Patterico's Pontifications

12/16/2015

Mistrial Declared in Trial of First Baltimore Officer

Filed under: General — JVW @ 4:01 pm



[guest post by JVW]

The jury has apparently stalled into a deadlock in considering charges against, Officer William Porter, the first Baltimore Police Department Officer to face trial in last spring’s death of Freddie Gray while Gray in custody and being transported to jail. The jury was considering four separate counts against Porter: manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office. Tensions in Baltimore — where protestors rioted in the wake of Gray’s death back in April — are said to be on edge, despite the Gray family and its attorneys asking the mob for calm.

Baltimore District Attorney and part-time glamor queen Marilyn Mosby has been criticized for caving into the BLM agitators and over-charging the officers. From the beginning, wiser heads have suggested that she would have a hard time securing a conviction in a court of law rather than a court of public opinion. At this point it is up to DA Mosby and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to keep order in the midst of a frenzy they have helped to whip up. Here’s hoping they are up to the task. Meanwhile, the citizens of Baltimore can pay for a retrial, perhaps knowing that they are far less likely to reach a satisfactory result.

– JVW

28 Responses to “Mistrial Declared in Trial of First Baltimore Officer”

  1. It’s been about six hours since the mistrial was declared, it’s now past dark in Baltimore, but fortunately it appears that so far there have not been any — what is it that Maxine Waters calls them? — “uprisings” just yet.

    JVW (aa050c)

  2. Oh, and I forget to mention it, but Officer William Porter was one of the black officers involved in the Freddy Gray arrest and death. I wonder if it is coincidental that he was tried first.

    JVW (aa050c)

  3. Just wait until Deray and his rabble rousers get there.

    JD (34f761)

  4. I would’ve loved to be a fly on the wall in Moseby’s office when word of this went down. She must be freaking out.

    Lesson of the day: wait until the police concludes its investigation before charging the offenders. Seems like an obvious lesson, but Moseby is dumber than a bag of rocks.

    tops116 (d094f8)

  5. Just wait until Deray and his rabble rousers get there.

    I advise everybody to avoid Twitter. The achingly stupid are all tweeting out half-baked and ignorant opinions fed to them by the crybully brigades.

    I also recognize that I probably just enticed the more masochistic of you to pop over and see for yourselves. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

    JVW (aa050c)

  6. The primary reason so few cops are prosecuted in the first place is that the cops are the ones who build the cases for the prosecutor. Without police cooperation, all the prosecutor has is speculation and argument.

    Now, I happen to believe that the cops played handball inside that steel squadrol (that’s the non-Irish-offending term for paddy wagon), and Freddie Gray was the ball, but just try proving it beyond a reasonable doubt, when all the witnesses are also the accused and the evidence techs are their buddies.

    nk (dbc370)

  7. Did anybody follow the details released during the trial? For example, there was scuttlebutt back and forth about whether Gray had recently had neck surgery or not.

    Brings to mind my overly referred to story about being on a Philly jury. I bet no matter what the testimony, you would have a hard time getting a unanimous verdict either way. People have their biases that they are not honest about. I bet it is hard to find 12 people who will all honestly realize and admit their biases in regards to police testimony just to begin with.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  8. JVW – I just lost a significant portion of my remaining braincells reading Deray the professional agitator’s timeline.

    JD (34f761)

  9. let them know it’s christmastime and

    happyfeet (831175)

  10. Did anybody follow the details released during the trial? For example, there was scuttlebutt back and forth about whether Gray had recently had neck surgery or not.

    It sound too as though the prosecution may have withheld some evidence from the defense attorneys as well as trying to dissuade police from investigating certain aspects of the case, so there probably aren’t any good faith on either side.

    And yep, JD, reading halfwits on Twitter certainly doesn’t do anything to cure my latent (perhaps blatant) misanthropy.

    JVW (aa050c)

  11. Deray could only yearn to be a halfwit.

    JD (34f761)

  12. Porter can’t be pressured to testilie in later cases by offers of leniency in sentencing.

    Richard Aubrey (472a6f)

  13. ‘my god it’s full of fail’ full kirk lazarus,

    narciso (732bc0)

  14. civil rights lol

    this is america

    happyfeet (831175)

  15. Where was the “over charging”? There were no degree of homicide/murder charges, unless manslaughter is considered a 4th degree charge.
    btw: how long before the SJW howls about the
    term ‘manslaughter’

    seeRpea (52281f)

  16. Where was the “over charging”?

    seeRpea, a quote from the early post by Dana linked to above under “has been criticized“:

    In fact, Ms. Mosby was so hasty it appears she locked up two completely innocent officers. She charged Freddie Gray’s arresting officers with “false imprisonment” because she said the knife that Gray had on him was legal. In fact, as The Sun reported, the Police Task Force found it to be illegal after all. It was Ms. Mosby who had no probable cause to lock the arresting officers up, an injustice she could have easily avoided by taking her time.

    I apologize though if I left anyone with the impression that I was referring specifically to Officer Porter with the overcharging remark. It’s more a general observation that she is botching up this case all around.

    JVW (d60453)

  17. The criminal recklessness required for manslaughter is orders of magnitude greater than failing to fasten a prisoner’s seat belt even if the officer knew he was going to be driving over a bumpy road. I did not follow the trial, though, so I guess there was more than that for the judge to submit the charge to the jury. And if the judge submitted the charge to the jury, it means the state had a prima facie case, and that means there was no overcharging.

    nk (dbc370)

  18. there were more issues than a life magazine subscription,

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/politics/freddie-gray-baltimore-knife-marilyn-mosby-prosecution/index.html

    maybe the prosecutions failures are deliberate, to make certain subset in the community, lose any confidence they might have in the system,

    narciso (732bc0)

  19. Seat belts in a paddy wagon?
    Are you kidding me.

    mg (31009b)

  20. re #19: you remember Life magazine???

    re #20: as JVW “self corrected”, the actual charges brought against Office Porter were not whacky.
    Going back to the days after seems a bit unfair to the DA to me.

    seeRpea (52281f)

  21. the process was, well you need to resort to another language, to fully capture it, if they amended them since then I apologize,

    narciso (732bc0)

  22. the process was horrific, but it did seem that when the adults entered the room that the rules started getting followed.
    btw: got a call from a friend in Baltimore tonight, if any mobbing is going on it is very localized.

    seeRpea (52281f)

  23. some time later, from another blog we’re familiar with,

    http://commonsensewonder.blogspot.com/2015/08/baltimore-prosecutors-withheld-evidence.html

    narciso (732bc0)

  24. Mosby is in a hole she dug herself. Kiss that AG job goodbye, babe.

    mojo (a3d457)

  25. Andrew Branca gave a pretty good “blow by blow” of the trial over at Legal Insurrection as well as some interesting analysis during the investigative phase of the case.

    legalinsurrection.com will get you there, or google. The latest post should be pretty close to the top of the pile.

    Gramps (c50fca)

  26. Thanks, Gramps

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)


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