Thursday she lost the third and most critical trial in the racially charged case as Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams acquitted Officer Caesar Goodson of all charges, including second-degree murder.
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Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. was facing charges of second-degree depraved heart murder, manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment.
An attorney for Freddie Gray’s family says they are frustrated by Thursday’s verdict and remain supportive of the state’s attorney who brought charges against the offices.
Gray, who was 25, suffered a devastating spinal injury and died in April 2015, about a week after he was arrested and placed into a prisoner van.
Gray’s death came at a time of fierce national debate over the use of lethal force by police – especially against unarmed black men amid questionable deaths in New York, Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri. (Nero was acquitted of four charges last month.) Several lawyers who attended the trial said Mosby must now rethink her strategy.
Five other officers were indicted in the matter, and three trials thus far have resulted in no convictions.
“The failure to seatbelt may have been a mistake or it may have been bad judgment”, Williams said, but “the state has failed to meet its burden to show that the actions of the defendant rose above mere civil negligence”.
With more than 30 witnesses testifying over an eight-day trial, prosecutors attempted to convince Williams that Goodson was culpable in Gray’s death.
“Anybody who has been locked up and been in a van [knows] a rough ride could be half a block”. If evidence isn’t strong enough to prove he was criminally responsible, it’s hard to see how they could convict the others, particularly on charges of manslaughter and assault. The NAACP tweeted: “Gray’s death is a tragedy not found to be a crime in court, but a wake-up call for Baltimore”.
Williams also questioned prosecutors why Goodson stopped to check on Gray if it was the officer’s intent to give a rough ride.
While the criminal proceedings have not yielded a conviction, Murphy represented the Gray family in a wrongful death case that resulted in a $6.4 million civil settlement from Baltimore City a year ago. Williams is a former federal civil rights prosecutor and Baltimore city assistant prosecutor, but he was tough on the prosecution here, and gave plenty of signals that he wasn’t going to roll over for them.
“They should have never filed charges in the first place, I don’t think the evidence was there”.
While it would be reasonable for Mosby to drop the charges and accept the fact that there is no conviction to be had here, reasonableness does not seem to be her strong point. No guilty verdicts have been handed down in the three trials.
A “rough ride” is the term used to describe placing detainees in the back of a police van and driving erratically, taking sharp corners and slamming on the brakes in order to cause those in custody to be jostled violently about the back. Dorchy, who told Patch he had been on both sides of the law, wore a shirt that said, “I Am Freddie Gray”.
“We need to stop saying the system is broken”, she said.
Outside the courthouse, immediately after the verdict, a few dozen demonstrators gathered and chanted, Freddie Gray should be with us today.. Six police officers were charged in his arrest and death; all have pleaded not guilty.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is black, said the officer would now face an administrative review and appealed for patience in allowing the process to run its course.
They failed to secure a conviction in two earlier trials of officers.
Officer William Porter is scheduled to be retried in September after a 12-member jury was unable to reach a consensus on any of the charges against him in December.
Brandon Ross, who was with Gray that morning, says his friend was in physical distress from the start.
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Clarke said that “justice has prevailed” in the city of Baltimore, adding that he had faith that the American criminal justice system would get it right.
