Posted on 05/11/2015 8:07:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
On May 1, Baltimore prosecutor Marilyn Mosby charged six police officers, including two black male officers and one female black officer, with 28 various charges, including murder and manslaughter over the death of Freddie Gray. Officer Caesar Goodsoon, the black driver of the van Gray rode in, was charged by the 35-year-old state’s attorney for Baltimore City with the most serious offense, “second-degree depraved heart murder,” which means indifference to human life. Baltimore is 64 percent black, and almost half of the Baltimore Police department is black.
The officers are accused of arresting and roughing up Gray, who is black, for no good reason, then neglecting his request for medical care as they took him to the police station. The officers arrested him because they believed he had a switchblade, which is illegal under Maryland law. Mosby declared that he did not have a switchblade, claiming there was no probable cause to arrest him. Mosby said while he was being transported in the back of the police van without a seatbelt on, he suffered a neck and back injury. He died a week later of the injuries. One of the officers charged, Garrett Miller, has said that Gray was arrested "without force or incident."
Mosby announced the charges a mere 12 days after Gray’s death, only one day after receiving the results of the police internal investigation and almost immediately after receiving the medical examiner’s report. In contrast, a grand jury returned a decision of no indictment against Officer Darren Wilson more than three months later after his death.
Mosby didn’t bother presenting the evidence to a grand jury to get an indictment, which would have given the charges more credibility. Although her husband is a Baltimore City Councilman, presenting a likely ethical conflict, she refused to step aside to let a special prosecutor handle the case. Instead, she handled the case herself, declaring she had found probable cause against all six officers.
Renowned left-wing attorney Alan Dershowitz denounced the charges as “outrageous and irresponsible.” He told Newsmax TV, "They are presumed innocent, they need due process of law, and the mayor and the state attorney have made it virtually impossible for these defendants to get a fair trial. They have been presumed guilty." Former prosecutor Jonathan Keiler, writing for The American Thinker, said “her actions are not only unethical, but border on professional malpractice.” Even the left-leaning editorial board of The Chicago Tribune expressed its skepticism of the charges, in an article entitled A Prosecutor’s Rush to Judgment in Baltimore.
Jazz Shaw observed at Hot Air, “tagging Caesar R. Goodson, Jr., with second degree depraved heart murder will be a serious stretch, considering the need to prove intent (on top of everything else) against someone who was walled off in the driver compartment of the vehicle and unable to reach – or for the most part even see – Freddie Gray.”
The Baltimore chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police has condemned the charges. The union’s attorney, Michael E. Davey, said, “The actions taken today by the state’s attorney are an egregious rush to judgment. We believe that these officers will be vindicated, as they have done nothing wrong.” The FOP is asking Mosby to recuse herself due to her husband’s position as a city councilman as well as her personal connection to the Gray family’s attorney, William H. "Billy" Murphy Jr. Murphy contributed $5,000 to Mosby’s campaign last year and served on her transition committee. She also is personally acquainted with some of the journalists covering the case, who would likely testify at trial.
Lawyers for the accused police officers filed a motion Friday calling for the case to be thrown out and that Mosby remove herself or be dismissed off the case. They assert that Mosby and her husband stand to benefit financially and professionally from the prosecution.
Dershowitz predicts the case will be thrown out for lack of evidence, and all Mosby is doing is postponing the riots until that happens. When police officers are charged with crimes for fatally shooting suspects, they are only convicted about one third of the time.
Mosby may have violated ethics rules by not recusing herself and for speaking publicly about the case, prejudicing the outcome. Rule 3.8(e) of the Maryland Lawyer's Rules of Professional Conduct, which applies to prosecutors, states that “except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor's action and that serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, [a prosecutor shall] refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused…”
Mosby has already declared that there was no probable cause, since Gray was not carrying a switchblade as the police thought. The problem with this is she has already determined guilt, dismissing the possibility that the officers could have justifiably believed the folding knife was a switchblade.
She may have also violated Rule 1.7, the conflict of interest rule. It basically says that a lawyer shall not represent a client - which could include the government - “if there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by … a personal interest of the lawyer.”
Here, Mosby and her husband choose to gain political points by looking like they are cracking down on racism in the police department. Mosby ran for office on a platform of promising to hold police accountable.
Dershowitz believes Mosby and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Black, who also made public statements in response to the rioting, were motivated by “a threat of riots and a desire to prevent riots.” Riots broke out shortly after Gray’s death, with protesters chanting, “Make them pay for Freddie Gray!” Millions of dollars in damage was done through the looting and burning of local businesses; 15 police officers were injured and 34 arrested. Mosby declared during her announcement of the charges, “To the people of Baltimore and demonstrators across America, I heard your call for ‘No Justice, No peace.’ Your peace is sincerely needed as I work to deliver justice on behalf of this young man.”
I’m a little more cynical than Dershowitz, and believe Mosby was intending to score political points with blacks and race bait in order to keep blacks voting for Democrats like herself. As a former prosecutor myself, I find it mind boggling that Mosby did not instantly recuse herself from the case; the ethical conflicts are so blatant a first year law student could spot them. Pitting blacks against blacks is despicable, and shows how low we’ve become as a country. I believe that Mosby is counting on this prosecution to last long enough to motivate blacks to go to the polls next year. Some, like Morgan Brittany, the former Hollywood actress turned political analyst, believe the radical left is deliberately inciting massive unrest and rioting nationwide.
It is not clear how Mosby is going to assert this was a crime of racism considering half of the officers are black. Is this how far the radical left will go to stir up accusations of racism, target and prosecute those it claims to protect?
It boils down to this: The way to stop the rioting is to stop fomenting racism. This tragic incident was handled completely wrong, obviously in order to achieve a certain outcome. Mosby should have recused herself from the case immediately and appointed a special prosecutor, and the case should have gone to a grand jury to decide whether or not to indict the officers. Mosby and Rawlings-Black - perhaps along with Mosby’s husband - should have issued a joint statement stating, “While racism sometimes occurs in society, this incident was not a result of it. Half of the six police officers involved in this incident are black. It would be unjust to label this as racism and ruin more black lives than the one that has already been lost.”
Until this approach changes, the race baiters are playing with fire - literally.
Mosby and her husband just attended a Prince concert benefiting the Gray family . She and her husband were seated prominately on the stage. No appearance of a conflict of interest, of course. /s
I just don’t get where racism comes in.
Baltimore is a majority black city with a black power structure.
The mayor is black, chief of police is black, most of the city council is black, about half of the police are black.
I’ll tell you one thing — any remaining white Baltimore police officers should be looking for jobs elsewhere. Police work is dangerous work anywhere, but, it seems we are heading to a situation in which only black police will eventually be police in majority black cities and towns. Whites will just not ever apply for jobs as police in these places.
Saturday Melissa Harris Perry went back 60 years to claim that all the problems in those black areas of Baltimore are whites fault, we created them.
Segregation laws
Redlining districts for home loans (she also complains about their home foreclosures, meaning they got loans)
White flight (from rioting?)
Who are the White Tokens behind her ?
The Watchman Ping List - FReepmail Old Sarge for details!
“We have met the enemy and they are us”
I am impressed with her command of the English language and the eloquence at which she speaks... /sarc
I guess she is as smart as Barry since everyone thought he was eloquent as well.
She is an Obama replicate. Where she is not incompetent she is completely ideological.
THIS JUST IN--(CNN) - Attorneys for the Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray have filed a motion calling for the recusal or dismissal of State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's office from prosecuting the case against the six officers.
The lengthy legal motion cites a variety of concerns, including conflicts of interest and questions about the office's independent investigation. Copyright 2015 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.kspr.com/news/nationworld/attorneys-call-for-baltimore-prosecutor-to-be-dismissed/21051646_32896740
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FACTS ON FILE The city of Baltimore received over $1.8 billion from President Barack Obama’s stimulus law, including $467.1 million to invest in education and $26.5 million for crime prevention.” Baltimore has spent the third-highest amount per student in education at an average of $15,287, only 16% of the city’s eighth graders score at or above reading level and 13% at or above grade level in math---
This explains the rampant adult illiteracy .....from Cong Cummings, the Prosecutor, her councilman hubby, the Mayor, the Police Commissioner...... who all blamed the cops for the looting and burning.....
Marilyn Mosby's hatred was on full display.... given the tortured Mosby case, we should now be alert to hordes of salivating liberals planning to get rich by filing criminal prosecutions across America. All of it calculatedly driven by inciting fear of mobs in the street.
Sounds like a pattern at work here. Hmmmm .... where have we seen this before?
Mosby is a rabble-rousing, race-baiting, self-aggrandizing attention-whore.
Playing the race card is easy and it deflects the narrative and the conversation from the more difficult issue that America has become a police state where SWAT teams are used to collect student loans, where people get shot at because their vehicle vaguely resembles the vehicle of a cop killer, and where in Wisconsin police are the willing accomplices of a Democrat political machine set on persecuting Republicans and conservatives.
Investors in Baltimore/Maryland education bond issues have legal standing to bring a RICO lawsuit.....b/c they were clearly misled about the use of education bond proceeds.
Also culpapble under RICO:
<><> Wall Street financiers (Goldman Sachs?) that issued bonds to fund these programs.
<><> banks holding education bond proceeds.
<><> school supply vendors that received payment from education bond issues.
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The FBI, SEC and IRS would be interested in uses of tax-exempt bond issues:
EMAIL: enforcement@SEC.gov
EMAIL: FBI TIPS PAGE---https://tips.fbi.gov ////....lying liberals refuses to admit how much taxpayer dollars Baltimore schools are actually spending........
High time to unleash RICO on Baltimore pols and school officials....twenty-seven ATLANTA educators get nailed under RICO. Here's how.
Rhonda Cook one of the ace AJC reporters who bird-dogged the Atlanta story reported: The 1980 Georgia General Assembly was concerned about “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements,” so it adopted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), patterned after a similar federal law.
NOTE RICO is often used to try to prove that a legal business was being used for illegal means, and, in the beginning, was used to prosecute drug traffickers or organized crime members. But in recent years prosecutors have applied RICO to government officials accused of using their offices for personal gain---such as -the various former and current Atlanta public school officials.
TAXPAYER ALERT To bring a case under Georgia’s RICO law, there must be at least two underlying felonies — such as fraud, bribery, witness tampering (among others). RICO allows prosecutors to include multiple defendants charged with various crimes in the self-same indictment, and to charge that they were allegedly part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.
Anybody can bring a RICO....taxpayers are prime litigants since there are reams of evidence....pols telling taxpayers that throwing money at this or that program will fix the problem.
Are there no men in Baltimore?
She is nothing but a Black racist, America hater, and an evil woman!!! End of story!!! African-Americans are lost economically, politcally and morally!!!....period!!!
I think she should be indicted for incitement to riot.
I’m sure your observations are correct. All of these incidents, Gardner, Brown and now Gray, as well as those to come are certainly a part of an agenda. Mosby is particularly despicable in her conduct. She reeks of racism.
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