In his ruling, Judge Barry G. Williams rejected the prosecution’s claim that the officer, Caesar R. Goodson Jr., had given Mr. Gray a “rough ride” in the van, intentionally putting him at risk for an injury by taking a wide turn while Mr. Gray was not secured with a seatbelt.ADDED: Remember last year, when The Huffington Post was enthusing about the "objectively badass" Marilyn Mosby?
“The court finds there is insufficient evidence that the defendant gave or intended to give Mr. Gray a rough ride,” Judge Williams, said, adding that there had not been “evidence presented at this trial that the defendant intended for any crime to happen.”...
The state’s attorney, Marilyn Mosby, heaved a sigh and walked out, her head down, escorted by her security guard. The two prosecutors who tried the case, Jan Bledsoe and Michael Schatzow, followed, purse-lipped and looking glum.
I said at the time: "If the question is the abuse of government power in the form of the police, the answer is not mindless cheerleading for another form of government power, a prosecutor."
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31 comments:
There will be some sort of federal civil rights charges against some of the cops before Obama leaves town. Probably before election day.
When will we see some criminal charges against Mosby?
Now what? The prosecutors were caught hiding and lying about evidence. Isn't that a crime? Obstruction of justice.
Who prosecutes the prosecutors?
Not this DoJ.
Bill, Republic of Texas said...
Now what? The prosecutors were caught hiding and lying about evidence. Isn't that a crime? Obstruction of justice.
Who prosecutes the prosecutors?
6/23/16, 4:23 PM
Special prosecutors appointed by a legislature with a majority opposition party membership which isn't going to happen in MD. Perhaps civil rights violations lawsuits could be brought against the prosecutors in federal court but that is something our hostess would be the one best able to answer.
As Ace of Spades notes, Mosby may be corrupt but she's also incompetent.
The trial is the administrative punishment. The police unions are happy that their officers have to be prosecuted under criminal laws rather than face meaningful sanctions to their employment. This was really a duty of care case. Should a cop be fired or demoted for failing to take enough care in a situation like this? Instituting that sort of policy would get you a police strike. So we get the trial, for show.
I said at the time: "If the question is the abuse of government power in the form of the police, the answer is not mindless cheerleading for another form of government power, a prosecutor."
Or said another way, ANY problem in society is probably caused by the government.
Or "If the problem is health insurance for 5-10% of the population, the answer is not government control over the entire health care industry." Vote Obama!!
The Freddie Gray family got 6.5 million dollars. These cops got the stress of criminal trials, and, moving forward, it will be difficult for them to continue in their careers. It was not a worst case example of injustice, but this is not justice.
This is what happens when Scientific Progressives are allowed to work as prosecutors.
I can't tell whether this was a bench trial in which the judge found for the defense or a jury trial in which the judge found a true insufficiency of evidence and dismissed the case (not that I know anything about Maryland criminal procedure).
What happened?
What happened?
It was a bench trial.
Well, shit, they need to riot if there is anything left to burn down.
"There will be some sort of federal civil rights charges against some of the cops before Obama leaves town"
Yes, just what Clinton did with the cops that saved Rodney King's life.
That bitch of a CHP officer, Melanie Singer, was about to shoot him when the LAPD showed up and took him down with batons.
They were acquitted at the first trial and then Clinton and Reno tried the cops a second time on civil rights charges. Melanie Singer testified for the prosecution both trials. I sent money to Stacey Koon's family while he was in prison.
Isn't this the Irreconcilable split in the liberal mind? (1) government is despotic, and uses police power to subjugate the people; (2) government is our protector, and we must do everything we can to increase government power and protect the police from an armed populace.
I suppose there is also inconsistency (though smaller) on the conservative side. (1) Police need more power to protect us from crime; (2) Police are the tool of despotism which we must be prepared to fight.
I am often puzzled by the fact that neither side promotes the view that the founding fathers were revolutionaries, who fought an armed revolution, and believed in killing the police/soldier agents of tyrants, and who believed that such killing was essential to the preservation of liberty. Conservatives don't believe in revolution (it's a crime); and liberals don't believe in an armed populace (because it leads to crime).
William
Still trying to figure a $6.5m payout for a career criminal. Maybe it was just the avoided future jailing costs.
Forget it, Jake, it's Baltimore.
The prosecution could've easily won this case if they had any evidence of a crime.
@ Left Bank of the Charles -
I'm sorry but I can't find a respectful way to say this. Your post may be one of the more idiotic I have seen recently in these threads. You seriously think:
The cops wanted to be tried for murder, etc?
That the cops, especially the cops who arrested the drug dealer, but did nothing else, deserved to be charged?
That if the department had some administrative charges instituted instead of criminal charges, there would be a police strike? (Which is illegal, BTW)
That the trials to date have been "show trials"(which I assume means the verdicts were predetermined)?
That failing to follow a new rule (seatbelt for all prisoners) not disseminated to the officers, and so, not known to them, was still "failing to take enough care"? That this was apllicable to any officer who had any contact with the prisoner, no matter how minor, regardless of whether that contact had any nexus to the prisoner and the transport van?
None of the officers - none - has been shown to have done anything untoward, or to have failed to do anything required, in this case. Rather, the evidence is quite strong that Grey was banging his head on the van partition when he fell and broke his neck. As soon as the officers discovered the injury, they summoned aid. End of story.
This prosecution was about appeasing the mob, and about the elected District Attorney's husband who is also an elected official, in one of the poorer black neighborhoods. Both DA and husband obviously aspire to higher office.
"If the question is the abuse of government power in the form of the police, the answer is not mindless cheerleading for another form of government power, a prosecutor." The "question' was how to exploit the use of police power against a black criminal for maximum political advantage by a black prosecutor and aspiring politician, the law be damned. Blacks and Progs don't cheer "mindlessly" for "another form of government power"--just for one of their own doing their bidding.
This is the outcome of affirmative action. You get someone acting as state's attorney, that shouldn't even be a community organizer.
She went in with no case, but just HAD to try it because she wanted social justice. And now she's facing defeat after defeat. And she deserves every one of them.
"Or said another way, ANY problem in society is probably caused by the government."
Do you suggest government should be abolished? Do you suggest the myriad problems and conflicts that arise from millions of people living in large modern (or ancient) societies can be resolved without government? What do you prescribe to remedy this conflict between the need for an orderly society and the rights of the individual? To assert that "...ANY problem in society is probably caused by the government" is childish posturing.
"If the question is the abuse of government power in the form of the police, the answer is not mindless cheerleading for another form of government power, a prosecutor."
The question was not abuse of government power. The question was whether the law applies to negroes. The answer was no. The answer is still no. People who live around negroes take note.
Cook,
Our founders recognized both the need for government and the need to constrain it's ability to use its powers capriciously. The commenter's comment using "any" was too much, but your comment is just silly.
The miscarriage of justice was the arrest and prosecution of the six officers for political reasons. As noted above, Grey was a career criminal who had done this sort of thing before. If they couldn't convict the driver of the van, they aren't likely to convict any of the other officers, most of whom played minimal parts in the saga. One that will be interesting is that the high ranking Sherriff's officer who swore out the arrest warrants admitted today that he had no real knowledge of the case when he did so (despite having to swear to personal knowledge, which is why officers of his rank almost never do such) based on assertions by the prosecutor's office. Making this more interesting, the defense in at least one of these cases tried to get some of the prosecutor's investigators on the stand. Their request was denied, as it usually would be. But, it turns out they performed almost the entirety of the investigation, which means that there is a good chance that they will have to testify in future cases, esp in view of the inaccurate information they had fed that major in the Sheriff's Office (such as that Grey's knife was legal) to get the arrest warrants. And, indeed, one of the questions to them is likely to be why they thought the knife was legal when the paperwork for Grey's arrest show that he was arrested for violating a Baltimore ordinance on knives, and not the MD knife statute, which wasn't violated.
By now, the prosecution has pretty much admitted that the knife was illegal, and was found in a legal Terry Stop. The cops didn't even need to pat Grey down to find the knife, since the illegal knife was in plain sight, clipped to his belt or pocket. So, there was probable cause for Grey's arrest, which means that there wasn't probable case for the arrest of at least several of the officers (all the prosecutors needed to have done was to read the Grey arrest paperwork, which would seem to be minimal due diligence in a case like this). Not doing due diligence, essentially lying to the major to get arrest warrants, and the reality that the prosecution was obviously political and personal on the part of Mosby, means that the prosecutors (starting with Mosby), and their investigators, as well as that Sheriff's Dept major appear to have conspired to deprive the officers of their civil rights, as well as committing false arrest, malicious prosecution, etc. normally, they would have immunity for their official acts, but I expect their intent to commit these torts (and crimes) will go a long way to abrogate any such immunity. It was pretty egregious, so think that the officers probably deserve compensation from Mosby et al.
I think that this is maybe why Cook is a leftist, and many of us are not. I, at least, see the prosecution as a direct result of too much power in the govt. a good part of the reason for the prosecution was probably that Mosby's husband is the city councilman representing the district in which Grey was arrested, and was aiming at higher office. Making things worse, the cops had been doing extra policing in that area (which is why Grey was arrested) at the urging of Mosby, presumably, again, to help her husband's political career. They are both thpypical Dem politicians, working the government system to their personal advantage. A bit like Hillary and her sellng American foreign policy for a profit.it is just what Dem politicians do with political power. I think that Cook looks at that as a minor bug in the system, while I see it as a major feature. How do you stop this? By throwing Mosby (and Hillary) in prison. Except that Mosby is the law there.
I've seen leftie sites who are OUTRAGED that these cops are being acquitted.
The case was weak. Referenced "rough rides" without first demonstrating they ever occurred. Mosby was a grandstander who didn't do the work to insure that her indictments would lead to convictions. She overcharged and under-delivered.
And she will be in office forever in spite of her ineptitude here.
As Ace of Spades notes, Mosby may be corrupt but she's also incompetent.
The good old "don't forget the magical power of 'and'. People aren't always one OR the other."
Do you suggest government should be abolished?
I doubt it. One can recommend severely curtailing something with demanding abolishment.
The one thing that I think should be done is to cut back a bit on qualified immunity, and this case is a good reason to do so. Qualified immunity protects certain government actors/employees from liability for their actions within the scope of their employment. And it is probably a good thing in most cases. But here, the actions of the prosecutors deprived the six cops of their civil rights, and were committed either intentionally (in Mosby's case, for a selfish reason), or with gross negligence. I don't think that they should have qualified immunity in these cases, and they, hopefully won't. But, I think that it is highly probable that they thought that they had qualified immunity when they filed suit against the six cops, and then took them to trial.
Bruce Hayden,
If you think I feel anything other than contempt for Hillary Clinton, or if you think she is any kind of leftist, you are simply not paying the least attention to anything I've ever said or to who Hillary is.
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