“The simple detaining of somebody, seconds longer than hindsight would suggest is reasonable, is totally unreasonable to prosecute”, said Warren Alperstein, a Baltimore defense attorney who has been observing the proceedings.
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Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams asked prosecutors on Thursday about when the alleged assault occurred and whether every officer who makes an arrest without probable cause should be charged with a crime.
Nero’s partner, Officer Garrett Miller, testified on Monday that he, not Nero, had arrested Gray. Nero’s attorney said he did what any reasonable officer would have done in that situation and that while being handcuffed is a “horrible thing”, the law allows for it.
“People get jacked up all the time”, Bledsoe told the judge. They also say he had little to do with Gray’s arrest and never touched him except when he tried to help him find an asthma inhaler.
“I can’t think of a better indicator of flight than someone who already ran”, he said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys will deliver closing arguments in the trial for an officer charged in the arrest and subsequent death of Freddie Gray.
Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow explained later that prosecutors believe Nero’s actions were unreasonable.
“If you touch someone, it could be assault, it could be a hug”, said Williams. A verdict is expected on Monday.
Nero is charged with second-degree intentional assault, two counts of misconduct in office and reckless endangerment in connection with Gray’s arrest and death in police custody.
A judge’s intense line of questioning Thursday appeared to expose weaknesses in the state’s case against an officer on trial for assault in the arrest of Freddie Gray, but legal experts cautioned against drawing any conclusions.
Prosecutors have argued that the arrest of Gray on April 12, 2015, was legal, and any physical contact the officer had with Gray amounts to assault.
A week after his neck was broken in a police van, Gray died previous year. “But Ms. Bledsoe’s claim that an arrest without probable cause would be a crime, and at the end of the day I think she was really saying an unjustified arrest, that’s pushing the envelope of what we’ve typically thought of as criminal activity”.
Today’s proceedings are scheduled to begin at 10 a.m.
The requirement that policeseat-belt all prisoners being transported was a department policy that Nero would have been familiar with, Bledsoe said. The prosecutors’ appeal reached the state’s highest court, which affirmed in March that Porter could be called.
That appeal delayed Nero’s trial which was supposed to begin in February.
Deputy Chief State’s Attorney Janice Bledsoe asked Reynolds if he had ever seen anybody secured by a seat belt in a van.
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The case against William Porter, the first officer to go on trial, ended in a mistrial in December after jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict. His retrial is due in September.
