tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53681608280917223932024-03-08T01:54:58.800-05:00Baltimore Criminal Justice Blogger Page CroyderA view of the Baltimore and Maryland criminal justice system from a former prosecutor.Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.comBlogger137125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-35350210415555201012022-07-04T11:39:00.002-04:002022-07-09T13:36:29.857-04:00The Mosby Years<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">At the outset of her first term Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby became a national sensation when she charged six police officers in the death of minor criminal Freddie Gray.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">That she filed her charges with disregard for her prosecutorial oath, resulting in spectacular failure (none were convicted) seemed not to matter to voters, who elected her again. I assume they gave her credit for trying to do something about police brutality. I get it. That the Freddie Gray case was not the George Floyd case is something lost on lay persons.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">But to elect her again could only lead me to conclude that the voters will get what they deserve: four more years of violent, unabated crime in Baltimore. The same thing we have had since the Freddie Gray case, when violent crime exploded on Mosby's watch. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Mosby is great at blaming others for her failures. But she told us who she was with Freddie Gray: an attention-seeking politician without regard for facts and law. And since then she has made clear that she has no plan to address the city's crime, other than to <i>not </i>prosecute minor criminals. Philosophically, I support alternatives to incarceration. In fact, a great plan was in place more then two decades ago to provide services to minor criminals struggling with addiction and mental illness: Community Court. But another newly-elected city leader torpedoed the plan as he pursued his own idea to reduce crime: Mayor Martin O'Malley, the architect of "zero tolerance" (or lock 'em up.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Mosby had the right idea, but no plan to make it work. She just unilaterally turned a blind eye to minor criminals and let others deal with the problems they created. Likewise, she has told us through her actions that she has no plan to fight violent crime, either. She has provided the city seven years of inceasingly inexperienced prosecutors, brutally high murder rates, and a revolving door for dangerous criminals. We can expect more if she prevails again in the Democratic primary this month. The same two challengers who split the opposition vote last time are in the race again. I said then that neither could win if one would not put aside his ego, and we face that prospect again.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">This time Mosby is weaker, in part because I suspect her supporters are growing weary of violence, and because of the federal perjury pending against her. Her defense has illustrated the same style she exhibiterd in the Freddie Gray case: regardless of the facts and the law, make it a political and racial issue. Maybe, just maybe, voters will begin to see through her.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I'm not convinced that a federal conviction ends her career. The Maryland Constitution requires that she be removed from office, but is she prevented from running in the general election in November if she wins the primary? The surest impediment to preventing her return at that point would be disbarment, but attorney Ken Ravenell, who was convicted on federal money laundering charges last December, is still practicing law. If he can, why not her?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">So it may be up to the voters after all. And if they have the wisdom to kick her out, the next State's Attorney has a long way to go fix the office. But at least we will have hope for the future.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">************************************************************************************</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Last blog I promised more statistics on Mosby's office, but I fear the ones I first provided were too dense. The criminal bar understands the leniency they represent, but the average citizen may not.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Nevertheless, in much simplied form, here are the results of the second and third batch of cases that I tracked from January - June, 2022. More than half are cases from the August and September dockets from 2021. The rest came from dockets in January and February. Anyone who wants the raw data is welcome to them.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">My purpose in tracking the later batches were to see if the pandemic affected the results of the first batch, as the courts were reopening last summer. The simple answer is no. The overall conviction rate, including expunged cases, is about the same: 60%. Plea bargains resulted in the release of nearly 45% of convicted defendants who were charged with gun-related crimes, including armed robbery, attempted murder, carjacking, and felon in possession of a firearm. Those who got prison time averaged 3 years (before the parole system cuts that down further. ) Drug dealers, who drive so much of the violent crime, did even better: 71% were released through plea bargaining, and prison sentences averaged about 2 years.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The one exception to these dismal results came in murder cases. Prosecutors won two trials and got from 25 years to 60 years in plea bargains on five others. Bravo!</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">By the way, the Governors Office of Crime Control and Prevention ought to be doing these studies on a regular basis statewide, to create public accountability and visibility. I hope the next governor will create such a mandate. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><i>Addendum: Three days after I posted this, Ken Ravenell's law license was "temporarily suspended," pending a hearing, at last. </i><br /><br /><br /></span><br /></p>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-53306819980385368212022-03-29T21:23:00.003-04:002022-07-09T13:47:55.691-04:00<p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><b>The Real Story on Baltimore's Conviction Rate</b></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"></p><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span> </span></span></span> <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">In December 2021, as Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby was publicly claiming a 90% conviction rate, I knew of a disturbing plea bargain her office had made earlier that year.</span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span> </span>Khalid Brinkley was charged with home invasion, armed robbery, and being a felon in possession of a handgun. He had forcibly entered a home with another individual, bludgeoned the resident with a gun, robbed him, and was caught red-handed by the police with the gun and stolen goods running out of the house. The presiding judge lectured Brinkley as follows:</span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /><span> </span>Since 2011, “when you got caught… it’s been breaking into people’s houses—given probation. You violated every one of those probations—every one of them…You violated the same probation twice…Then you go from burglaries to robberies…You get probation again, for robbery…And it doesn’t end there. The next thing is you do a home invasion…By having a girl set him up, and you and your boy rob him. So each one of ‘em is worse—and it gets worse, and it gets worse, and it gets worse. You go back and you hang out with the same guys, and it gets worse, over and over and over again.”<br /><br /><span> </span>Nevertheless, the prosecutor recommended and the judge accepted a term of five years in return for a guilty plea. The maximum penalty for the home invasion alone was 25 years. The sentencing guidelines (prepared by the prosecutor) recommended 15 to 25 years.*<br /><br /> <span> </span>I then searched for other cases by the same prosecutor and found these dismisseed cases:</span><br /><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">A woman stabbed in the stomach by another woman (an incident caught on an outdoors pole camera.)</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Two convicted felons in a vehicle with an illegal firearm. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The attempted murder of two persons by firearm. </span></li></ul><p></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> <span> </span>I wondered: was the claim of a 90% conviction rate accurate? And how many of those convictions were obtained by plea deals like Brinkley’s?<br /><br /><span> </span>To shed some light, I tracked 430 cases collected from 21 felony dockets in August and September 2021, with the following results:<br /></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> A conviction rate of 72%. (The rate could be much lower than that, as will be explained.)</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">98% of convictions were plea bargained.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Plea bargaining is a necessary practice to move a volume of cases through a crowded criminal justice system. But what kinds of deals are being made, and which cases are worth fighting for in a trial to get a better result? Mosby’s office only took 11 of those 430 cases to trial (with 8 convictions.) A study of the 303 plea bargains revealed the following:</span><p></p><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Percentage of convicted persons free after plea bargain: 70</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Gun-related crimes: 49</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Violence (no gun): 66</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Felony drug dealing: 90</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Sex crimes: 70</span></li></ul><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Percentage of probations with only two years supervision or less:</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Gun-related crimes: 45</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Violence (no gun): 40</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Felony drug dealing: 86</span></li></ul><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Prison time, average number of years through plea bargains:</span></li><ul><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Guns with drug dealing (imposed 50% of the time): 4.5 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Guns in violent crimes (imposed 74% of the time): 9.8 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Felony assault, Robbery, Carjacking : 4.3 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Attempted murder: 12.5 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Murder: 18.25 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Felon in possession of a firearm (imposed 61% of the time): 4.7 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Possession of a firearm (imposed 31% of the time): 3.5 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Violent crimes (no gun) (imposed 36% of the time): 5.3 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Felony drug charges (imposed 9% of the time): 4.1 years</span></li><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Sex offenses (imposed 33% of the time, but small sample): 3.7 years</span></li></ul></ul><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">These results suggest that Baltimore prosecutors, working in a city rife with violent crime, are extremely lenient. The same criminals are committing crimes over and over. And these cases don’t even tell the whole story: another 111 cases - 20% of all the resolved cases - have no results. Why? The Maryland General Assembly has seen fit to hide the information from public view.<br /><br /><b><u>Case Search and Expungement Laws</u></b><br />While defendants always had limited rights to apply to expunge certain offenses from their records, new laws that went into effect last fall automatically block the public’s access to even more criminal justice information.<br /><br /> <span> </span>First, expungement has been expanded to automatically remove from public view any case that results in a nolle prosequi or acquittal. Nolle prosequi, or nol pros, means that the prosecutor is dropping the case. This law applies to nol prossed cases that are three years old, but expungement can be accelerated if the defendant files a Release agreeing not to sue others for the charges that were filed. However, if a defendant is convicted on any one count in a case, the case cannot be expunged. (Hopefully, prosecutors can see the expunged cases on local rap sheets. Having a full picture of arrests is critical to making informed judgments on the dangerousness of an offender.)<br /><br /> <span> </span>Second, Case Search will immediately expunge every count in a case that results in nol pros or acquittal. Case Search is maintained by the judiciary and, as its website proclaims, “is the primary way that the public may search for records of court cases.” But Legislators have gone beyond the expungement law to (1)make a nol prossed case immediately disappear from view, and (2) block the ability to evaluate a plea bargain even when there is a conviction. For example, if a person is charged with Armed Robbery, but pleads guilty to misdemeanor assault and theft, the nature of the original offense is obscured. One might think the offender could have been arrested for petty theft and then pushed the arresting officer.<br /><br /> No doubt these expungement laws had a noble purpose behind them. But such widespread opaqueness may not serve the personal safety interest of ordinary citizens. And it most definitely shields public law enforcement agencies from accountability. <br /><br /><u>Consequences of Case Search Expungement</u><br /><u>Ordinary citizens</u>. I can easily think of three situations (and plenty more exist) when a member of the public should have access to Case Search and automatic expungement should not apply:<br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">A victim in a case where the prosecutor drops the case behind the victim's back.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">A family that wants to rent out its basement apartment. Legislators may think it irrelevant that the defendant was recently charged with gun possession and drug dealing. The family would not.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">A woman in a dating relationship could never find out that prosecutors twice dropped domestic assault cases against other women.</span></li></ul><div><span> </span>Proof beyond reasonable doubt is an appropriate standard in a criminal trial when a person's liberty is at stake. But the standard prosecutors use to charge - that is is more probable than not than a person committed a crime - is relevant to ordinary citizens making decisions about their safey. </div><br /><u>Conviction rate</u>. Let's be clear: not counting dropped cases in conviction rates misleads the public. While legitimate reasons exist for not pursuing cases, when prosecutors charge cases and then abandon them they should explain. Otherwise high conviction rates can be achieved simply by dropping many and plea bargaining the rest away, trying as few cases as possible. Exactly what this study reveals.<br /><br /><span> </span>I can only report on 430 cases because another 111 disappeared from Case Search. Some of them may have been transferred to federal or juvenile court, but most were likely just dropped by city prosecutors. If only 80% were dropped, the conviction rate for felony cases that prosecutors charged would be closer to 60%. But without knowing for sure we can't accurately calculate the conviction rate. <br /><br /><u>Prosecutorial accountability</u>. Lack of information to Case Search shields prosecutors from scrutiny of their case handling.<br /><br /><span> </span>As noted above, the prosecutor in the Brinkley case dropped three additional cases involving violence or guns. We would not know about them had the new expungement laws then been in effect. In cases tracked since August he has dropped gun possession and attempted murder cases which are now invisible on Case Search.<br /><br /><span> In another case with another</span> prosecutor, a woman fired a gun at her domestic partner. The shooter had a prior record for domestic assault, a violation of probation, and had violated home detention while the shooting case was pending. Nevertheless, the prosecutor offered and the defendant accepted a plea to probation for misdemeanor assault and reckless endangerment. The judge refused to accept the plea because the charges did not reflect the seriousness of what happened. In response, the prosecutor dismissed the case. ("Unbelievable" said the judge.) This case has now disappeared not only from Case Search but from all court records. Presumably, the defendant filed a waiver to accelerate automatic expungement.<br /><br /><span> </span>The same prosecutor, who appears to specialize in domestic violence cases, pled another case to misdemeanor assault for unsupervised probation without a conviction. The original charges are now gone. From the charge and sentence one might think this was a minor case. But the defendant, along with her boyfriend, physically attacked the mother of her boyfriend’s baby, beating her up and fracturing the eyesocket of the baby she had been holding. <br /><br /><span> </span>This is the same prosecutor who recently made news for pleading a man to probation who set fire to his girlfriend’s house while she slept inside. When cases or serious charges disappear, the public can't discern a pattern of giving away cases.<br /><br /><span> </span>These results come from the “Gun Violence Enforcement Division” and the “Special Victims Unit” of the Baltimore City prosecutor’s office. How well can the performance of these units, or the office as a whole, be assessed when nol prossed cases are hidden and plea bargains obscured?<br /><br /><b>More Cases</b><br />884 total cases were collected from 21 dockets in the Reception Court of the Baltimore City Circuit Court in August and September, 2021. 344 cases were still pending as of December 31. In addition, cases collected from eight felony dockets in January and February of this year are being tracked.<br /><br /> <span> </span>More results to come.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">*<i>Addendum: Six months after his plea bargain on the home invasion, Brinkley received an additional 12 years for violating probation on an armed robbery conviction. This was not part of the plea bargain - in other words, the prosecutor took a chance that the judge who had Brinkley on probation would give him all of the 12 years that were suspende. The prosecutor should have tried the home invasion case and pressed for the maximum sentence in light of Brinkley's record. Instead, he gave the case away, preferring instead that Brinkley take his chances with the probation judge. The plea was a disgrace - and, unfortunately, typical. </i></span></div>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-5724109276737784192018-06-13T09:43:00.000-04:002018-06-13T09:43:20.359-04:00The Choice for State's Attorney<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Marilyn Mosby is the most incompetent state's attorney Baltimore has had in my 30 years as a city resident (21 of which I spent in the state's attorney's office.) Crime has exploded on her watch, and despite her shucking of all responsibility, much of the blame lies with her. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">First, her ethically and legally flawed prosecution of the Freddie Gray "six" produced a profoundly chilling effect on the police department, which could not depend on Mosby to apply the law and facts without bias as it did its work. Second, she has decimated the State's Attorney's Office, which now lacks the experience and talent to successfully focus resources on fighting crime. Mosby was not qualified for the job to begin with, and has since demonstrated an unfitness of temperament and judgment to learn anything along the way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But right now a vote for or against Mosby is a referendum on the Freddie Gray case. I believe that most city voters who don't understand the law or know how she has destroyed her office will want to reward her for "trying" to do something about police brutality. Only the passage of more time and escalating suffering at the hands of violent criminals will change that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nevertheless, one can hope for a change, although my faint hopes were nearly extinguished when neither one of her two challengers withdrew before the ballot deadline. A split non-Mosby vote ensures four more years of Mosby ineffectiveness.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But despite my pessimism, I still choose to vote. On the eve of early voting, for those who want to know my opinion, here it is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thiru Vignarajah is a very smart man, smarter than me, and smarter than Ivan Bates, the other challenger. He has a plan to fight violent crime that he could very well put in place. (By the way, all the "plans" sound alike. Focus on violent offenders, provide treatment for the non-violent, etc. etc. For me, the devil is in the details, and most especially in one's ability to execute those details.) Vignarajah appears to understand how to implement a strategy better than Bates. I also believe he is the harder worker, who will pour energy into the job. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bates is a likable man who came up through the ranks in the city prosecutor's office. He spent less than two years in the homicide unit, his last stop, before leaving for criminal defense work, so his claim of being "undefeated" in prosecuting murder cases always struck me as hyberbolic. He <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/politics/bs-md-ci-bates-record-20180611-story.html">got into a spat</a> with Mosby (who tried no murder cases) and Vignarajah about it the other day, but what bothered me more than an exaggerated claim was Bates' resort to a silly conspiracy theory: that Vignarajah was in the race to benefit Mosby. Voters don't need more garbage to sort through, especially from someone who wants to be the top law enforcement attorney.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't believe that Bates is the high-energy, strategic thinker that Vignarajah is, but he is a competent and intelligent attorney. I think he will improve recruitment and retention in the prosecutor's office, and will bring in the people who can help him execute a focused plan. He is not an egotist, someone who thinks he knows better than anybody else, and he will listen, both critical qualities in a leader. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">On strategical thinking, on physical energy, I give the nod to Vignarajah, though I expect Bates to do fine. But there's a final category that's very important to me: ethics. Vignarajah came over from the U.S. Attorney's office to lead a special crime-fighting unit for then-State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein. There he demonstrated the smarts to learn quickly and create strategies. But he also raised concerns about ethics, both in discovery (turning required evidence over to the defense) and in charging. In his zeal to attain certain objectives, he was not always careful to heed to each ethical standard, causing alarm among well-respected colleagues. To me, behavior like this is a symptom of ambition, a willingness to short-cut rules to achieve pre-set goals. Ambition in politics is expected and normalized. But ambition for something other than adherence to rules and ethics in a prosecutor scares me. You know, like what Mosby did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And then there's his judgment when it comes to women. He promoted a young woman to his special unit who lacked not only the amount of experience that other applicants had, but the minimum experience needed for the position. And when he left the State's Attorney's Office for the Attorney General's Office, he changed the qualification requirements so that he could hire her there, too. (They have since been changed back.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And while at the Attorney General's office, during the course of an attempted sexual encounter, he <a href="http://www.wbal.com/article/128103/2/one-of-marylands-top-attorneys-was-caught-behind-closed-doors-airing-controversial-opinions-confidential-information">gave out information</a> about his office that he admitted would be "really bad" if it came out publicly. Unluckily for Vignarajah, the woman he pursued was not looking for sex but for suckers to compromise themselves on hidden camera. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Bates is no saint, either. As a defense attorney, he once admitted to others that he attempted a "trick" in court that he had learned from another defense attorney, But when called out and investigated for it, he testified that he had not been involved.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't like what Bates did as a defense attorney, but I dislike even more ethical compromising from an ambitious prosecutor. The first duty must always be to the law and the facts, and decisions can't be influenced by personal desires. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Vignarajah told me how much money he could raise to defeat Mosby. He failed to deliver. As of the last fundraising statement, through May 15, Bates had raised more (if one doesn't count the $250,000 Vignarajah loaned to his own campaign.) Rather than becoming the leading challenger, Vignarajah will play the spoiler. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Ivan Bates for State's Attorney. And whoever wins, God help the city of Baltimore. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-68067303131806277272018-02-26T12:21:00.000-05:002018-02-26T12:21:43.519-05:00One Chance, Two Many Choices<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Baltimore is facing a local election more important than anything else - the governor's race, congressional seats, assembly seats, <i>everything</i> else.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is up for re-election. The Mosby who immediately upon taking office in 2015 proved her unfitness, first by purging experienced prosecutors for grudge reasons and then by persecuting six police officers for the death of Freddie Gray who were innocent of any crime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I won't reiterate the facts of that folly. Here is what relevant now: that Mosby and her team have presided over a rate of crime that exploded with her Freddie Gray prosecution and shows no sign of abating.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And while the Police Department hasn't helped matters with a corrupt Gun Trace Task Force that the feds had to bring down (in a <i>real</i> prosecution), the fact remains that no good cop on the street can do his or her job with any confidence that the city's top prosecutor won't charge them criminally for any mistake or accident that occurs on their watch. No wonder the Police Department faces problems <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-recruits-law-understanding-20180202-story.html">recruiting qualified candidates.</a> And what lawyer of any competence and experience would want to work for Mosby? Criminals are walking free on her watch and the crime rate proves it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Fortunately, we have two men ready to challenge Mosby, willing to take on the herculean task of repairing the damage she has done to both the prosecutor's office and the police department. Unfortunately, we have one challenger too many. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Most city residents outside the criminal justice community do not understand Mosby's incompetence. What they see is a young African American woman who "tried" to do something about bad police officers. Many are willing to blame the "system" for her failure, and credit her for taking it on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">So to defeat Mosby, the challenger will have to make people understand not that Mosby has made them less safe, but that he can make them more safe. It's a delicate tightrope to walk. He will need low voter turnout, an energized base of his own, and one more crucial component: the ability to get every single non-Mosby vote. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Instead we have two challengers to divide that vote, neither of whom agree with me. Both Ivan Bates and Thiru Vignarajah told me that while having a second challenger makes the task of defeating Mosby more difficult, each believes he can win anyway. Vignarajah is counting on his fundraising ability, and Bates on his church base. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Which candidate do I prefer? It doesn't matter, because the presence of both of them will re-elect Mosby. Two of them equals four more years of Mosby. Perhaps city residents need that extra four years of high crime to convince them that Mosby needs to go. I just shudder at the cost. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I respect and admire Bates and Vignarajah for their efforts. Being a serious candidate for any office is one of the most difficult and energy-sapping endeavors I can think of, especially in an era of anonymously vile internet attacks that candidates must ignore. And I hope that I am wrong and they are right, that one of them will defeat Mosby. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">If both men file to run for State's Attorney this week then I will offer my view for voters wondering what to do, for what it's worth. But here's hoping one of them puts the defeat of Mosby above their own candidacy. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-74073893188186253292016-11-16T18:46:00.001-05:002016-11-23T07:31:16.648-05:00The Day America Lost Its Greatness<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">On November 8, 2016, America elected a lawless man to the White House. For this reason, and not for any other, it forfeited its claim to greatness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Policies come and go. Health care, immigration, taxes, foreign policy - these things don't make or break the character of a country. Policies change over time, edge forward and backward, left and right, as people with differing points of view advocate and, in a well-functioning democracy at least, compromise. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">No, we lost our greatness when we handed the power of the people to a man with absolute disdain for the basic principles on which this country was founded. In 1787 we agreed to be ruled by laws created by public consent, subject to constitutional limitations that protect basic freedoms. We have also agreed through the years on rules of conduct that guide our behavior in a democracy. Yet we elected a man with no respect for any of it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As a former prosecutor, I blasted Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby for her failure to follow the facts and the evidence when she charged six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray. She saw only what she chose to see. Now the American people have followed suit, ignoring the facts before their eyes and entrusting their power to man without dedication to the rule of law, be it moral, political, civil or criminal. Winning and power is all that consumes Donald Trump. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's not as though he hid who he was. We weren't fooled into voting for him. He told us from his own mouth, from his own actions, who he is and what he wants. He poured out and doubled down on the insults, the bullying, and the repeated, documented lies, so many that we lost track. He privately boasted of sexual aggression, and publicly laughed about visiting young women in various states of undress in their beauty pageant locker rooms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He ignored well-established, importance practices of accountability and responsibility in political life such as releasing tax returns, transparently lying about the reason. He refused to say he would acknowledge the legitimacy of the election if he lost, blatantly undermining confidence in our process by calling it "rigged." He even suggested that a hostile foreign power should interfere with the election, mocking the reality of that interference. He threatened to lock up his political opponent upon taking office, and encouraged followers to harass minority voters at the polls. He "joked" that "Second Amendment" people should handle judicial appointments by his opponent.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">He routinely breached his business contracts, created enterprises to defraud customers, and criminally assaulted women. He illegally used his charitable foundation to pay the Attorney General of Florida a campaign donation when she was contemplating a fraud investigation. He refused to accept the DNA exoneration of the Central Park rape defendants who he had originally wanted put to death. His disdain for international law and civilized boundaries revealed itself in his approval of torture not only for persons he deemed enemies but for their families<i>. </i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">None of these matters are under factual dispute, and none have to do with policy. It's about his abuse of power. He threw it all in our faces, gloating that he could publicly shoot someone and get away with it. He was right. He could violate any law, any rule of decency and civility, and we would still elect him to the highest office in our country, the most powerful in the world, even handing him complete power through a party that collectively refused to repudiate him and ensure his defeat. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In fact, his candidacy was the natural result of that party's growing evolution over the years to refuse to govern, to block all initiatives (while blaming gridlock on the party in the White House), and to decline to exercise its constitutional duties, including a hearing for a Supreme Court nominee. It was even gathering momentum to deny any nominee of the opposing party a position on the Court had it won the election. Power was the goal, not respect for the law, the Constitution, or for the American traditions we have held up to the world as "great." The American people, rather than rejecting this lawless behavior, have now rewarded and empowered it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The FBI probably tipped the election when it violated its own rules of investigative conduct. FBI agents in New York, tight with Trump enabler Rudy Guiliani (who represents their association), let him know they were cooking up a "surprise" that would "turn this thing around." And sure enough, they resurrected the non-existent email "crime" just in time to allow Trump to claim the entire week before the election that Clinton would be a president under indictment. This was lawlessness from the premier law enforcement agency in the U.S., an entity that had worked so hard to resurrect its image from the dark days of J. Edgar Hoover. Imagine this agency now in the hands of Trump and Guiliani.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That Trump had the enthusiasm and votes of bigots and haters is indisputable. He gave them voice, enabled and encouraged their venom and disdain for civility at his rallies, on their t-shirts and bumper stickers, and in their vile chants and slogans.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But they didn't elect him. No, the decent people of America elected him, the ones who rationalized his behavior, who felt that Obamacare or liberal policies or economic pain or whatever personal grievance they had with the status quo outweighed the threat he clearly posed to the American rule of law. Someone said before the election that this would be both a test of the American IQ and a look in the mirror. What we see is a country, the self-proclaimed "greatest", willing to sacrifice its traditions and ideals and hand over the keys to a man who "alone can fix" their problems, who not only admires totalitarian figures, but behaves like one in his rejection of civil and legal boundaries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The key to rationalizing a vote for Trump, a non-vote for Clinton, or not voting at all, all of which elected Trump, was the notion that his opponent was "just as bad," a corrupt criminal and liar who at best could not be trusted and at worst belonged in jail. To talk about Trump with a Trump enabler was to get a giant dose of "But Hillary..." Voters who ignored the documented facts about Trump also chose to believe the unsupported accusations about Clinton.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I was sure that my uncle, an educated, intelligent conservative with a wide knowledge of history would vote for Clinton. Wrong. "She's a crook!" he practically shouted to me. "She stole money in Arkansas and Washington." No, she didn't. For partisan reasons he refuses to accept that years of investigations yielded no proof whatsoever. Another thoughtful man told me that Clinton was a "pathological liar" and pointed me to a New York Times story documenting that her Foundation paid for her daughter Chelsea's wedding. Except no such Times story existed. He cited an unproved accusation from rag journalism derived from the leaked email of a person hostile to Chelsea. That about sums up what people were willing to believe.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Over and over again, this candidate was persecuted with multiple investigations for the stated purpose of taking her down politically, and people chose to ignore both the intent of these investigations and the lack of evidence that they yielded. It's the game of making the accusation so many times it sticks, even without facts, and tires voters of a candidate. The actual evidence was that Clinton was a dedicated, tireless public servant, found by professional fact-checkers to be more accurate than most politicians, but twisted by political enemies into some kind of lying criminal. O</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">rdinary people heard the words "untrustworthy" and "untruthful" so many times that they internalized them and repeated them without being able to provide factual examples. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The failure to follow the facts and the evidence, for whatever emotional reason the voters had, gave us Trump, a man with no respect for rules and laws. Some want to blame Clinton, others the media. But the blame falls squarely on every Trump voter and those who claimed their "conscience" would not let them vote for Clinton. Their conscience placed politics or ideology higher than country. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The German people once put in power a man who appealed to their basest instincts. He played to racial hatred and resentment (the Jews) and to economic anger caused by the post WWI Versailles treaty. He created political scapegoats. He was the savior who would fix things. And the people who elected him (and the politicians who enabled him) were not the ignorant people he incited to rally for him, but the decent people of Germany who peacefully handed over their power. Someone said to my nephew, who was upset about Trump, "It won't be that bad. He's not really going to do the stuff" that he said he would. Just what the good Germans of the 1930s told themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The test of our judgment and character is not upon what happens over the next four years, but rather on the risk we took now. We elected a mendacious bully of a man who has spit on the law and on civilized discourse between Americans. We adopted the Hitler blueprint for electing someone who could be "that bad", a blueprint that uses demagoguery and the Big Lie, plays on hatred and resentment, and depends on Americans who are too partisan, too lazy or too ignorant to ensure that we place the rule of law before political policies. We just proved that we are as willing as any other country to put our cherished freedoms into the hands of an authoritarian. We have given the greatest possible power to a man who has always done what he can get away with, and who, we can be sure, will use the White House for the same lawless purposes to whatever extent that he can. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have tried in my blog to stick to criminal justice issues, the field of my expertise. But I will have some more things to say on this election that comes from my experience in criminal justice, insights regarding race and gender that I think influenced the behavior of voters. Reasons why I, as a prosecutor, was sometimes frustrated in my job when facts and evidence were rejected by juries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But no lost case was as big as this. Kathleen Parker, a conservative columnist, wrote on the eve of the election that no matter who was elected, America would still be great. She was dead wrong. A country that could elect a Donald Trump is not great. Our greatness does not depend upon military might or economic power. It depends, as we have boasted to the world, on our democracy, on our tolerance for those who both look and think differently, for our unique institutions, for our checks and balances, and on our respect for the law no matter what.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When mobs tried to prevent court ordered school integration in Little Rock, Arkansas, it was Republican Dwight Eisenhower who called out the National Guard to enforce the law. Secessionist sympathizers once attended a White House dinner with their southern Democratic party leader and President, Andrew Jackson. They were toasting to state's rights, and looked to Jackson for encouragement. Instead he toasted: "To the Union: may it be preserved." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We won't see such commitment to law and country from our president-elect. That makes us, to use his term, losers. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-43707432127401623722016-10-04T14:07:00.000-04:002016-10-05T06:37:47.230-04:00Birds of a Feather<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The editorial writers of the Baltimore Sun decided <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/12/our-baltimore-sun-moralistic.html">early on</a> that neither facts nor fairness could impede their view of what happened to Freddie Gray last year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They lauded State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby for her hasty criminal charges, despite the objective view of professionals who recognized the incompetence of her process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They defended her every step of the way, even as her cases fell apart. They thought it just fine to ruin the lives and careers of six police officers and threaten their freedom in order to "air out" facts that would have been better explored through proper use of a grand jury. They failed, from beginning to end, to acknowledge the duty of a prosecutor to follow the facts and the law wherever they led, a failing they shared with Mosby.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And now, in <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-cops-20161003-story.html">today's editorial</a>, they essentially call for Police Commissioner Kevin Davis to fire, as quickly as possible, the Baltimore Six. Here's why:</span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Three of them were honored by a right wing media group. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">All six caused Gray's death through their "callous" actions. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I thought newspapers were supposed to be bastions for freedom of speech and association, but I guess that only applies to liberals. Do I find the Media Research Center offensive? Yes, I do. Do I understand why the three attended? Probably because their lives had been a living hell for more than a year. Probably because they were driven towards a group that didn't hate them, as they had been hated for so long by so many. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As for their responsibility for Gray's death, they were exonerated by Judge Barry Williams, who did not find evidence of misconduct let alone homicide. The Sun doesn't know what Sgt. Alicia White did or didn't do, since she never came to trial. But the Sun wants her fired, too, along with William Porter, who tried to assist Gray, and van driver Caesar Goodson, who checked on Gray multiple times. None of these three were feted by the Media Research Center, but apparently don't deserve to be "patrolling the streets of Baltimore" either. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If the Sun wants to take the position that the Police Department as an entity was callous, I get it. Police leaders could have ensured working cameras in vans, better restraint equipment and practices, and consistent enforcement of procedures. Improvements like these always seem to get done after tragic accidents, hindsight over foresight. One might also ask, where were the Sun's investigative reporters and crusading editors before Gray's death? Why did they wait until he died to dig up evidence of inconsistent seat belt practices and defendants arriving injured at Central Booking? Because the media, like most of the world, is reactive, responding with reforms only after tragedies. But the media gets to act holier-than-thou, the first to seek out who to blame. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Sun demands its pound of flesh from these six even though the evidence was clear that they acted reasonably within the context of their training and actual experience. It could have been any officer acting that day with the same result. Hurry up, the Sun demands of Police Commissioner Kevin Davis, even though outside police agencies are the ones investigating the officers. It can't "fathom" what is left to investigate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Neither could Mosby, when she sensationally announced her charges. No wonder the Sun approved her actions. The two make a perfect pair. In their zeal for social justice, the "justice" part doesn't matter.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">More Bad Journalism</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wil Hylton's article for the NY Times Magazine, referenced in the Sun's editorial, represents another example of bias disguised as journalism. Entitled "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/magazine/marilyn-mosby-freddie-gray-baltimore.html?_r=0">Baltimore v. Marilyn Mosby</a>" it could more appropriately be entitled, "Mosby's Lame Explanation Unchallenged." Hylton hob-nobs with the Mosbys, so much so that they let themselves into his home and pour themselves some of his wine. Yet he purports to write a journalistic piece about Mosby's decision to charge the Baltimore Six, treating us to a self-justifying Mosby narrative that blames police obstructionism for her actions. Even if true (which I doubt), Mosby had the grand jury at her disposal to properly investigate the case herself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Hylton's main disagreement with Mosby centers on Gray's injuries: he diagnosed Gray (from a video) as being injured before he got into the van. Ironically, the one point on which Mosby and all the experts seemed to agree upon is that the injury occurred <i>inside</i> the van. But Hylton's personal, unscientific diagnosis led him to the same conclusions as Mosby - and his wholly sympathetic, uncritical treatment of her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Disclosure: Hylton called me while working on the piece. He didn't use a thing I said, other than that the attrition rate from Mosby's office is high. But he did leave a clue as to how he writes. When I was trying hard to stick to facts and statements that I could support, he told me not to worry, that the standards for magazine pieces were looser. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And so he delivered a lazy, chummy piece gobbled up by those with the same point of view as Hylton. But the real Mosby shone through anyway, exposing the same arrogance and temperament we saw when <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2016/07/marilyn-mosby-revealed.html">Mosby ranted</a> after dropping her cases. A Mosby who, during the riots that followed Gray's death, called up, reamed out, and hung up on Baltimore's mayor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But Dan Rodricks tells that part of it better. <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/dan-rodricks-blog/bs-md-rodricks-1002-20161002-column.html">Check it out</a>. </span></div>
Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-58307795814629997642016-09-22T19:41:00.002-04:002016-09-23T12:11:57.661-04:00The Destruction of the Baltimore State's Attorney's Office<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With the record number of killings in Baltimore these past 18 months, it's easy to overlook just one more murder, one that won't appear in the stats: the snuffing out of the Baltimore prosecutor's office by its leader, Marilyn Mosby.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby touted the law enforcement background of herself and her family members when running for State's Attorney. But upon taking office she immediately demonstrated her indifference to public safety by firing numerous prosecutors. One was in the middle of a trial. Who cares? Not Mosby. The case was promptly lost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Another fired prosecutor, who probably had to counsel her when he was her supervisor (Mosby was a mediocre trial attorney known chiefly for yelling), had successfully tried numerous difficult homicide cases in his career. They include the 1999 massacre of five women in a city rowhouse, and (ironically) the prosecution of a police officer for killing a suspect. Despite his more than 30 years of experience and success, Mosby let him and others go in revenge for personal piques she developed in her own brief and lackluster career, which included no cases of any significance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby followed her hatchet jobs with a memo written by deputy Michael Schatzow - who had no experience as a city prosecutor and was less than two months into the job - stating that prosecutors were now "expected and encouraged to consider plea negotiations...that include a supervised term of probation with...mental health counseling or...drug treatment program." In other words, open the jail doors and let 'em out. Schatzow is apparently unaware of how limited treatment slots are and how failing to participate in treatment is rarely sanctioned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now I don't oppose treatment for appropriate offenders, if they actually participate. And Schatzow emphasized that this policy was for "non-violent offenders" committing "non-violent" crimes. But therein lies the rub. I <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2010/02/baltimores-failed-war-room-originally.html">began my blog</a> with an indictment of the criminal justice system for its failure to identify and appropriately handle persons who were major threats to public safety. And Schatzow's memo gave prosecutors no guidance whatsoever, leaving it to the eye of the beholder. Under Mosby's clueless policy, a person dealing drugs with a dropped attempted murder charge and a separate handgun case in his background could be considered a non-violent criminal committing a non-violent crime, when in fact he poses a dangerous threat to Baltimore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then came the Freddie Gray fiasco, when Mosby signaled to the entire world that her focus was not upon crime but upon evening the score with police, even if it meant elevating an accidental death into a murder case. She called the looters and batterers of police in the Baltimore riots "our children" and lashed out angrily when her non-existent case collapsed. Would that she showed such passion for the victims of shootings and murders, and for the children who live their lives in daily risk of violence. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Following the Freddie Gray trials a packet arrived at my doorstep containing police notes and emails between Mosby's office and a police investigator. These notes contained material that had already been publicly revealed (tension between police and prosecutors, Deputy State's Attorney Janice Bledsoe's indifference to any facts that did not support her theory of the case.) But the series of questions posed in the anonymous note revealed the profound lack of trust in Mosby by her prosecutors. Examples:</span><br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Did Jan Bledsoe and [homicide team leader] Lisa Goldberg meet privately with the medical examiner and encourage the ME to change her conclusion and rule it a homicide...</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Did the head of homicide...object to the charging decision and refuse to attend announcement of charges? Did most people in office agree..that charging was based on politics, not evidence, but have been warned that they will be fired if Marilyn found out?</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Was Bledsoe's partner (Jayne Miller) given special access to Donta Allen [who rode in the transport vehicle with Gray] who changed his original story during Jayne's interview?</span></i></li>
<li><i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is the most embarrassing prosecutor's office in the country. What example are its leaders setting? And in the biggest case ever. Mike, Jan, just go back to private practice, make your money and let people who care not about politics but about the city and fighting crime and doing justice get back to work.</span></i></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby continues to drive this level of demoralization downward. She has been hiring career public defenders and defense attorneys to help her run the office (which is top heavy with administrators and low on trial attorneys. Oh, wait, she doesn't need trial attorneys in her plea-bargain environment.) The latest example is <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-states-attorney-reorganization-20160913-story.html">Valda Ricks</a>, who after 25 years as a public defender is now Chief of Operations for Mosby. As one ex-prosecutor said, <i>Are you kidding me? </i>Ricks is a nice person who stuck around long enough in her office to get promoted but was never any kind of special talent. And she certainly never walked in the shoes of a prosecutor, yet now is running much of the show. (Think of the job Schatzow and Bledsoe have done, two other non-prosecutors.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby has essentially told her staff two things: none of you are qualified for this job, and I want us to be more like public defenders than prosecutors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Perhaps she's right that there aren't any qualified city prosecutors left to be Chief of Operations. By one attorney's count, 64 prosecutors have been fired or quit since Mosby took over. That's an <i>extraordinary </i>level of attrition, averaging more than 3 per month, which has left her stripped of experience. And Mosby can't attract experience from other prosecutor offices after demonstrating her incompetence, arrogance, and subversion of a prosecutor's duty in the Freddie Gray case.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">One might think that she has no choice but to turn to former public defenders, but I think she's happy with that. Mosby sees herself as the Robin Hood of the criminal justice system, except that instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, her cause is to rescue criminal defendants from the oppression of the criminal justice system (and society) and stick it to those who protect public safety.</span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The job of defense attorneys is to defend the rights and interests of individual defendants. Prosecutors, consistent with the law and ethical standards, are charged with ensuring public safety for all citizens. Mosby is more interested in the former than the latter, which puts her in the wrong job. The criminal justice system is predicated on advocacy from two points of view, guided by the law and moderated by the judiciary. Transforming the prosecutor's office into an extension of the public defender imperils public safety. Dangerous offenders turned back onto the street through toothless probations or incompetent prosecutions will continue to prey on - guess what - our children. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby busted up morale in the police department with her unfounded criminal charges in the Freddie Gray case. She has simultaneously destroyed the morale of her own office and caused crippling attrition. The damage caused by one woman is truly shocking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With the two agencies that are responsible for public safety teetering on the edge, Baltimore's crime numbers are sky high and will get worse before they get better. The question really is, will they ever get better.</span></div>
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Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-49190071364970376042016-08-05T08:50:00.000-04:002016-08-05T18:39:12.707-04:00Another Loss for Baltimore<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When I <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-prosecutor-quits-states-attorneys-office-20160801-story.html">read</a> that Lisa Phelps had resigned from the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office, I nearly cried.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Phelps is a wonderfully talented attorney who once told me (to my great joy) that she was a "lifer" - a career city prosecutor. Talented "lifers" aren't easy to come by. The best prosecutors tend to move on to the more lucrative private sector or the federal government after gaining experience in local criminal courts. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Phelps was rapidly promoted within the office, so fast that it wasn't fair to her. With high turnover during the first few years of her tenure, she moved up to felony jury trials before having the grounding most attorneys need to feel comfortable and competent.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But Phelps was up to it. And by the time she resigned she was one of the few prosecutors I have known who could handle <i>any</i> case, however challenging, however complicated, however horrifying. The citizens of Baltimore were in the best of hands with Phelps on the job, trying to put away a dangerous criminal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When her boss, Marilyn Mosby, announced that Phelps would lead the 'clean team' in the Freddie Gray police officer trials, I was surprised. Phelps was supposed to try the cases against Garrett Miller and William Porter, who had been forced by Mosby to testify against other officers. Phelps had to ensure that she did not use their prior testimony against them while still convicting them. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If anyone could do it Phelps could, which is undoubtedly why Mosby chose her. My surprise was that Phelps thought a crime had been committed. As it turns out, she didn't.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Professor John Banzhaf of The George Washington University wants <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/01/law-professor-goes-after-maryland-prosecutor-for-freddie-gray-case.html">to take credit</a> for Phelps' resignation. Banzhaf filed a complaint against Mosby with the attorney grievance commission and suggested that Phelps responded to his threat of disbarment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Had Phelps resigned for that reason, it wouldn't be to Banzhaf's 'credit.' Baltimore just lost an extremely competent, highly dedicated, utterly professional prosecutor. The opposite, in fact, of Mosby. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I haven't asked Phelps - she didn't make a public announcement and I don't intend to urge her to - but I know her character well enough to know that she didn't need Banzhaf to tell her her duty. Forced by Mosby to take on a case no ethical prosecutor could try, she faced up to Mosby, unlike the toadies Mosby surrounds herself with during her press conferences. (Anyone catch her rudely waving two of them to stand behind her before her rant against the criminal justice system?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Phelps was supposed to try Miller and Porter. Mosby dropped the cases. I can put two and two together. Perhaps Mosby also realized that the end had finally come, but I believe that Phelps helped her reach that conclusion. It took a hell of a lot of guts to sacrifice one's job after 15 years of service and only 5 years away from a possible pension. And sacrifice she did, because no one can work with Mosby after crossing her. Mosby proved that when took her oath of office and immediately fired prosecutors she didn't like when they had been her co-workers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby wrecked trust in the criminal justice system, undermined her own credibility, and helped to drive up Baltimore's murder rate with her unfounded prosecutions. Now she has sabotaged her office's ability to take on tough cases with the loss of Phelps.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But Phelps keeps her conscience and her courage. She was recently nominated for judge in Baltimore County, a job no one deserves more and I hope she gets. In the meantime, I am mourning the loss of one of the best advocates this city ever had. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Thank you, Lisa.</span><br />
<br />Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-19321334185264058232016-07-28T13:01:00.000-04:002016-09-25T07:33:11.562-04:00Marilyn Mosby Revealed<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby filed murder and other criminal charges against six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray last year many professional observers, including me, suspected she was politically ambitious, incompetent, reckless, inexperienced or all of the above. Even ordinary citizens wondered at her speed and failure to use all the investigative tools at her disposal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">However, many were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. I understand that. I have done that for leaders who I assume know more than I do, and I want to trust their competence and good faith.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Still, as it became more obvious even to laymen that Mosby's criminal cases weren't even close, many still refused to criticize her. The editorial board of the Baltimore Sun, one of her chief apologists, <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-charges-dropped-20160727-story.html">still doesn't understand</a> that a prosecutor's duty is to justice, that one cannot use criminal trials to air out facts or make a political statement without proof of a crime. (Earth to Sun: Mosby could and should have used the Grand Jury to collect facts, properly apply the law to the facts, and then air the proceedings.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I wonder whether the Sun would have written the same editorial had they first watched Mosby's news conference. Angry, petulant, and stunningly unprofessional, she ranted about her grievances. My highlights:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>It was the police department's fault, they were biased</i>. This after she boasted last year about her own "parallel" investigation, ignoring the official police report in making her decision to charge. (Of course, the public now knows that she didn't investigate anything using the sheriff's office as she falsely claimed she did.)</span></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>The police "unreasonably" chased Freddie Gray</i>. Except her own trial team had to concede that under the law police were justified in such a chase. Where is the memo from Mosby to her prosecutors instructing them to ignore Supreme Court law in all the other cases her office prosecutes? Hope she gets that out to the police department. </span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>A defendant shouldn't have the right to choose to be tried by a judge</i>. Oh-no-she-didn't<i>. </i> Mosby insinuated that the judge was biased and now wants prosecutors to choose the factfinder, a breathtakingly arrogant proposal in light of her own overzealousness, from which these defendants were saved by an impartial judge. Her "reform" - which would be opposed by minorities - will cost her any remaining credibility with the bar. </span></li>
</ul>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">After this rant Mosby refused to take questions, and she made the rounds of television appearances on condition that she couldn't be interviewed live. In other words, she wanted only to tell her angry story without facing up to legitimate scrutiny. She's claiming credit for new police procedures and body cameras, reforms that didn't require phony criminal charges to make happen. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What did Mosby really tell us yesterday? That she's ethically blind and legally challenged, an immature, angry woman with a personal agenda who learned nothing about the law or her duties over the past year. Last year she won heaps of praise for her poise and forcefulness. </span></div>
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>This time, shown at eye level on the street, she seemed smaller -- diminished, defensive and angry as she pointed fingers at others for the failure of her office to win convictions against any of the six officers charged. The Marilyn Mosby on my screen this morning seemed far less in control or powerfully righteous.</i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Sun's David Zurawik, a Mosby admirer last year, <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/tv/z-on-tv-blog/bal-baltimore-tv-gives-us-remarkable-marilyn-mosby-moment-while-cable-give-us-trump-20160727-story.html">went on to suggest</a> that this was due to the "toll" the case had taken on her. I don't think so. She was angry last year, an anger that showed in her manner and seeped into her delivery. As for toll, her staff did the hard work of the trials while she watched. She is still angry, but this time in the embarrassment of failure, a failure she brought upon herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We saw the real Mosby yesterday, a scary sight for the citizens of Baltimore. Many will think she "tried," they may credit her for "courage," but they are fooling themselves. We citizens will pay the price as Mosby's baseless prosecutions and poisonous press conferences make police officers back off from their duties, knowing that Mosby is looking to take them down even when they act in good faith. Actually, as crime statistics and personal experiences attest, we already are. </span></div>
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Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-91658728693334592992016-07-20T08:57:00.001-04:002016-07-21T10:46:43.830-04:00A Media That Still Doesn't Get It<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">She gets points for airing it out it court.</span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So said Fraser Smith on WYPR this morning, referring to State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her prosecution of six police officers following the death of Freddie Gray.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Meanwhile an attorney and law professor, John Banzhaf, has filed multiple complaints with the Attorney Greivance Commission against Mosby and her trial team, arguing that the exact same conduct deserves censure and disbarment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Who's right? In principle, if not in sanction, Banzhaf. Mosby will certainly be reprimanded for her press conference announcing charges last year, for which there is ample precedent (former State's Attorney Doug Gansler of Montgomery County got in trouble for his press conferences.) And the more she continues with these trials, despite the rejection of all her theories of a crime by Judge Barry Williams, the more she risks further sanctions.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Prosecutors do not get points for "airing" issues through unfounded criminal trials, trials that ruin people's lives and cost citizens precious tax dollars and use of criminal justice resources. They deserve rebuke. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Prosecutors are charged with following the evidence and the law wherever it takes them. Trials for political purposes threaten the very foundation of the criminal justice system. One cannot watch or read <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i> without feeling sick to one's stomach. From a prosecutor's point of view, how is this different? How does one justify doing what Mosby and her team did - inventing new theories of crime, claiming facts they can't prove - to paint six individuals as criminals for what, at worst, was a police department failing in transportation procedures? Injustice is injustice, and when a prosecutor perpetuates it by pandering to a mentality - be it racist, anti-police, or whatever the point of view - we all lose. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If an "airing out" of what happened was necessary, Mosby had the example of the Ferguson prosecutor: do a thorough investigation using the grand jury, explain the evidence vis-a-vis the law, and make all those records public. That prosecutor was then backed up by a federal investigation, because he did it the right way. People can still argue about the implications of the evidence, like they are doing now in the Gray acquittals. And Gray's death itself has led to new procedures for the police department. We didn't need these baseless criminal cases to spur reforms, throwing six people with careers and families to the wolves.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My stomach turns when I see hypocrites like Doug Colbert on the news every night, relishing what Mosby and his buddy Schatzow are doing, when he would be screaming from the mountain tops had the defendants been poor African Americans rather than police officers. Anyone sitting in a law professor's chair, who advocates injustice for any reason, disgraces his profession. Colbert is a stain on the University of Maryland School of Law. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't read Fraser Smith, the Baltimore Sun, or the Washington Post (which is also loathe to criticize Mosby) as enjoying what Mosby is doing, like Colbert does. But they are just as ignorant when they excuse her conduct and give her points for effort. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby's initial press conference was unethical for a prosecutor by announcing her sympathy with the rioters and her intention to get the justice that they wanted, not what justice demanded. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby lied when she said she used the Sheriff's office to investigate what happened. She paid no attention to the internal police investigation. She failed to use the Grand Jury to investigate. Her "parallel investigation" was rushed and superficial. Her failure to properly investigate and analyze both the factual and legal aspects of what happened to Gray led to fancy footwork and legal creativity to keep the cases going, but ultimately the sound rejection of her charges. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am not interested in hearing from media outlets that never met a police officer who did anything wrong. I want to hear from WYPR, from the Sun, from the Post, that injustice does not serve justice. That "airing it out in court" is not a reason to drag six individuals and the city through trials. That Mosby's inexperience, and her failure to use career prosecutors to advise her, led to an unnecessary and unfair spectacle that has undermined trust in her office and the criminal justice system. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But I won't be holding my breath while I'm waiting to hear it. </span><br />
<br />Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-64820503840420168202016-06-23T18:10:00.003-04:002016-06-25T09:35:28.600-04:00Sanity and Justice At Last<span style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms', sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now I will say it: Judge Barry Williams was brave in acquitting Officer Caesar Goodson in the death of Freddie Gray. One might say that he merely did his job, but some jobs are performed under higher pressure and scrutiny than others.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I first became concerned about his succumbing to pressure when he refused to move the Freddie Gray trials out of Baltimore. The head of the local NAACP, Tessa Hill-Aston, best illustrated the problem after the Goodson verdict when she opined that a jury would have found Goodson guilty because of their "emotions." Plenty of jurors in the mistrial of William Porter were moved emotionally to convict him. These trials belonged elsewhere.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Then Judge Williams repeatedly failed to dismiss charges after prosecutors presented their cases against Porter, Edward Nero, and Goodson despite the woeful lack of evidence. But in the end, when he had to make the most important decision of the Freddie Gray trials, Judge Williams properly applied the law to the evidence and acquitted Goodson of all charges. He deserves props for this, because plenty of people succumb to political pressure. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">No props go to Marilyn Mosby, who turned in a disgraceful performance and made Williams' job so much easier. Some give Mosby credit for "trying," and do not believe that Goodson's and Nero's acquittals reflect on the appropriateness of her bringing charges. On the contrary, these verdicts say all we need to know about Mosby's ethics, competency, and the damage she has inflicted upon public safety and the criminal justice system. She announced that her mission was to get justice "for Freddie Gray," not to get justice. She spent less than two weeks investigating his death, ignoring the police detectives and lying about using the sheriff's office as investigators. She elevated a negligence claim into a murder case, such that too many now think that there's been no "accountability" for Gray's death despite a $6 million settlement. She claimed officers should not have arrested Gray because the knife he carried was legal, when it wasn't. She never mentioned a rough ride in her initial charges, then realized late in the game that she needed one to convict for murder. And the evidence she presented was that Goodson took a wide right turn and then got out of his van. Pathetic does not even describe Mosby's case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby has accomplished three things in this sorry saga:</span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">She raised false expectations for police accountability, such that many who already feel short-changed by the criminal justice system have yet another example of a system that doesn't work. (In fact, it worked perfectly to expose her case.)</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby demonstrated that she is a political creature who is not to be trusted with the job of following the evidence wherever it leads, the first duty of the State's Attorney. So while some who already distrusted the "system" have more reason to do, many others have a new (and well-founded) distrust of Baltimore's prosecutor.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Citizens of Baltimore are less safe because Mosby's reckless charges have caused individual police officers to step back from proactive policing.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I had hoped not to hear any more drivel from the Baltimore Sun or anyone else unfamiliar with the ethical duty of a prosecutor. But immediately after the verdict the Sun's editors wrote this:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 27px;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We give [Mosby] the benefit of the doubt that she and her deputies believed they had a real case. Indeed, it’s worth noting that Ms. Mosby’s office chose not to present to a grand jury the false imprisonment charges against three officers that she had initially announced. As the facts became clearer, prosecutors adjusted course.</span></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Astonishing. That they would point to one dropped misdemeanor charge in the midst of an invented murder case as evidence of Mosby's good faith is all we need to know about the Sun's ability to assess her performance. Mosby rushed her investigation for political purposes, ignored any facts that did not support her desire to file criminal charges, and constantly changed theories of criminal liability to give her case legs. The only thing that became "clearer" about the facts was that no crime was committed, yet she forged ahead. Sun, give it up.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I will write a wrap-up piece somewhere down the road, when all the cases finally finish. Let's hope that's sooner rather than later. If Goodson, the van driver, is not guilty, none of the officers are. But our Three Blind Mice still get to decide whether we have to endure more of their folly.</span></div>
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Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-27460869422711983422016-06-16T14:05:00.000-04:002016-06-16T17:41:38.613-04:00Three Blind Mice<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The trial of Caesar Goodson, the police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray suffered his fatal injury, amplifies what the acquittal of Edward Nero already proved: State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her trial prosecutors, Michael Schatzow and Janice Bledsoe, are so completely blinded by their determination to pin Gray's death on a cop that they cannot see how patently ridiculous their cases look. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">We already know that they lack the ethics that prosecutors are supposed to have, announcing ahead of time (Mosby) that they will get justice for Gray and ignoring all evidence that contradicts their theory of the case. They will even argue legal positions <a href="https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2016/05/27/the-hypocrisy-behind-the-prosecution-of-officer-nero/">that other prosecutors in their office oppose</a> to get what they want. But to announce what they will prove in court and then prove the opposite reveals a level of obliviousness to the facts and indifference to the truth that would be comical if not so scary. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Schatzow promised evidence of a rough ride by Goodson. What did he present? Evidence that Goodson did <i>not</i> provide a rough ride. He promised evidence that Nero assaulted Gray when he arrested him. What did he produce? Evidence that Nero didn't even arrest him. <i>And they don't seem to see this.</i> They argue their cases as though this was some law school moot court, not as prosecutors with the ethical duty to impartially assess the facts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The original probable cause statement produced by these three prosecutors was on its face so lacking in grounds for criminal charges that professional observers believed that there had to be more. What we have learned is that there is <i>less. </i> And yet Mosby, Schatzow and Bledsoe continue on, enabled by a judge who refused to change the location of the trials (as he should have) and remains reluctant to dismiss charges for which the state fails to prove each element of the crimes alleged.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Goodson should be acquitted, hands down. And as the officer with the most serious charges, his acquittal should finally send a message to Mosby and Co. that it's time to stop spinning around on their mouse wheel. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But I wouldn't bet on it. To put on the cases these three have manufactured, at such cost to the city (in public safety, morale, and money), they must suffer from permanent blindness. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><u>Splashy, but Irrelevant</u></b></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><b><u><br /></u></b></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-day6-main-20160616-story.html">showdown</a> that went down in court Thursday between lead prosecutor Michael Schatzow and lead police investigator Dawnyell Jones may have entertained journalists and spectators, but it's ultimately meaningless.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Carol Allan, the assistant medical examiner who examined Gray's body, ruled his death a homicide. Jones said that Allan first called it a "freakish accident." My own personal view is that no M.E. would have called it a homicide unless led by the nose by prosecutors. What Jones alleged that Allan said - "no human hands can cause this [injury]" -- was factually true. No police officer beat up Gray. Allan was prompted by Mosby's team to call it a homicide, but she applied a legal theory that wasn't for her to decide. All the M.E. can do is tell us what physically caused a death. The legal characterization of that cause is someone else's responsibility.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the sideshow over what Allan really thought or really said doesn't matter, as Judge Williams well knows. I am surprised he just didn't say so, since he is the one charged with rendering the verdict. On second thought, I shouldn't be surprised about anything anymore when it comes to the Freddie Gray case. </span><br />
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Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-54442689446268444232016-05-27T10:44:00.001-04:002016-05-27T12:53:15.066-04:00Brave Judge or Troubling Acquittal?<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Billy Murphy, lawyer for the Freddie Gray family and booster of State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, called Judge Barry Williams "brave" for his acquittal of Officer Edward Nero. If I were the other officers still pending trials, I would use that as exhibit A in again requesting that Williams move the trials out of the city. If it took courage for Williams, a professional judge trained to make legal decisions, to acquit Nero, think of the pressure that ordinary jurors feel amidst the volatility of Baltimore city to convict some officer of some crime to preserve the peace.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It didn't take judicial bravery to acquit when the facts demanded it even before the trial began. The prosecution's "case" got even worse at the trial, showcasing the blind, ideological abuse of power in the hands of Mosby and trial prosecutors Michael Schatzow and Janice Bledsoe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I respect the fact that Judge Williams did his job. But he continues to show signs that he is not quite up to this case, that the pressure affects his decisions. It's curious, for example, that he would make Nero wait four days on pins and needles for his acquittal. Could it be that Williams worried about potential unrest in Park Heights and greater Baltimore during national coverage for the Preakness Stakes, and what that would mean for the city? Is public reaction his overriding concern as trial judge?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">While that is speculation, a more concrete worry is Williams' failure to make the legal rulings he needs to make. He is determined to send these trials to the fact finders for a decision, and by refusing to dismiss the charges, gives credence to the belief that Mosby and her team were justified in bringing them. By allowing juries to make decisions reserved for judges, Williams imperials justice for the remaining officers waiting for trial. The hung jury in the Officer William Porter trial, another case that should have been a <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2016/01/right-wrong-and-reprehensible.html">slam-dunk acquittal</a>, proves the point. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's take the assault charge against Nero. Williams decided that since Nero was not the officer who detained or arrested Gray, he was not guilty. But that conclusion was uncontroverted at the end of the prosecution's case. The legal standard at that point is whether a reasonable fact finder, viewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, could find a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The state's own witnesses made it clear that Nero was neither the detaining nor the arresting officer. There was no factual dispute to be resolved, and Williams should have dismissed the charge then. He didn't, and had this a been jury trial, Williams would have allowed jurors to make a legally insufficient finding had they convicted. (Williams also failed to address the issue of whether an arrest without probable cause is a criminal assault, perhaps because he didn't need to for Nero's case. But it guarantees that the other arresting officer, Garrett Miller, will go to trial.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Williams acquitted Nero of reckless endangerment because he found it reasonable for Nero to think that another officer had responsibility for seat belting Gray. That assumes that the failure to seat belt "<i>created</i> a substantial risk of death or injury" (italics mine), the standard for reckless endangerment. Yet no such proof was offered. Prisoners are safely transported without seat belts all the time. Not using a seat belt isn't even evidence of negligence in Maryland, and it carries a mere $50 fine. One Maryland law requires that transport vehicles for intellectually disabled children have a seat belt for each seat, but there's no such requirement for other children or transport vehicles. It appears that our law-makers think of seat belts as measures that help to prevent harm, not <i>create</i> <i>risk</i>. The risk is created by other elements - speed, other drivers, etc. Maryland legislators even specifically excepted the use of a motor vehicle from the crime of reckless endangerment! But Mosby invented herself a new crime without the legislature, one of omission: the crime of not doing something to lessen the risk of transportation in moving vehicles. And Williams has enabled this novel crime in both the Porter and Nero trials by failing to toss it on legal grounds. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nero also faced two misconduct charges, one for Gray's arrest (acquitted because Nero didn't make the arrest) and the other for not placing a seat belt on Gray. Williams ruled that the state failed to prove that Nero knew about the new police regulation on seat belts. But he wrote his verdict as though Nero might have been guilty of a crime had he known about the police regulation and consciously (even if in good faith) did not follow it. Williams failed to mention the elements of the crime that he gave to the jury in the Porter trial: that Nero had to have acted in bad faith or with an evil motive. Without those elements, any officer who failed to follow one of the incredibly numerous police regulations of which he had notice would be guilty of a crime, even if leadership never enforced it or he forgot about it. On this theory of misconduct, Mosby is herself a criminal for <a href="https://www.blogger.com/"><span id="goog_45664187"></span>failing to follow ethical guidelines</a> when announcing charges against the six officers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">At no time in the Porter or Nero trials did prosecutors even attempt to prove bad faith on the part of the officers. It's all about a local police rule (not shared in sister counties) that required, on paper but not in practice, a seat belt. Not only is failure to seat belt not a crime, it's not even admissible in a Maryland civil court. Yet Judge Williams has now twice failed to toss misconduct charges for legal insufficiency.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And so I fear that the van driver, Officer Caesar Goodson, a man with no blemishes on his record in some 16 years of service, is in jeopardy of an unjust conviction because he bears the most sensational of the charges (murder), and is the most likely to be scapegoated for Gray's death. If so, he'll be exonerated on appeal - eventually, and at great personal and financial cost. But Judge Williams could stop the farce now, for all the officers, for all of Baltimore, and for justice, by dismissing the charges for legal insufficiency. Now <i>that</i> would be brave. </span><br />
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *<br />
<br />
<b>It's Not a Game, Schatzow.</b><br />
<br />
One of the weirdest things about the Nero trial was how the judge deliberately kept out any evidence about the knife found on Gray. When Nero's attorney asked Miller it, Judge Williams sustained the prosecutor's objections. Huh? Wasn't this all about whether the police had probable cause to arrest? Apparently - behind closed doors - Mosby's trial team conceded they were wrong about the knife, and wanted to limit the argument to a new and novel theory of a crime.<br />
<br />
Schatzow, a civil litigator by trade, has pulled out all stops in pushing the law as far as he can take it to convict somebody of something. He's oblivious to the consequences. Even if officers arrest without probable cause, charging them with crimes for a mistaken belief renders them powerless to perform their jobs. None of us could work if each mistake carried criminal consequences. Most cops are high school graduates, not legal scholars, called upon to make split second decisions in high pressure atmospheres. It's untenable to expect a standard of perfection.<br />
<br />
Schatzow doesn't care about policing or public safety, only about making examples of these officers. So when his first theory of no probable cause failed (in his hasty investigation, he failed to read the Baltimore city code about knives), he came up with theory #2, which I addressed in my last blog: that anything less than instantaneous action to investigate the reason for a detention amounts to a crime. He also tried to persuade Judge Williams - who thankfully gave it short shrift - that an officer who assists another after a detention or arrest is an accomplice or co-conspirator.<br />
<br />
Schatzow won the day in the Maryland Court of Appeals on his contention that one co-defendant can be forced to testify against another when both are pending charges, an issue I expect to see in the Supreme Court at some point. But in a moment of ironic justice, he got his butt kicked when he tried it: Miller, the compelled witness, took responsibility for the arrest of Gray and exonerated Nero from responsibility. Schatzow deserved the whipping. Real prosecutors use plea agreements to interview co-defendants and obtain and evaluate information. Schatzow wanted it all: convictions on Nero and Miller both, giving no quarter to either.<br />
<br />
But though Schatzow won't give up, the law is clear that neither Nero nor Miller committed a crime.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>An officer may detain a suspect if he or she has reasonable suspicion to believe a crime was committed. This is a lesser standard than probable cause, the standard needed for an arrest. In a high crime area, unprovoked flight from a police officer may constitute reasonable suspicion.</li>
<li>A suspect may be detained for a reasonable amount of time to investigate an officer's suspicions to determine whether to arrest or let a suspect go. What is reasonable depends upon the circumstances. I know of no case holding that a 2-3 minute delay is unreasonable - that would be absurd. Much, much longer detentions have been upheld as reasonable.</li>
<li>Handcuffing a suspect - the "hard take-down" - does not, by itself, turn a detention into an arrest. Flight or reasonable belief that a suspect may be armed will justify handcuffing.</li>
<li>The collective knowledge of the police counts in assessing the reasonableness of a detention. An officer acting on the instructions of another does not have to have first hand knowledge of why he detained a suspect. </li>
<li>Officers may frisk a suspect for weapons to protect their safety if they have a reasonable belief that a suspect may be armed. In the Gray case, the nature of the area and Gray's flight lent itself to such a belief, such that whether the knife was found as part of a frisk or in looking for an inhaler at Gray's request, its recovery was lawful and justified Gray's arrest. </li>
</ul>
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<div>
Schatzow, the civil litigator, ignored all of this, attempting to blame Nero and Miller for Gray's death through the back door of an illegal arrest. "Illegal" in this sense doesn't mean crime, but a violation of the 4th amendment protection against unreasonable seizures, which, when it occurs, results in dropped charges and civil suits. Only officers acting with bad faith or evil motive can be charged criminally - and Schatzow has made zero effort to prove such a state of mind for any of these officers. Mere violation of rules or standards constitute crimes for him. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
For Schatzow, it's all just a legal game. How to win no matter what the obstacle. Time for him to go back to civil litigation, where standards of ethics and justice apparently don't apply. </div>
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<br />Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-65246394236301510742016-05-23T12:52:00.000-04:002016-05-24T10:55:16.201-04:00Baltimore's Dangerous Prosecutors<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The criminal trial of police officer Edward Nero, the second of six scheduled in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death, proves what many professional observers feared when State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby so hastily and sensationally charged the six officers with crimes a year ago: Baltimore's top prosecutors are oblivious to their ethical duties and dangerous to public safety.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-71e667b4-de82-3379-bc25-d92912a5853a" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The trial of Nero made it abundantly clear that he did nothing wrong. In response to a call from a supervisor, Officer Garrett Miller detained and handcuffed Gray. Nero joined him, and one of them found an illegal knife on Gray while looking for the inhaler Gray requested. Gray was subsequently placed and then repositioned in a police van, with Nero assisting but not in charge of the process. Gray then suffered a freak and fatal injury sometime while in the van, at some point and in some way no one knows for sure. What we do know is that no police officer beat him or deliberately endangered him. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The case against all the officers is, at its core, homicide by no seat belt. It's an entirely new crime being invented by Baltimore's prosecutors, and they are pulling out all stops to make it stick.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But the charges that always seemed the most pernicious to me were the ones against Miller and Nero for arresting Gray. By charging them criminally, Mosby and her deputies, Michael Schatzow and Janice Beldsoe, told police officers that any mistake in the assessment of probable cause, even if the police officers acted in good faith, is a crime. But the theory exposed by the trial is even more dangerous to public safety that that. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They argued to trial judge Barry Williams that in the 2-3 minutes after Gray was handcuffed, but before the illegal knife was found on him, Nero, by not instantly finding out why the supervisor wanted Gray detained, committed a crime. In other words, the mistake they made was neither in the chase (for which they had reasonable suspicion) nor in the arrest for the knife (for which they had probable cause.) In was in the extremely short delay before finding the knife in which they hadn't pulled out all stops to find out why they were asked to detain Gray.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's a breathtakingly astonishing theory for a crime. No police department anywhere could operate under such a constriction. Mosby's motivations are now laid bare: she wants criminal convictions no matter what the truth, the facts, the law, or the impact on public safety.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby first announced last year that Gray's knife was legal. Oops, wrong. But rather than reassess her judgment, she charged forward with this new, incredibly specious and dangerous argument. In fact, she and her deputies have employed legal gamesmanship to achieve their ends throughout this drama. They perverted the intent of the witness immunity statute to make one co-defendant testify against another, something we have yet to see them do against other criminal defendants. (It backfired on them when they made Miller testify against Nero, but the fact that they did it showed their desperation to convict.) They also used it as a tool to postpone cases they were not yet ready to try. They have taken the routine practice of not seat-belting prisoners in a police van and turned it into a crime, despite the fact that the officers could not have anticipated that Gray would break his neck. And now any police officer who takes a few minutes to recover from a chase or collect his thoughts is guilty of crime if he did not have first-hand knowledge of the reason for detaining a suspect.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">At least, that's the way it is in Mosby's world. Never mind that legal precedent is against her, or that her own prosecutors are arguing the opposite in their everyday cases. Mosby's objective is politics and pandering, not justice.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So, Baltimore, when one of your citizens is a victim of crime, don't be surprised if the police do nothing more than take a report. Detaining a suspect puts them in legal jeopardy under the Mosby regime. And don't expect the prosecutor's office to help you out, either. Their leaders are either watching the Gray trials (Mosby) or spending the first two years of their administration inventing new crimes for which to convict its police officers. </span></span></div>
Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-79608217977044603772016-05-06T10:39:00.000-04:002016-05-13T15:35:20.159-04:00Thoughts While Waiting on the Next Freddie Gray Trial<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u>What's Up with the Court of Appeals?</u></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When Officer William Porter appealed a ruling that he had to testify against his co-defendants in the Freddie Gray case while pending his own re-trial, the Court of Appeals swooped in. Although the appeal was made to the intermediate Court of Special Appeals, the state's highest court decided to intervene, presumably to keep the trials moving along. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And they made their minds up quickly, issuing an order affirming the trial judge's order within days of hearing arguments. But now, two months later, we still await their justification. (And prosecutors have taken full advantage, making yet another co-defendant to testify against a fellow officer. Unlike Porter, who took the stand in his own defense in his first trial, Garrett Miller has yet to testify at all.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It makes me wonder: are the justices having second thoughts? Did the process of justification make them pause and reconsider the implications of their decision on the 5th Amendment and the power of prosecutors? Are they having trouble articulating the rationale, because they don't all agree on it? And what if a key voter has changed his or her mind </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">- wouldn't that throw a monkey wrench into the business.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Whatever is going on, they owe the defendants a rationale, and they owe it to them now as they prepare their cases. I was mildly surprised by the Court's decision, but willing to believe that it was based strictly on the letter of the law and precedent and would build in protections against prosecutorial abuse. Now I wonder if they knew what they were doing when they acted with such haste. </span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><u><a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-bench-trial-nero-20160505-story.html">The Trial of Officer Edward Nero</a></u></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Baltimore Sun speculates today that Edward Nero, one of the arresting officers, may take a court trial. From the outset, before I knew more about the evidence (or lack thereof) in the cases against the six officers, I was most disturbed by the criminal charges against the two arresting officers, Nero and Miller. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's assume that these two officers arrested Freddie Gray improperly (something I don't at all concede.) Prosecutors first claimed that Gray's knife was legal, but they should lose on this, either because it wasn't legal or because the officers reasonably believed it wasn't. Now they claim that the officers recovered the knife improperly. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This analysis involves a host of Fourth Amendment law - the right to chase, to frisk, to make a "hard take down" without it becoming an arrest, the subjective belief of officers versus their objective right to act, and so forth. Lawyers argue about it and judges disagree among themselves. The line is often fuzzy and ultimately decided after the fact. What State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has done is to criminalize any mistake an officer might make in the split second decision-making required on the street. This is so completely dangerous, so chilling to officers, that the results have been what I predicted (and some ridiculed me for): an explosion of crime while officers stand by, loathe to intervene through proactive policing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let me clear: I don't approve of bully policing. But officers who overreach can be disciplined and sued, and those who lie and plant evidence should be criminally prosecuted. But the majority of improper arrests involve not corruption but mistakes, good-faith mistakes in the complicated area of criminal law and the 4th Amendment, and there is absolutely nothing in these cases to indicate anything other than - at worst - a mistake under duress in the knowledge or application of the law. What they <i>should</i> have done will be decided coolly after-the-fact, with good arguments on either side. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nero must choose whether to take his case to a judge or a jury. The jury in Porter's case already revealed how the publicity affected their decision-making, nearly convicting him of misconduct when the evidence wasn't there. Therefore, it would seem reasonable for Nero, whose case depends on the interpretation of the law, to take his case to a judge, who should fully understand the complexity of 4th amendment law and acquit him easily. However, this is a risk, as Nero would waive certain avenues of appeal and put all his eggs in one basket. With the facts of this case, I would normally judge this to be a good risk.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But here let me quote the Sun's quotation of <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-mindset-of-judge-williams-and.html">Doug Colbert</a>, buddy of prosecutor Michael Schatzow, who is as phony an "expert" as there is in these trials. Colbert justifies every questionable act of Schatzow and ruling by trial judge Barry Williams because he relishes these trials and greatly desires convictions. (And the lazy members of the press lap it up, because he wraps himself in the role of law professor and makes himself available for quotes.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here is Colbert on whether Judge Barry Williams shows any signs that he would rule in favor of Nero:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 27px;"><i>"From what I saw, I'm not sure that Judge Williams fits within that profile."</i></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I can see Colbert saying that, with his smug smile of approval. But in fact, it's an indictment. This should be an easy acquittal for Nero before a judge who is independent of politics and well-versed in Fourth Amendment and criminal law. The fact that Williams has created this doubt through his rulings casts further mistrust on a criminal justice system that Mosby has abused for political purposes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">At the outset I expected Williams to be fair and correct in his rulings. He has since made me believe that he has been affected by the politics of this case. Judges, like anyone else, are human. But I always believe the best before I believe the worst, so for now I choose to believe that Williams thinks the best (political) results would come from city juries deciding the cases without his legal intervention, so he has steered the cases in that direction. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But if, indeed, Nero takes a court trial before him, we will know for sure whether Williams fits the profile of independent judge or Mosby political enabler. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-35005566868586237462016-03-23T12:50:00.001-04:002016-03-25T09:51:14.401-04:00Ethics and Elections 2016<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I am not a political commentator, but when criminal justice and politics intersect I do speak up.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Baltimore we have Nick Mosby, husband of State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, running for mayor. Nick was the first politician in the family, successfully running for city council. He then worked hard for his wife's election as top prosecutor. Now he yearns to be top dog himself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It seemed pretty obvious to me that this would create a major conflict of interest, with Nick responsible for the police department and Marilyn handling prosecutions. The two agencies have to work together, and it's important that they do so, but they also <i>must </i>be independent of each other to protect the integrity of the criminal justice system. How can we know that one Mosby is not covering for the other for the sake of their careers?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So when Nick Mosby showed up at my place of employment to give his stump speech, I asked one question: how could he not see his being mayor as a huge conflict of interest when his wife was State's Attorney? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">"I'm glad you asked that question," he replied, and launched into a fully rehearsed response. His main point: since the state's attorney budget is only a fraction of the city budget, and the city council has the power to take out what he puts in the budget, there's no problem.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What garbage. The conflict isn't about budget, it's about policy, accountability, and transparency. I refrained from any follow-up questions, as this was not my personal forum. But one person got up and left, saying, "He didn't answer her question, so I'm done with him." Others murmured similar sentiments. And one senior citizen later said to me, "Thank you, Page, for asking that question. We were all kind of wondering about that, but you asked it."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the problem is pretty darn obvious, even to ordinary citizens. They don't need a legal expert to point out the conflict of interest. They see it and are concerned about it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But not Nick Mosby. Ethical blindness - or arrogance - must run in the family. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oh, and even though he didn't fool his audience with his answer, he fooled them in another way. After his presentation he asked people to come up for some photographs. After some cajoling, a few came up, whereupon one of his staffers shoved signs in their hands and told them to hold them up for the camera. They didn't have a chance to read the signs, but dutifully complied. As of this writing one of those photographs, with a woman holding a sign that reads "Women for Mosby", is on his political Facebook page, an unauthorized (and fraudulently obtained) use of an image. From our wannabe next mayor.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Speaking of ethics (or the lack thereof), there's another election going on in Baltimore, one that voters tend to ignore because they know nothing about the candidates. They ought to <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2014/02/keep-your-vote.html">make it their business</a> to know - last election they put Judge Alfred Nance back on the bench and he <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-rodricks-0813-20150812-column.html">let an accused murderer go</a> because he's an arrogant nut. Now the same gang that supports all the sitting judges no matter how awful or mediocre is back, asking voters to elect their latest round of politically appointed judges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">One of the <i>standing</i> judicial candidates - someone willing to stand up to the legal community and their political picks - is Todd Oppenheim, a city public defender. In the course of his campaigning Oppenheim attended a community forum in Charles Village where he encountered one Dana Moore, who introduced the sitting judges and did most of their talking. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Moore was a long-time member of the city's Judicial Nominating Commission, which nominates judicial candidates to the governor. For a time, she simultaneously served on the Maryland State Bar committee that makes recommendations to the Commission - in other words, she influenced the recommendations that she received. A politically connected lawyer, Moore served on the city liquor board and was chair of the city ethics board. Except oops, Moore <a href="https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2014/06/24/an-ex-judge-and-a-plugged-in-lawyer-to-fill-key-spots-on-liquor-board/">failed to file</a> her own ethics forms for three of the years she was on the ethics board.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">When Oppenheim's turn to speak at the forum came up, Moore, acting as mouthpiece for the sitting judges, attacked him from the floor, calling him a "liar" for observations he made about the way judges are picked. Afterward she cornered him and told him that she was going to "haunt" him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nice stuff from someone whose professionalism and judgment we are supposed to trust, who didn't follow her own ethical responsibilities, and who influenced a committee in its recommendations to a commission on which she sat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I think I'll take the candidate Moore isn't supporting, the one that turned his back on the <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2010/02/politics-of-picking-judges-originally.html">Politics of Picking Judges</a>. Todd Oppenheim. I prefer a person of principle over those who rely on political connections and mouthpieces like Moore any time. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-36817317939674179812016-03-09T10:31:00.001-05:002016-03-09T14:59:43.854-05:00The Court of Appeals and Freddie Gray<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It really does reflect incredibly poorly on the State's Attorney. The fact that we're plumbing new depths of legal precedent illustrates how much of a witch hunt this is. In any other case where there wasn't a political motive, the state wouldn't have prosecuted Porter in exchange for his testimony. That's how it works. That's why there's no precedent. No one's ever been desperate enough to get convictions to try this.</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This on-line reaction to the <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-appeals-court-ruling-freddie-gray-20160308-story.html">Court of Appeals order</a> compelling Officer William Porter to testify against his co-defendants in the Freddie Gray case sums up my view. But let me elaborate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />The "new depths of legal precedent" began with the trial judge ordering Porter to testify against two co-defendants, Sgt. Alicia White and Officer Caesar Goodson, while Porter was still pending criminal charges in the same case after his first jury hung. The secondary issue was whether the judge could refuse to make Porter testify against the other three co-defendants when the judge believed that it was a ruse by prosecutors to postpone those cases until after the White and Goodson trials.<br /><br />And therein lies the rub. The potential for prosecutors to abuse their authority. It's exactly what the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall warned about in dissenting from the Supreme Court's approving the use of testimonial immunity. When a witness is given testimonial immunity, it means that they cannot invoke their 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, but that nothing they say, or anything derived from what they said (new leads, new evidence, etc.) can be used against them. This immunity, he said, was tied to the good faith of prosecutors, and he was unwilling to put such power in their hands.<br /><br />State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her lead prosecutor, Michael Schatzow, took a law that was aimed at witnesses and used it to force a person facing charges to testify. Career prosecutors have not done this, understanding the intent of the law. As the commentator said, they make plea bargains with co-defendants to get their testimony instead. But Schatzow wanted Porter's hide, too, or maybe he knew Porter wouldn't take a plea deal because he committed no crime. So it took a civil litigator-turned-prosecutor to play legal gamesmanship and extract a new meaning from the immunity law. The potential for prosecutor mischief is huge. In fact, Schatzow has already demonstrated that potential by using his power to postpone cases.<br /><br />But greater abuse is possible. A prosecutor, for example, could deliberately set up a witness for a perjury charge, since perjury is excluded from protection. Assistant attorney general Carrie Willliams, in arguing the case before the Court of Appeals, said that there is "no right to commit perjury." Well, one of the ancillary protections of the 5th Amendment is to not be maneuvered into lying to protect oneself. It is naive to think that a defendant would trust a prosecutor to not consciously or unconsciously improperly use his testimony against him. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Porter's attorney, Gary Proctor, who seemed out-of-his-league at the Court of Appeals hearing, nevertheless made the point that by making Porter testify five times in co-defendant cases prosecutors would also be forcing the kind of inconsistencies that come naturally when people tell the same story over and over, but that could be used to damn him later. <br /><br />A prosecutor could also use the compelled testimony to get leads and then manufacture evidence that she got these leads herself. However "heavy" (per Williams) the burden is upon prosecutors to prove that they didn't do this, the truth is that any bad faith of the prosecutor would be difficult to unmask.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br />As a young prosecutor, I was offended when defense attorneys suggested that I would hide evidence or misuse my position to get a conviction. But when I encountered slimy defense attorneys who had once been prosecutors, I understood the suspicions. I have them myself about Marilyn Mosby, who from the beginning has <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/trading-ethics-for-politics_18.html">violated her ethical responsibilities</a> in these cases.<br /><br />Schatzow, in arguing before the Court of Appeals, essentially told them that it was none of their business why he suddenly wanted to call Porter as a witness in the trials of three officers, which he knew would force postponements. He argued that it was his job to decide on his witnesses and the court's job to make them testify as long as he followed procedural steps. In other words, he claimed the privilege to manipulate the law to maneuver his cases into the most favorable position for himself. Schatzow needs a conviction on any count against any defendant to justify his indictments, and wanted to move the weakest cases to the end of the line. He even risked having an important prosecutorial tool, testimonial immunity, ruled unconstitutional under the Maryland constitution, to get his way. <br /><br />It didn't happen, though I don't know whether that was good or bad for prosecutors. Good that they still have the tool when needed against criminals, bad in that they may pull a Schatzow: use the power to manipulate defendants and cases to get convictions of any kind in spite of the lack of evidence. <br /><br />We will know more about the thinking of the Court of Appeals when they release their full opinion. My guess is that they followed the letter of the law on both issues. First, the testimonial immunity statute does not specifically exclude charged defendants from being forced to testify, and there is no legal precedent to say that they can't be. Second, that the law does not provide for trial judges to decide whether a compelled witness is necessary to a prosecutor's case or not. In addition, since Porter had already testified in his own defense the "cat", as one justice said, was "already out of the bag." Williams made a similar point: Porter was better off having already been tried, since everyone could see what evidence the State had against him before he testified. This may have also factored into their decision. Judges generally try to limit themselves to the facts in front of them, not theoretical scenarios.<br /><br />But I have little doubt that the justices are on high alert to the potential for abuse. After all, Schatzow practically admitted that he manipulated the system to get postponements, and they could not have liked that. They may not feel that the law allows them to step in now, but I have no reason yet to not trust this court - now that former Chief Judge Robert Bell has retired - to apply the law properly.<br /><br />And that should include reversing any convictions of these officers, either on the grounds that the trials should have been moved from the city, or on the grounds that the evidence in the cases do not support the charges. After all, forcing Porter to testify doesn't change the facts. Porter will only say what he testified to previously: that while Gray may have asked for a medic in response to his question, he did not appear to be injured. So whatever he told White and Goodson, he would not have communicated any imminent danger that the others ignored. What his testimony will do is help prosecutors get past a motion to dismiss the case, and give any biased jury a hook to hang a conviction on.<br /><br />But the officers, as I have written, <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2016/01/right-wrong-and-reprehensible.html">committed no crime</a>. Damaged as my faith is in the ethical behavior of prosecutors, I have to believe that the Maryland appeals courts will ensure ultimate justice. Not "justice for Freddie Gray" - justice.</span></div>
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Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-22855201766923329152016-01-28T14:39:00.000-05:002016-01-29T12:01:42.203-05:00A Texas-Sized Lesson<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A sensational story, garnering national coverage. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Widespread calls for an immediate criminal investigation. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ideologues on the left and right shouting their preconceived condemnations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Freddie Gray case? To this point, yes. But here's what happened next:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A responsible, ethical prosecutor made a promise to "follow the evidence wherever it leads." He took his time, using the powerful tools that prosecutors have at their disposal to find the truth. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Two months later, the accusations of criminal conduct turned on their head: the accused was proved innocent, and the accusers indicted instead.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now I don't perceive Texas to be a beacon of enlightenment when it comes to criminal justice. Its citizens can openly carry guns with the backing of strong right-to-use-force laws. It executes more prisoners than any other state. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson, a Republican, refused to bow to political and social pressure when pro-life, self-styled "investigators" accused Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast of selling fetal tissue for profit. Instead, Anderson launched a two-month investigation, using a Grand Jury, and not only <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/25/politics/planned-parenthood-activists-indicted/">cleared Planned Parenthood</a>, but indicted its accusers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby, his Baltimore counterpart, took a mere two weeks to investigate the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, ignoring all the standard investigative tools at her disposal. Instead of "following the evidence wherever it leads" she predetermined the result, abandoning her prosecutorial ethics for politics, ideology, and career. As a result, six Baltimore police officers innocent of any crime are being dragged through costly trials, and the city's top prosecutors, instead of leading the city through a crime spike sparked in large part by their own actions, are trying to salvage their cases "by any and all means necessary." (Mosby's own words <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/trading-ethics-for-politics_18.html">while investigating the Gray case</a>.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mosby's in good company with the political leaders at the Texas state level, who plan to continue their own investigations of Planned Parenthood because the original accusations fit their pro-life ideology. The editors of our own Baltimore Sun won't throw in the towel, either. Today, in an editorial condemning the twitter comments of a city police officer, they wrote:</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Freddie Gray's arrest and death may or may not have involved criminal behavior by police, but it certainly conveyed the impression that Baltimore police are entirely unsympathetic to many in the city they serve — and that's putting it as generously as possible. </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">They refuse to concede that Mosby's evidence does not reveal criminal activity after their <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/12/our-baltimore-sun-moralistic.html">long crusade for criminal trials</a>, and still claim that at the very least both the arrest (!) and the death of Gray prove that Baltimore police are, at best, "entirely unsympathetic" to citizens. They ignore anything that contradicts this narrative, including the evidence that police van driver Caesar Goodson asked Officer William Porter to check on Gray, who not only did check but helped him off the van floor. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But it's a lost cause when it comes to ideologues, whether they come from the right or the left. Thank goodness for prosecutors like Devon Anderson, who give me hope that ethics, objectivity and professionalism live somewhere, if not in Baltimore. </span></div>
Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-58609764190897437782016-01-18T10:57:00.000-05:002016-03-08T13:49:02.337-05:00Right, Wrong, and Reprehensible<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If the <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-porter-jury-split-20160115-story.html">published comments</a> from one of the jurors in the first Freddie Gray trial are accurate, then I was right, wrong, and right again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Right that the jurors were close to acquitting Officer William Porter on the most serious count, involuntary manslaughter.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Wrong that they were close to acquitting him on the other charges as well. In fact, they were very close to convicting him for misconduct in office, and leaned towards conviction for reckless endangerment.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And right that this trial should have been moved. This hung trial makes it all so clear that the six officers <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-judge-influenced.html">cannot get a fair trial</a> in Baltimore city.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">According to the Sun, Judge Barry Williams instructed the jury that to find Porter guilty of misconduct in office, he had to have acted with "evil motive and bad faith," that he could not have made a "mere error in judgment," and that he "corruptly failed to do an act required by his duties."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">There was zero evidence of evil motive, bad faith or corruption in performing his duties. Porter acted completely consistently with other police officers. Acting in conflict with a general order does not equate to misconduct, either. If one thinks the police, as a department, act unreasonably in how they transport prisoners, that's what civil suits are for. But not criminal charges. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">To convict for reckless endangerment, the Maryland standard jury instructions say that Porter had to have engaged in conduct that created a "substantial risk of death of serious physical injury," "that a reasonable person would not have engaged in that conduct," and that he acted "recklessly." To act recklessly means that "his conduct created a risk of death or serious physical injury to another" and that he "consciously disregarded that risk."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Prosecutors failed to prove that Porter created a substantial risk of death or serious injury. Even if one accepts the state's contention that he should have seat-belted Gray, this did not create a substantial risk of serious injury or death. Prisoners are transported like that routinely and safely all over the state. Small risks don't count, and "if-only" doesn't count, as in, "if-only he had a seat belt on he would not have died." One could equally say, "If-only Gray had not banged around the van causing the police to place him on the floor, he would not have died." One cannot assign criminal liability with an "if-only" standard, or all negligence cases would become criminal cases, and nearly every one of us would be criminals.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Prosecutors also failed to prove that Porter had any reason to think that Gray was seriously injured and consciously disregarded a risk of death. Even if their unproven theory is correct that Gray had suffered his fatal injury by the time Porter was talking to him, Porter had no reason to know it. He helped Gray up, and Gray was talking to him. Even the state's autopsy report indicated no obvious signs of injury. On top of that, the defense presented powerful evidence that Gray was not injured until after Porter spoke to him. To which prosecutors resorted to their "if-only" argument: if-only Porter had called a medic <i>before</i> Gray was actually injured, he would not have died. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The only possible bit of evidence to support the state's contention of recklessness is the note taken over the phone by a police investigator that Porter told her that Gray said he couldn't breathe. She thought Porter was talking about the fourth stop. Porter testified that he was talking about the initial arrest, and the issue had to do with an inhaler. He never mentioned Gray saying he couldn't breathe in a videotaped interview. That single phone interview note is the linchpin of the state's case against Porter, which crumbled under the weight of the other evidence. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">So what was the jury thinking? That they had to convict Porter of <i>something</i>. They couldn't possibly let him walk completely in such a momentous case. That's exactly why prosecutors threw in those lesser charges, to give the jurors a straw to grasp. The weight of the case clearly hung all over them, and they could not -- however well-intentioned -- give Porter a fair trial based only on the law and the evidence. Heck, I don't blame them. Judge Williams couldn't, either. Starting with keeping the trial in the city.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And then there's the reprehensible. Marilyn Mosby is now manipulating the evidence to achieve her goal of conviction at any cost. She is engaging in a gamesmanship common in civil cases but repugnant to her sworn duty as Baltimore's state's attorney. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">From the moment <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/baltimores-hasty-prosecutor.html">Mosby hastily </a>announced her charges, I was alarmed, because no responsible prosecutor would have acted so quickly without carefully reviewing all the evidence. Still, I expected <i>some </i>evidence to emerge that justified her actions. When <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-freddie-gray-autopsy-report-or-what.html">the autopsy report</a> was leaked, I saw that my fears were well-founded. She had no legal case. And when the defense experts testified in Porter's case, they demolished her factual case, too. She has gotten this far because Judge Williams has enabled her through his own buckling under the weight of this case, failing to protect the defendants from Mosby's abuse of her power. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And her legal chicanery continues. After successfully persuading Judge Williams to order Porter to testify against co-defendant Officer Caesar Goodson, a novel ruling, she now wants Porter to <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-porter-witness-hearing-20160114-story.html">testify against the arresting officers and their supervisor</a> even though she once thought Porter was irrelevant to those cases.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Irrelevant because she claims that Gray told Porter he couldn't breathe at the fourth stop of the transport van, well after the time of arrest. But because Porter disputed this at his trial, she now wants him to testify to his version. She called him a liar for saying it at his own trial -- and got a hung jury out of it -- but now will present him as a truthful witness at the trials of arresting officers, suborning, under her view of the case, perjury. The actual truth doesn't matter as long as she gets a conviction on somebody. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Or maybe Mosby doesn't really plan to call Porter and is just playing another game, the postponement game. Goodson's trial was postponed while Porter appeals the order for him to testify against Goodson. It may be that Mosby just wants to force the postponement of the other trials as well. If Judge Williams compliantly rules that Porter has to testify against the other officers, even if prosecutors think he's a liar, or won't really call him to the stand, those cases will also be postponed, and Mosby won't have to risk any embarrassing acquittals until the Goodson case is resolved.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Either way, this behavior typifies Mosby and her trial attorneys/enablers Michael Schatzow and Janice Bledsoe. They pursue not the truth, but in the words of Mosby, "<a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/trading-ethics-for-politics_18.html">justice for Freddie Gray</a>." And they will trample over the law, the evidence, their ethical responsibilities and real justice to get there.</span></span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-1782622639814189072016-01-11T11:24:00.000-05:002016-01-26T08:35:19.725-05:00The Mindset of Judge Williams, and the Hypocrisy of Doug Colbert<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Judge Barry Williams has revealed once and for all his mindset: that he will allow prosecutors to do anything they want in their zeal to criminally convict the police officers they have accused of killing Freddie Gray.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">At this point, having listened to all of the evidence, Judge Williams knows full well that they are not criminally culpable. Any fair-minded person who understands the law and knows the facts understands this. Yet Judge Williams refuses to step in to protect their legal rights. Instead he is handing prosecutors every possible tool to convict them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">His latest decision to force Officer William Porter, a defendant in the case, to testify in the case of co-defendant Officer Caesar Goodson, is, as he acknowledged "uncharted territory." In addition, as he likewise admitted, it would be "nigh impossible" to prove that Porter's testimony would not have an impact on his own re-trial.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And yet Judge Williams ordered the testimony. His gut tells him - as it tells all of us in the legal community - that his ruling fundamentally re-interprets the Fifth Amendment as we have understood it through many decades of Supreme Court rulings. But instead of saying, no, I won't go that far, Judge Williams, consistent with every other major ruling save one, gave prosecutors exactly what they asked for. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The only significant decision Judge Williams made that could be said to favor the defendants was to order individual trials for each defendant. Yet now he has perverted that ruling by forcing Porter to testify in a co-defendant's trial, something he clearly could not have done had they been tried together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">And now comes the news that Judge Williams will let an expert in Goodson's trial testify that police officers sometimes give defendants "rough rides." Mind you, prosecutors never alleged in their charging documents that Goodson gave Freddie Gray a rough ride. They have provided no evidence whatsoever that such a ride occurred. And despite having eight months to prepare their case, they only submitted the name of this expert witness at the last minute. Faced with the prospect of not having Porter testify that Goodson knew Gray wanted a medic (which still does not make Goodson guilty of a crime), they are grasping at straws.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Experts are employed and relevant at trial if they can help juries interpret facts. However, there must first exist some facts to interpret. Judge Williams intends to allow prosecutors to present evidence that some officers sometimes deliberately knock their prisoners around in their vans by rough driving, so that the jury can speculate, out of thin air, that Goodson must have done this to Freddie Gray. If Officer Goodson is convicted, he will have solid ground for reversal on this issue alone.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But trial judges need to ensure a fair trial the first time around, which Judge Williams has failed to do. However positively his personality and demeanor projects to the media and court observers, that takes a back seat to his number one duty: making the legally correct rulings. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nevertheless, I do not believe that Judge Williams acts in bad faith. I can't say the same for <b>Doug Colbert, </b>who teaches law at the University of Maryland law school, and who is all over the news these days as an "expert" in the Freddie Gray case. Colbert's claim to fame is a lawsuit he and Michael Schatzow (yes, the lead prosecutor in the Freddie Gray case) filed to force Maryland taxpayers to pay for attorneys for all arrested persons when the first bail decision is made. I won't review the merits of that issue now -- anyone interested can see my views <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-sinkhole-that-is-criminal-justice.html">elsewhere in my blog.</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But in the course of that lawsuit Colbert deceived Maryland courts by making misleading factual claims. And within the Baltimore criminal justice system, he was known for the same behavior when he advocated a point of view. He would use his law students to gather "facts" to support his preconceptions, facts that did hold up to scrutiny. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Now in his role as media "expert" he is anything but reliable. Experts in legal matters ought to present unbiased explanations. Colbert has been nothing but obvious in his support for his buddy Schatzow's efforts in the Freddie Gray case. As a former career prosecutor, I believe that Schatzow has violated the fundamental duty of a prosecutor, which is to follow the evidence and the law wherever it leads. In this case, I believe the officers are innocent of any crime, not because I desire that conclusion, but because the law and evidence take me there. Colbert, however, <i>wants</i> a conviction. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here he is, <a href="http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=15399">in his own words:</a></span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What's never happened before is to prosecute police officers. I mean, when you look at it, you know, the research shows that there's been four convicted police officers in the last ten years throughout the country. So we're dealing with something that's brand new, here. And the local prosecutor is doing something that most local prosecutors never do. They're not only bringing charges, but they're determined to convict. This is highly unusual.</span></i><br />
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He falsely asserts in the first statement that police officers are not prosecuted. (A low conviction rate is not the same as not prosecuting.) And he sneers at the efforts that prosecutors do make when they bring charges: "Most prosecutors," he alleges, are "never" "determined to convict." Only Schatzow is determined, which is "highly unusual." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Judge Williams decision to force Porter to testify in Goodson's case has sent a chill down the spine of criminal defense attorneys and other defenders of the Bill of Rights. It should have sent a chill down Colbert's spine, too, as someone who advocates for defendants and constitutional rights. But Colbert has no worries at all, and dismisses any concerns Porter might have because the prosecution already has "sufficient testimony and evidence" against him. And if the State doesn't force Porter to testify in the other co-defendant cases, here's what Colbert says would happen:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">"...everytime you had co-defendants they'd all gang up together and say, look, everybody keep quiet. Let's, let's have a code of silence. Let's not cooperate."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, duh. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Welcome to our world. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That's exactly what prosecutors have had to contend with in every co-defendant case from time immemorial. If prosecutors can't prove their case without the testimony of one co-defendant, they try to work out a plea deal for that testimony. But until now, no one has tried to force one co-defendant to testify in another co-defendant's case the way Schatzow has.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">With Colbert's full approval. Why? Because he wants these officers convicted. The end justifies the means. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That's not an expert. That's not a law professor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">That's a hypocrite.</span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-81305423862486782042015-12-17T22:15:00.000-05:002016-01-26T08:36:37.073-05:00Our Baltimore Sun: Moralistic, Ideological and Wrong<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The December 17th editorial from the Baltimore Sun, that once venerable institution, underscores all that's wrong with the prosecution of six police officers for the death of Freddie Gray. These trials are about everything other than the commission of a crime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">For the Sun, the Freddie Gray trials are about police-community relations and economic and racial inequalities. And now, after the hung jury in the first trial, the Sun calls the result "<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-verdict-20151216-story.html">a clear verdict on the police department."</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Excuse me? The jurors made no pronouncement at all. The Sun, almost hilariously, reached that verdict, and did so on the basis of no seat belts and alleged failure to call medics. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's leave aside the Sun's complete ignorance of the reality of the dangers on the street; it's decision to discard testimony that officers are bitten, kicked and spit upon when loading up prisoners; the testimony of Chief Timothy Longo, a highly respected former Baltimore Police commander and outgoing Chief of the Charlottesville, Va. police department, who testified firmly that it was reasonable to not place seat belts on prisoners in police vans; and the fact that no seat belts is the norm, not the exception, elsewhere in Maryland.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's ignore the fact that Freddie Gray, although healthy, went limp after his arrest, faking a problem; that many prisoners fake injuries, such that if the police responded to all the fakeries, neither they nor the medics nor the ERs would be able to properly handle other responsibilities. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Let's forget the compelling evidence that Gray was, in all probability, not injured until after the second-to-last stop, and that the officers could not have helped him earlier. Let's not comment on the prosecution and Sun's contention that the police should have called a medic when there were no signs of actual injury or distress, so that no future injury could occur.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Instead, let's examine the Sun's viewpoint: that if the police create their own rule, and then fail to fully disseminate or obey that rule, they are criminally liable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Sun doesn't actually use that terminology. Their verdict is a police department "rife with incompetence." Hmm. The officers didn't sound incompetent to me. It's just that street practice often differs from official directives. Officers clearly understand that they have discretion, without which they would be hamstrung. One tragic, freak accident does not render them incompetent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But let's leave that discussion aside, too. Because hidden behind the "incompetent" language is the real crux of the problem: <i>The Sun thinks that the police department's internal rules carry the force of criminal laws, such that failure to follow those rules is tantamount to criminal acts if someone dies in police custody. </i>Therefore, the Sun believes that the prosecution of these six police officers is warranted, proper and healthy for the city. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Never have I heard such ignorant bunk, from a prosecutor or a newspaper. So caught up in the need to correct injustices, be they economic, racial, or the abuse of power, State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her deputies Michael Schatzow and Janice Bledsoe, with the complete endorsement of the Baltimore Sun, abused their prosecutorial power and charged six persons who committed no crimes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I said in <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/baltimores-hasty-prosecutor.html">my first blog</a> on Freddie Gray, days after Mosby sensationally announced her charges, that she was setting up the false expectation that a crime was committed and that convictions would follow. She showed only the weakest of evidence in her probable cause statement, and it got worse over time. When the autopsy report revealed that she could not prove her case, the Sun said nothing. NOTHING. It had been moralizing and pronouncing legal judgments all over the place (see below), but went silent when the autopsy report made clear that an accident had occurred. The editors never delved into, never elucidated for its readers, the difference between civil and criminal standards of conduct, but instead helped perpetuate the false belief that they were one and the same. All it wanted after the autopsy report was leaked was for the trials to stay in Baltimore, where it was most likely that citizens would also confuse the issues. Take a quote from a citizen in the same edition as the editorial: "The city gave the family all that money. They practically said [Porter] was guilty. How can the jury not find him guilty?" And nearly every other quote from Baltimore citizens expressed surprise at the failure to convict. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Sun applauded these trials even though it was plain that this was a civil, not a criminal case. And even when the jury did not validate the Sun's belief that a crime was committed the Sun claimed victory: Aha! The police department proven to be incompetent. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Well, there's incompetence now. Homicides are through the roof and crime is rising, but instead of police and prosecutor response we citizens have to endure six additional trials - more if there are further mistrials - none of which belong in criminal court. Why? Because of a freak accident and the fact that police practice on the street does not blindly adhere to official policy. What unbelievable folly from our prosecutor and newspaper.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">A courageous prosecutor would have called it like it was from the beginning: a tragic accident, but no criminal conduct. Newspaper editors doing their job would have called her to account for her haste in charging and the unfolding reality that she blew it. Instead, in the very worst of prosecutorial and journalistic behavior, Marilyn Mosby and the editors of The Sun traded their objectivity and their duty to the public for political and/or ideological purposes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Never have I felt more profoundly disgusted by my former profession, or by the once-great Sun, as I have these past seven months.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In Their Own Words</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Here's the history of the Sun's editorials on Freddie Gray. I may have missed a few, but the themes hold steady. The last one puts the cherry on top. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 23: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-lynch-mob-20150423-story.html">"No Lynch Mobs Here."</a> Criticizes the Fraternal Order of police for describing the growing demonstrations as "lynch mobs" and boasts about peaceful Baltimore and protesters who "are not as volatile as some believe." The FOP's choice of words was poor, but four days later, the riots erupted. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 25: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-20150425-story.html">"Why Freddie Gray Ran."</a> Calls the police encounter with Gray a tragic "injustice." Not an accident, not an unsolved mystery, an injustice. Minimizes Gray's criminal record, and paints him as the victim both at the hands of the police and of growing up where "generations of crushing poverty and the war on drugs combine to rob countless young people like him of meaningful opportunities." The Sun begins its legal analysis here, too: the police could not arrest Gray for merely running from them (true, but misleading: they could stop him if certain factors were present.) And: <i>"departmental policy calls for suspects to be buckled into seat belts when they are transported in police vans and for officers to get medical attention when they request it." </i>So it began, the narrative of murder by no seat belt and failure to recognize a broken neck. The Sun even beat Mosby to it: she didn't announce her charges until May 1. The two of them walked hand-in-hand with this perspective down through the Porter trial. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 27: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-20150427-story.html">"Reclaim Freddie Gray."</a> "All the rest of us must speak out and do our parts to find solutions to the injustices that pervade the inner city where he lived and died." As for the rioters: "Did the teens truly have ill intent when they arrived, or did the sight of the officers carrying shields and batons - not to mention television cameras - goad them into reckless and destructive behavior?"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">April 30: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-protests-20150430-story.html">"Baltimore's Tipping Point."</a> Criticizes a police affidavit for including an "inflammatory (and self-serving) detail" that another prisoner heard sounds that led him to think Gray was trying to injure himself. At the same time, describes the "vast majority" of demonstrators as protesting their perception of "rampant police brutality and a criminal justice system that unfairly targets young black men for arrest and imprisonment."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 1: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-indictments-20150501-story.html">"A Step Towards Justice for Freddie Gray."</a> Complete approval for Mosby's "stinging indictment...revealing new allegations...that depict utterly inhumane treatment of the young man....We would be shocked if an officer treated an animal that way these six are accused of treating Freddie Gray." Praise for Mosby's "skill and poise," her '"swift action" and her own "independent probe." (To experienced prosecutors like myself, her performance was unethical and her charges too hasty to have credence.) And they explicitly approved criminal trials, despite a probable cause statement that largely omitted the elements needed for a crime.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 4: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-police-brutality-20150503-story.html">"Policing Baltimore's Police."</a> "Baltimore needs to address the prevalent and well documented brutality some members of its police force inflict on residents of mostly poor and minority communities... Marilyn Mosby brought the focus back to that issue...with her indictments." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 11: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-city-police-20150511-story.html"> Baltimore's Dispirited Police</a>." Defends Mosby's charges, although there's finally a tiny hint of possible doubt about her charges. But they assume that Mosby has "more information that we don't" and state, "We simply have to wait to find out whether the charges she brought are truly justified." As to police who are afraid that they will be charged criminally for making mistakes on the street: they "are only lending credence to the notion that such reckless debasement [of Freddie Gray] is business as usual for the Baltimore City police."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 19: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-baltimore-violence-20150519-story.html">"Who will Stand Up to the Violence?"</a> Blames Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake for failing to act on the spike in crime following Marilyn Mosby's charges. Nary a word about Mosby, although she was the one that created an impossible working environment for the police by charging the arresting officers who had nothing to do with Gray's ride in the police van. The police rightly perceived her to be on a witch hunt, and that any mistakes in judgment could lead to criminal charges. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 20: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-mosby-conflicts-20150520-story.html">"Mosby's Conflicts." </a> Describes as "noise" criticisms of Mosby's conflicts of interest in the case. They only criticize her wanting a gag order.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 27: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-cleveland-20150527-story.html">"Baltimore is Not Cleveland."</a> Recognition that the six indicted officers did not shoot Gray. Instead, a "racially mixed group of officers [ignored] Freddie Gray's cries for help from the back of a van." So we weren't as bad as Cleveland, where a white officer shot a black man to death, but note the rhetoric: our officers ignored Gray's "cries" for help. How dramatic. And never proved. So much for presumed innocence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">May 29: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-venue-20150529-story.html">"Keep Freddie Gray Trials in Baltimore."</a> Beginning their crusade to have the trials conducted in Baltimore, the editors write that "holding these officers to account before juries drawn from the city residents who have the biggest stake in the outcome sends a powerful signal that the city is committed to seeing that justice is done." Meaning, justice comes only through holding the officers accountable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">June 4: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gag-order-20150604-story.html">"No Disclosure, No Justice."</a> Criticism of Mosby for trying to put a lid on disclosing the autopsy reports. This is the only consistent criticism they have of her: when she wants to keep evidence out of public view. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">June 15: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-arrests-20150615-story.html">"Are Baltimore's Police Doing Their Jobs?"</a> Criticizes the mayor and the police commissioner for not stepping up amidst the increase in violent crime. Silence on Mosby.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">June 18: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-mayor-police-20150618-story.html">"Do Your Job, Too, Madam Mayor."</a> More blame for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake over the spike in violent crime, and another pass for Mosby. Just what the hell is our State's Attorney doing about crime, anyway? The Sun never tells us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">June 22: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-excessive-force-20150622-story.html">"Echoes of Freddie Gray from the Supreme Court."</a> Cites a new Supreme Court decision that the standard for excessive force by a police officer in a civil case is whether a reasonable officer would consider the force excessive. "One of the most chilling things about the allegations in [the Freddie Gray] case is that none of [the six officers] stepped in to ensure that he received medical attention or that he was properly secured in the van." There's that guilty-of-a-crime narrative again. And no evidence that this case was about "excessive force."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">June 24: The autopsy report, which makes it clear that there is no 'smoking gun' and that the case is, at best, one of negligence, is leaked to the press. Now they have their evidence, but The Sun's editors make no comment whatsoever that I could find. However, they now shift gears: the ensuring editorials are all about keeping the trials in Baltimore, the only place where guilty verdicts on the weak evidence were possible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sept. 1: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-protests-20150901-story.html">"Freddie Gray Case: Order in the Court."</a> The editors "agree with the protesters" and want the cases to stay in Baltimore, though they want peaceable protests. One protester (in another article) holds a sign saying the trials should stay in the city because "they killed him here." </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sept. 8: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-settlement-20150908-story.html">Freddie Gray Settlement: Did the Mayor Just Take Out a $6.4 Million Riot Insurance Policy?"</a> Concern that the civil settlement might influence the judge to move the trials out of Baltimore.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Sept 10: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-freddie-gray-venue-20150910-story.html"> "Freddie Gray Trials Belong in Baltimore City."</a> Praise for Judge Williams for keeping the trials in the city. "Jury selection in these cases is bound to be exacting and contentious...But the arguments for short circuiting the process are weak." In fact, if any case called for a change in location this was it. Judge Williams' decision made the rule about changing venue meaningless. And there was no "exacting" jury selection. It took a mere two days. Business as usual.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">October 17: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-jury-20151010-story.html">"Finding a Fair Jury for Freddie Gray."</a> The title of this editorial is revealing since the defendants in need of a fair trial are the police officers, not Freddie Gray. Once more the editors assert that the case should be tried in the city, but this editorial makes the following statement: "It is simply impossible to judge in advance how strong [Mosby's] case is, and we expect that, not any preconceived attitudes among Baltimore's jury pool, will decide the officers' fates." The Sun is equivocating. Of course we know how strong her case was. The autopsy report laid it all out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">October 19: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-van-seat-belt-20151019-story.html">"Baltimore Police, Seat Belts, and Freddie Gray"</a> The Sun itself sums up this editorial as follows: "Is it possible that six Baltimore officers missed three years of messages about seat belts in transport vans?" And its concluding sentence: "If there is any kind of explanation for such conduct beyond callous indifference, we'd love to hear it." Failure to put on seat belts in police vans can only amount to callous indifference for the Sun, not a reasonable act to protect police officers. Guess police officers all over the state who are safely transporting arrestees without seat belts are also callously indifferent, homicide defendants waiting to happen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">December 11: <a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-gray-20151212-story.html"> "The Verdict Awaits."</a> I quote the last paragraph: "The verdict in this case may carry great symbolic weight but ultimately, the trial of Officer Porter comes down to whether he demonstrated proper concern under the law for the health and welfare of a suspect in the back of a police van. The charges he faces, including manslaughter and second-degree assault, are serious, and justice must be served, but there's also the bigger picture: We must prevent similar tragedies from occurring in the future while restoring public trust in the police department and reversing what has been a disastrous and historic uptick in murders this year." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Say what? With verbose double-talk, the editors back off their previous undisguised desire to hold the officers accountable, and now are more concerned about the future. What happened to Justice for Freddie Gray? </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Guess it wasn't about six brutal officers picking on a poor black man and killing him through criminal indifference after all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">December 19 (published on-line on the 17th): "<a href="http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-porter-trial-20151219-story.html">Three Lessons of the Porter Trial</a>." First, "Mosby's charges weren't crazy." Second, "Baltimore can produce a fair jury." Third, "The city is better than cynics believe." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wrong, wrong and wrong. This is so self-serving that my stomach turned reading it. Mosby's charges were incompetent and abused her power. She rode the emotion of the city to convince them that she had a criminal case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">If anything, the hung jury proved it. This should have been a slam dunk acquittal. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The jury deadlocked after only a day. My guess is that most of the jury quickly saw the evidence for what it was, but that one or two came into the case determined to convict and unwilling to be persuaded otherwise. (These are called stealth jurors, and were more likely to come from a city jury pool than elsewhere because of local emotions and impact.) Had there been greater initial division among the jurors, or a willingness to discuss, they would have taken longer. But when a juror folds his or her arms and won't listen, there's nothing to be done. So after a mere day, they deadlocked, though forced to try for one more day. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">In any event, the failure to acquit when the evidence demanded it proves the point that the trial should have been moved, not the other way around. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As for the 'cynics', we just need to remember the Sun's editorial of April 23 ("No lynch mobs here") for their credibility in predicting violence. The superintendent of schools was worried. The mayor and governor were worried. And who knows what would have happened had the jury acquitted. The editors again want to justify their opposition to moving the trial. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Wouldn't it have been refreshing had the editors said, "Our bad. We trusted that Mosby had the evidence, that she knew what she was doing, and we were wrong." </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Instead they wrote two pusillanimous editorials after the verdict defending themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The Baltimore Sun will probably win some awards for writing about the Freddie Gray case. Now that's what I would call an injustice.</span><br />
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<br />Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-82505720496626217532015-12-13T16:46:00.001-05:002015-12-16T09:08:14.528-05:00The Rubber Hits the Road for Judge Williams<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I was taught that the number one reason why criminal convictions are reversed on appeal are due to mistakes in instructions to juries. What Judge Barry Williams tells the jury before they deliberate this week in State v. William Porter, the first of the Freddie Gray trials, is therefore crucial to a just result. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">One thing State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has successfully (and wrongfully) done is create in the public mind the idea that failing to use a seat belt is a criminal offense. She mentioned the police failure to seat belt Gray over and over again in her speech announcing criminal charges. Michael Schatzow and Janice Bledsoe, the trial prosecutors, have harped on it repeatedly with every witness. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But it's not a crime. In fact, in Maryland the failure of persons injured in an auto accident to use seat belts isn't even negligence on their part. Yet Mosby uses lack of a seat belt as the crux of her criminal case, and so do people who want the police department to be held "accountable" for Gray's death, not accepting the fact that accountability came through a civil settlement. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The seat belt issue is now even more critical to Mosby's case after defense experts persuasively testified that Gray was not suffering from his injury at any point when officers were talking with him. At the very least they cast more than a reasonable doubt upon the medical examiner's claim that the police were talking to a man with a broken neck and did nothing about it. That jettisons the failure-to-get-medical-help as a crime. Mosby is left with homicide-by-no-seat-belt. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I don't know on what basis Judge Williams decided to permit the seat belt issue to even be discussed in the case against Porter. My guess is that it was a novel issue for him, applying civil law to a criminal case, and he decided to let the jury decide. But he can't pawn the decision off on the jury until he first explains the law to them. What will he say? If he gets it wrong, and the jury convicts, Porter will have to wait on an appeals court to get justice. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I have yet to see the courage I expected from Judge Williams in his rulings. He should have changed the location of trial, but didn't. He should have tossed the assault charge after the state's case because they presented zero evidence Porter assaulted Gray. Will he allow the jury to think -- as many in the public think or want to think -- that failure to put a seat belt on Freddie Gray could be considered a criminal act?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's possible that even if Judge Williams allows them to think that, they will acquit anyway, on the basis that the van driver had the responsibility for seat-belting his passengers. The right result for the wrong reason. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But here's hoping we get the right result for the right reason.</span><br />
<br />Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-2094613292937199172015-12-10T12:48:00.000-05:002015-12-16T09:09:35.070-05:00The Real Crime<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">While Rome I-mean-Baltimore burns, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is getting her rear end kicked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Not by a brilliant defense strategy, but by the facts. Facts that she could have discovered had she conducted herself professionally and ethically. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">People with expertise told her - immediately after her dramatic announcement of charges - that she <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/05/baltimores-hasty-prosecutor.html">acted too fast</a>, that she could not possibly have known all the facts with her two-week "parallel" investigation, her failure to study the police and medical examiner's reports, and her failure to use the grand jury or her own experienced homicide division.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But she created her story and she stuck to it. We have an exploding homicide rate, a demoralized police department, and her own office in shambles. Perhaps all of that could have been justified had she pursued a real case of police brutality and murder.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Instead, she made the death of Freddie Gray "in police custody" the equivalent of "murder by police." She made the failure to put on a seat belt a form of homicide. She stole the livelihood of six people for her own ideology and career. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Her own probable cause statement did not support her sensational indictments. The <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-freddie-gray-autopsy-report-or-what.html">autopsy report didn't either</a>, despite it's legal conclusion (that was clearly influenced by Mosby.) And now the facts reveal that not only are the charges not provable beyond a reasonable doubt, but the officers are actually innocent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Freddie Gray did not suffer his fatal injury until after the second to last stop. He wasn't being given a deliberately rough ride, but was doing his own banging around. Perhaps a seat belt would have prevented him from killing himself, but so would his just staying seated. In any event, there is no such crime as "homicide by no seat belt." If one wants to call it negligence - despite other police departments (not to mention other transit vehicles, like buses) not using seat belts - then fine. That's why the city paid the Gray family over $6 million. But there was no police brutality or a criminal disregard for Gray's safety.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">There is no way this jury can convict Officer Porter on any count. If they do, it will prove only that Judge Williams should have <a href="http://pagecroyder.blogspot.com/2015/10/a-judge-influenced.html">changed the venue</a> because jurors are afraid of the consequences of an acquittal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's Marilyn Mosby who has committed a crime, a crime against the criminal justice system and the oath she took less than a year ago. A crime against people who should never have been charged and prosecuted. A crime against the citizens of Baltimore, and the false road she took them down. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">It's a crime she will get away with. But the city won't. We'll be paying for this for a long time to come. </span></div>
Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-12249296219136891482015-12-03T19:42:00.000-05:002015-12-16T09:13:04.613-05:00Who's Minding the Prosecutor's Office? Not Marilyn Mosby.<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Marilyn Mosby, according to a local news report, is "front and center" watching the trial against Officer William Porter in the Freddie Gray case. She herself is not capable of trying it -- way too inexperienced -- but she's there anyway as a spectator, just as she attended the pre-trial motions in the case. One would think that with her two top deputies handling the trial, Mosby would be running things in the office. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Nope. In the first year of her administration, with a million issues to confront, Mosby is being paid over $238,000 to watch a trial. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why: she has staked her reputation on this case, and she wants the judge and jurors to know it, to influence them by her presence. Never in my two decades as a Baltimore prosecutor did I see a State's Attorney watch a trial. They had too much work to do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So the State's Attorney's office, which lost so many experienced attorneys when she took over, is running rudderless while the number of homicides in Baltimore return to the horrifying levels of decades past. Mosby and her deputies, instead of managing the office, are engulfed in a trial she could have assigned to the chief of her homicide division.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But perhaps it doesn't matter. Mosby and her team lack the judgment, priorities and experience needed to run an effective prosecutor's office anyway. Mosby was a run-of-the-mill prosecutor who became a run-of-the-mill insurance attorney before election to the largest prosecutor's office in the state. Michael Schatzow, the self-described champion of civil rights, and Janice Bledsoe, a career defense attorney, are engaged in prosecuting a case in which they, were they still watchdogs against the abuse of power, would be frothing at the mouth in righteous indignation. Their failure to recognize their own abuse of the prosecutor's power to charge and prosecute, and the irony of their role reversal, is astonishing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">I knew when I read Mosby's probable cause statement issued a mere two weeks after the death of Freddie Gray that she was acting not as a prosecutor - following the facts wherever they led - but as a politician. Still, I waited to see if she was holding something back, waited for some evidence that justified her charges (if not her haste) before reaching any final conclusions.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">But the autopsy report made it clear that Freddie Gray's death was a tragic accident, and that no police officer beat him, broke his neck, or killed him. No police officer ignored an obviously injured man and left him to die. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">So Mosby is essentially engaged in a political persecution to demonstrate that she will do something about police brutality and enhance her political career. She picked the wrong set of facts, and now is wasting tremendous resources to justify herself. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Including her own fat salary, while she sits around watching a trial instead of running her office. </span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5368160828091722393.post-80159273056325296752015-10-19T12:13:00.000-04:002015-12-16T09:11:05.751-05:00A Judge Influenced?<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">The decision of Judge Barry Williams to keep the trials of the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore City demonstrates that judges, too, are human.<br /><br />Billy Murphy, the lawyer for the Gray family, called Judge Williams’ decision “brave.” I would say that his decision reflects a judge who is not afraid of hard work but who was nonetheless influenced by political and cultural circumstances. <br /><br />Legally speaking, Judge Williams should have moved the trials out of Baltimore. If ever there was a set of circumstances for changing venue, this was it. Not because of the publicity but because of the riots that followed in the wake of Gray’s funeral, riots that specifically affected Baltimore city only. Those riots were credited by many with the decision of Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby to hastily charge six police officers with criminal charges, including murder, despite the fact that nothing in her probable cause statement or the autopsy report supported murder. If the top prosecutor, whose sole job it is to follow the facts and the evidence, was influenced by the unrest, wouldn’t the citizens of Baltimore be similarly influenced?<br /><br />Had Judge Williams moved the case out of Baltimore, no appeals court would have reversed him. The Maryland Rule for change of venue states that a case should be moved if there is “reasonable ground” to believe that a defendant cannot receive a fair and impartial trial. Of course there is reasonable ground to believe this considering the rioting, destruction and continuing protests. If this case does not qualify, then the rule has no meaning. In a Florida case in which riots erupted after police shot a fleeing suspect, an appeals court had no hesitation in reversing a trial judge who, like Judge Williams, failed to move the case. The court was seriously concerned about the jury’s ability to disregard the consequences of their verdict. <br /><br />By deciding to keep the case in Baltimore, Judge Williams has created a substantial argument for reversal, something that trial judges try – or should try – to avoid for the sake of all parties.<br /><br />Judge Williams has proved that he will work hard. A number of lazy Baltimore judges would have moved the case just to get out of the work this case entails. Nevertheless, those lazy judges would have been legally correct. <br /><br />Judge Williams seems to think that he can find an impartial jury through voir dire, the process by which potential jurors are questioned for their suitability. But Baltimore city voir dire is pretty superficial. Any citizen trying to get on the jury because they already have a point of view, or who is afraid of future rioting if they acquit, is highly unlikely to be detected, unless Judge Williams plans to fundamentally alter the way voir dire is conducted in Baltimore. Even then, detecting a subconscious fear is difficult to do. <br /><br />I believe that by working so hard to keep the case in the city, Judge Williams is demonstrating that he, the judge, is influenced by concerns of violence. To be honest, before he ruled, I had hoped that the case would be tried in the city. The autopsy report has made it reasonably clear that Gray’s death was a tragic accident, and that Mosby is prosecuting the police officers for political reasons. If so, then I wanted city jurors to give Mosby and the citizens of Baltimore that message, so that the verdict could not be blamed upon racism or the failure of the criminal justice system.<br /><br />But after Judge Williams’ ruling, I felt a sickness in the pit of my stomach. I let it sit there a while to figure out what it was. Did I think Baltimore jurors incapable of rendering a fair verdict, and that the defendants would be criminally convicted in a case that was, at best, negligence? No, not incapable. And with a good judge, I don’t think that will happen (unless there is evidence of which I am still unaware.)<br /><br />It’s that I fear that the judge is influenced by extra-judicial concerns, that he is afraid of the consequences should he make an unpopular ruling. And if he is influenced, and if he isn’t making the correct legal rulings, we can’t expect a jury to properly apply the law to the facts, either. <br /><br />There will be other opportunities for Judge Williams to make rulings that will be “brave” – that is, to fly in the face of those demanding conviction when the facts and the law call for it.<br /><br />We will see whether Judge Williams is up to the task. But for now, I feel that pit in my stomach.</span>Page Croyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13005710168659844334noreply@blogger.com4