"So here’s my question, if as the Republicans claim DOJ is weaponized against republicans, how in the heck did this Democrat get prosecuted? Just asking republicans?"

The top-rated comment at The Washington Post, on "Ex-Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby guilty in federal perjury trial."

Baltimore’s former top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, was convicted of two counts of perjury Thursday after she had been accused of lying about her finances to withdraw money from her city retirement account under a program designed to help people struggling financially during the coronavirus pandemic...

Prosecutors said she falsely claimed to suffer from financial hardships to access $90,000 from retirement funds that she later used to buy two homes in Florida....
The trial centered in large part on Mosby’s travel business, Mahogany Elite Travel....

"And I say this very regretfully as a liberal Democrat who has spent a legal career defending the indigent in criminal court..."

The "I" is The Kenosha Kid, writing what is the top-rated comment on the cover story in the NYT Magazine. The article is titled "Baltimore vs. Marilyn Mosby/In the midst of a national crisis of police violence, Baltimore’s state’s attorney gambled that prosecuting six officers for the death of Freddie Gray would help heal her city. She lost much more than just the case." Here's the whole comment, which begins with a quote from the article:

"When she started her campaign to become the city’s top prosecutor a year before, she was a 33-year-old corporate lawyer working for an insurance firm... In conversation with half a dozen prosecutors who worked with Mosby, no one could remember any of the cases she handled before her election."

Anyone who has spent a career in the criminal courts knows two things for certain:

1) a lawyer needs to be both very good, even brilliant, and must acquire the battle-tested seasoning of years of jury trials in order to be more than barely competent in that arena;

"The Baltimore police officer who drove the van in which Freddie Gray sustained a fatal spinal injury was acquitted on Thursday of second-degree murder and six lesser charges..."

"... leaving prosecutors still without a conviction after three high-profile trials in a case that has shaken this city."

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.

“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.

ADDED: Remember last year, when The Huffington Post was enthusing about the "objectively badass" Marilyn Mosby?



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."

"The driver of the police van, officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who is black, is accused of second-degree 'depraved heart' murder — the most serious charge of them all..."

"... which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison."

Other counts against the cops include involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault and false imprisonment. The five men and one woman posted bond and all but one reportedly were released.

“We are satisfied with today’s charges,” Gray’s stepfather, Richard Shipley, told a news conference. “These charges are an important step in getting justice for Freddie.”

"Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., 45... has been on the force since 1999..."

An African American, Goodson drove the van that transported Gray to jail. Goodson, whose bail was set at $350,000, is the only officer in the group facing a murder charge...

Goodson is the grandson of a police officer.... He lives in Catonsville in Baltimore County, where two of his neighbors said Friday that he had minimal interactions with them.

Frances Hubbard, who lives on his street, described the officer as a “family man, always polite, always speaks. I see him eating with the family.”

"Who Is This Objectively Badass Attorney Running The Freddie Gray Investigation?"

Headline at a Huffpo article that's teased on the Huffpro front page with "BALTIMORE BADASS":



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.

Objectively Badass...

Yeah, let's be objective. Let's be level-headed and demand that all government power — police, prosecutors, the lot — operate within the bounds of the law.

My criticism is of the headline and the front-page teaser. The article doesn't contain the word "badass" or present Marilyn Mosby as anything that warrants the use of the word "badass." She herself is saying appropriate things like "I uphold the law" and "At the end of the day I’m here to do my job. It’s about applying justice fairly and equally to those with and without a badge. Did I treat this case any different in the pursuit of justice? No, I didn’t."

I wonder what pushed Huffpo to use that word "badass." I doubt if the word would have been chosen if Mosby were a white male.

"In Baltimore, they call it a 'rough ride'... a dark tradition of police misconduct in which suspects, seated or lying face down and in handcuffs in the back of a police wagon, are jolted and battered by an intentionally rough and bumpy ride..."

"... that can do as much damage as a police baton without an officer having to administer a blow. The exact cause of the spinal injury that Freddie Gray, 25, sustained while in police custody in Baltimore before his death April 19 has not been made clear. The police have said that he was not strapped into a seatbelt, a violation of department policy. That has led some to wonder whether he was deliberately left unbuckled, reminiscent of a practice that while little known has left a brutal, costly legacy of severe injuries and multimillion-dollar settlements throughout the country."

From a NYT article titled "Freddie Gray’s Injury and the Police ‘Rough Ride.'"

My son Chris says that the descriptions of what may have happened to Freddie Gray remind him of a disturbing scene in the Quentin Tarantino movie "Death Proof" (originally part of "Grindhouse.") Here's the scene:



"Hey, Pam, remember when I said this car was death proof? Well, that wasn't a lie. This car is 100% death proof. Only to get the benefit of it, honey, you REALLY need to be sitting in my seat."

"She gave us her word. I said, 'How will you handle police brutality?'"

"She said: ‘If you put me in this chair, I don’t care if they are in uniform or not. I come from a family of officers. Some are good, some are bad. I will hold everybody accountable to the law.’ And thank you, Jesus, she lived it out."

From a NYT article about Marilyn Mosby, the Baltimore prosecutor who has charged 6 police officers with homicide for the death of Freddie Gray. The quote is from a woman whose brother was killed by police and who strongly supported Mosby's campaign to oust the incumbent state's attorney for Baltimore City.

And here's a quote from  Lester Spence, an associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University: "Black power is about taking the office and using it to make government more humane for black people, and that’s what we see in her. She’s supposed to treat me, the corner boy in the Western District and the police officer exactly the same way when it comes to the law. Historically, because of racism, her predecessors have not effectively done that."

"Investigators believe Freddie Gray suffered serious head injuries while he was in a police transport van... his legs were shackled and he wasn’t wearing a seat belt..."

"... which authorities say was a violation of policy. They said officers ignored his pleas for medical help."

One wound occurred when Gray struck his head on a bolt that jutted out in the van, the official said, but that was not Gray’s only head injury. And the injuries overall are consistent with what medical examiners often see in car collisions, the official said.

So, you shackle a man, put him in a van with jutting bolts, and then you drive the van in such a way that he slams into things hard enough to cause multiple injuries, and the man dies of those injuries.

That's worse that shooting a man on the street, where there's some argument of needing to stop him. The shackled man enclosed in a vehicle is already completely restrained. There's no harm to say you needed to stop.

I think of torture devices like the iron maiden, where a helpless person is shut inside something that is designed and intended to injure him.



UPDATE: "Freddie Gray death ruled a homicide; six Baltimore police officers charged."