward.

Each officer has pled not guilty to all of the charges filed against them.

Lt. Brian Rice also faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. His trial is set for March 9.

Officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero are each charged with second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment. Miller’s trial is set for February 9; Nero’s trial for February 22.

*This story will be updated

Source

Source

Judge Barry Williams ruled against motions put forth by attorneys for Baltimore City police sergeant Alicia White and officer William Porter, concluding their statements were legally obtained by internal oversight investigators after White and Porter signed Miranda and state Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights waivers.

In announcing his decision, Williams said prosecutors had met the burden of proof that White and Porter—whose interviews with police internal oversight detectives were videotaped and briefly shown in court—had been made voluntarily and were not coerced by investigators.

“She had the opportunity to say, ‘No,’ to say she didn’t want to give any statements,” Williams said, referring to White.

“The interview was not done with undue influence,” Williams said in denying Porter’s motion to suppress his statements to police investigating Gray’s death from spinal cord injuries suffered while in custody.

Williams also canceled a pre-trial motion hearing set for Wednesday morning and placed a gag order on attorneys for the remainder of trials, banning prosecutors and defense lawyers from discussing the cases with the media and anyone beyond their legal teams. Among other leaks in the case to date, The Baltimore Sun obtained a copy of the autopsy report.

Prosecutors from the city state’s attorney office allege that Gray asked police officers for medical attention, but that he did not receive care until he was found unresponsive upon reaching the police station after multiple stops. Prosecutors have also said—as did then police commissioner Anthony Batts earlier this year—that Gray was not secured and seat-belted in the police van, contrary to department policy.

Motions to suppress statements by three other officers charged were withdrawn by their defense attorneys Tuesday morning.

The sixth defendant, officer Caesar Goodson Jr., who faces the most serious charge, second-degree depraved heart murder, had refused to give a statement to police investigators. Goodson was the driver of the transport van in which Gray suffered his fatal spinal injury.

All the officers facing criminal charges, White, Porter, and Goodson, as well as Lt. Brian Rice and officers Edward Nero and Garrett Miller, appeared in court Tuesday, sitting together.

Baltimore city state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby, who announced the charges against the police officers in a high-profile press conference last spring, was also present in the courtroom. However, Mosby sat a row behind chief deputy state’s attorney Michael Schatzow and deputy state’s attorney Janice Bledsoe, who handled the prosecution’s efforts in front of Williams.

Porter’s trial is scheduled first, for Nov. 30, and his statement—allegedly confirming that Gray asked for medical care, according to reporting by The Baltimore Sun—is considered critical to prosecutors’ cases against other officers. Porter is charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and second-degree assault, as is Rice.

White, as well as officers Nero and Miller, is charged with second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office.

Goodson’s trial is set for Jan. 6 and White for Jan. 25, with the other trials scheduled for February and March. The six officers, all free on bail, have pleaded not guilty to every charge.

Source