The Real Crime

While Rome I-mean-Baltimore burns, Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is getting her rear end kicked.

Not by a brilliant defense strategy, but by the facts.  Facts that she could have discovered had she conducted herself professionally and ethically.  

People with expertise told her - immediately after her dramatic announcement of charges - that she acted too fast, 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.

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.

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.  

Her own probable cause statement did not support her sensational indictments. The autopsy report didn't either, 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.

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.

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 changed the venue because jurors are afraid of the consequences of an acquittal.  

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.

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.  

Who's Minding the Prosecutor's Office? Not Marilyn Mosby.

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.  

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. 

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.

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.  

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.

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.  

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. 

Including her own fat salary, while she sits around watching a trial instead of running her office.   

A Judge Influenced?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

We will see whether Judge Williams is up to the task. But for now, I feel that pit in my stomach.