Baltimore
The move came in a hearing that was supposed to mark the beginning of the trial against Officer Garrett Miller, the fifth officer to be tried in the case. Prosecutor Michael Schatzow told Judge Barry G. Williams that the state would dismiss all charges against Miller, as well as Sgt. Alicia White and Officer William Porter, who were set to be tried in the coming months.
Prosecutors charged six officers in Gray’s arrest and death. Three recently were acquitted on all charges following bench trials. Porter’s case in December ended in a hung jury.
A defiant Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore state’s attorney, held a news conference after the Wednesday hearing near the site of Gray’s arrest, saying the decision to end the prosecution was “agonizing.” She said it was clear that the government could not win a conviction and that “the judge has made it clear he does not agree with the state’s case.”
She did not back down from her decision to charge the officers, based on an independent investigation conducted by her office, not the city police.
“We do not believe Freddie Gray killed himself,” Mosby said, as some in the crowd cheered.
The top prosecutor, who previously has been under a gag order, also was critical of the police. She made accusations of abnormalities in the investigation of Gray’s death, saying there were individual officers who were witnesses and also were part of the investigation. She said lead detectives were “uncooperative” and that search warrants were not executed. Mosby also said officers created videos to “disprove the state’s case.”
But defense attorneys countered there was a rush by Mosby’s office to charge before a proper investigation was completed. Ivan Bates, an attorney for White, called the prosecution of the six officers a “nightmare.”
“When you quickly want to automatically say that these officers are guilty because they’re the police, then you perpetrate the fear that’s already there,” Bates said. “It is the Baltimore City Attorney’s Office that has denied justice to the Gray family and denied justice to these officers.”
Bates is the first defense attorney to speak publicly about the case since Williams imposed the gag order barring the lawyers from commenting on the case.
During his remarks, Bates said Gray and his friends were getting ready to “re-up” and sell drugs at the time of Gray’s arrest — a claim no defense attorney presented at trial. A police investigation, he said, concluded that Gray’s death was an accident.
“We have to let the criminal justice system speak for itself,” Bates said. “It gets it right.”
Police arrested Gray the morning of April 12, 2015, after he fled from officers on bike patrol. Officers shackled Gray’s wrists and legs and loaded him into a police transport van without seat-belting him. At some point during the ride to jail, Gray fell and suffered a severe neck injury. He died in the hospital a week later.
Prosecutors had thrown out a variety of theories over four trials in an attempt to win a conviction: Officers gave Gray a “rough ride.” Officers callously ignored Gray’s cries for medical help. The reason officers did not put Gray in a seat belt was to punish him for making a scene during his arrest.
But in reading his verdicts over three bench trials, Williams said over and over again that prosecutors did not present enough evidence to show that officers harbored any ill intent.
“It seems Ms. Mosby and her prosecutors have gotten the message that they’re not going to win any more cases,” said Marshall Henslee, a Baltimore defense attorney. “They could have gone forward on principle, but they probably figured, ‘Let’s cut our losses here.’ ”
Henslee said Officer Edward Nero’s decision to select a bench trial over a jury trial played a big role in the cases being dropped.
After other defendants saw Nero’s acquittal, they were emboldened to do the same. In a jury trial, defense attorneys have to convince only one person their client is not guilty to lead to a hung jury. But a bench trial is riskier, because there is only one person to convince — the judge — and there is a guaranteed verdict.
“It was a gutsy decision, and that is why we are where we are today,” Henslee said.
Many defense lawyers raised questions over how quickly Mosby brought charges against the officers. Her office said it had conducted an investigation and announced prosecution of the officers in a dramatic news conference on the steps of the city’s War Memorial as police were still finishing their review.
“She said we don’t trust the police to do an investigation of their own members, so we went out and did our own investigation,” Henslee said. “It made everyone wonder if her motivations were more political than legal.”
In the case against van driver Caesar Goodson Jr., witness testimony revealed an ongoing schism between prosecutors and the lead city police detective handling the Gray case. Schatzow accused detective Dawnyell Taylor of “sabotaging” the state’s case by fabricating notes to indicate Gray’s death was initially ruled an accident rather than a homicide.
In a tense moment on the witness stand, Taylor shot back, accusing Deputy State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe of turning away evidence that did not fit prosecutor’s narrative of the case and questioning Bledsoe’s integrity.
Gray’s death was a flash point in national debate over the deaths of black men in police custody.
In legal filings and in court hearings, prosecutors have said that as the city’s top law enforcement officer, it was Mosby’s job to protect Baltimore from the unrest and rioting that ignited the days after Gray’s death. After she announced the charges against the six officers and told the city that she had “heard your cries for ‘no justice, no peace,’ ” demonstrations and looting quieted.
In the months after Gray’s death, the city reached a $6.4 million settlement with the young man’s family.
At the time, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake issued a statement saying the settlement was in the best interest of a city that was still recovering from unrest.
“She may ultimately be credited with saving Baltimore City” from the riots, University of Baltimore School of Law professor Jose F. Anderson said of Mosby’s decision to charge the officers.
He also said that criminal charges and trials sometimes are the only way of getting to the truth and that changes in policing that came in Baltimore in the aftermath of Gray’s death may not have happened as quickly had there been no criminal case.
“Most big changes comes in a system where people press it a little bit,” Anderson said. “Her prompt actions probably reduced the damage to Baltimore because it appeared she was taking the matter seriously. … There is nothing more difficult than trying to prosecute a police officer. That’s for both good reasons and reasons that need further examination.”
“Her prosecution was aimed at accountability,” Anderson said.
Defense attorneys representing all the police officers were huddled together in a meeting on Wednesday morning in Baltimore discussing the decision by prosecutors. Michael Davey, who represents Lt. Brian Rice, who was acquitted July 18 of manslaughter, reckless endangerment and misconduct, said the lawyers would not comment until a statement planned for the afternoon at the Baltimore police union hall.
Davey said the attorneys, who along with their clients now are free for the first time to discuss the cases, were still trying to sort out the impact and details Wednesday morning.
Harold Perry, 75, who lives in a house on the corner where Gray was arrested, said he wanted to see some of the officers convicted, but understood Mosby’s decision not to continue with the case.
“I think she sent the police a message that needed to be sent,” Perry said. “She didn’t want to release these three officers, but she didn’t have any choice because the judge battered down the evidence in the other trials.”
Marvin Cheatham, president of the Matthew Henson Neighborhood Association, said the community will get a better sense of closure when the Department of Justice completes its civil rights investigation of the Baltimore Police Department.
In the meantime, he said, the his main focus is preventing violence in the community.
“We’ve got to get closer,” Cheatham said. “We can’t tear up our neighborhood because we didn’t get the decision we wanted.”