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United States News Title: Police Officer Is Acquitted of All Charges in Freddie Gray Case BALTIMORE — A police officer was acquitted of all charges on Monday in the arrest of Freddie Gray, a black man who sustained a fatal spinal cord injury while in police custody. The verdict is likely to renew debate over whether anyone will be held responsible for Mr. Gray’s death. The officer, Edward M. Nero, sat with a straight back and stared forward as Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, who ruled on the case after the officer opted to forgo a jury trial, read his verdict on charges of second-degree assault, misconduct and of reckless endangerment. “The verdict on each count,” said Judge Williams, concluding his reading after about 30 minutes, “is not guilty.” “The state’s theory has been one of recklessness and negligence,” Judge Williams said. “There has been no evidence that the defendant intended for a crime to occur.” Officer Nero, who was implicated not in the death of Mr. Gray but in the opening moments of his arrest, then stood and hugged his lawyers as supporters pressed forward to congratulate him. He wiped away tears and, at one point, embraced Officer Garrett E. Miller, who is also charged in connection with the arrest of Mr. Gray. The verdict, the first in any of the six officers implicated, comes a little more than a year after Mr. Gray died in April 2015. The first trial, against Officer William G. Porter, ended with a mistrial in December. Mr. Gray’s death embroiled parts of Baltimore, which has a history of tension between the police and its residents, in violent protest and became an inexorable piece of the nation’s wrenching discussion of the use of force by officers, particularly against minorities. While the criminal case has been resolved, the internal review of Officer Nero, who remains on administrative leave, will not be resolved until after the trials of the other officers involved, the Police Department said in a statement. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, in a statement, asked residents to be patient as the legal process played out, but added that the city was prepared to respond to any disturbances. Baltimore reached a $6.4 million settlement with Mr. Gray’s family in September. The trial of Officer Nero, 30, had shifted the focus from the injuries that killed Mr. Gray, which was a crucial point in Officer Porter’s trial, to the opening moments of his arrest. It was never going to be the highest-profile prosecution in the case related to Mr. Gray; that will be Caesar R. Goodson Jr., the driver of the police wagon in which Mr. Gray is believed to have broken his neck. But, in a city that is already the subject of a federal civil rights investigation into whether officers use excessive force and discriminatory policing, Officer Nero’s trial renewed questions about when an officer can stop a private citizen and what an officer is allowed to do. “I would say the trial has engendered a wider conversation about how police operate in poor communities, particularly poor communities of color that raises critical issues about society,” said David Jaros, a law professor at the University of Baltimore. During the weeklong proceeding, prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed that the officers had the right to stop Mr. Gray, who had fled them in a high-crime area for no apparent reason. But prosecutors said Officers Nero and Miller exceeded their authority by handcuffing, moving and searching Mr. Gray without first questioning and frisking him, as the law requires. Any physical contact they made with him while doing so, prosecutors argued, amounted to second-degree assault. Officer Nero was also charged with misconduct related to those actions. “That’s what happens in the city all the time. People get jacked up in the city all the time,” Janice Bledsoe, a deputy state’s attorney, said during her closing argument on Thursday. “That’s a separate issue,” answered Judge Williams, who repeatedly pressed prosecutors on whether they believed that every arrest made without probable cause amounted to a crime. A lawyer for Officer Nero, Marc Zayon, said that the apprehension of Mr. Gray was legal, and that, even if it wasn’t: “Wrong or right isn’t the standard. The standard is, were they so wrong that it was unreasonable?” Mr. Zayon said. Defense lawyers had watched the procedures play out with awe, since it is usually they, not the prosecution, who raise issues of illegal search and seizure in court. What is more, they said, illegal stops rarely result in criminal charges. “If you’re going to go back and charge every police officer whose arrest was determined to be illegal with assault, or every search that’s deemed to be absent probable cause, you’re going to indict the entire police force,” said Warren Brown, a defense lawyer who has been watching the case. Officer Nero had also been charged for failing to restrain Mr. Gray with a seatbelt when he and other officers placed him in a transport wagon. “When you have custody of someone, you have a duty to keep them safe,” Michael Schatzow, the chief deputy state’s attorney, told Judge Williams. Mr. Zayon said it was the responsibility of the van driver, not Officer Nero, to secure Mr. Gray with a seatbelt, and that his client had not knowingly violated police procedure or the law. “This is an officer with two years on the force,” Mr. Zayon said. “He was a baby, still learning with regard to a lot of this.” Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#5. To: Stoner (#0)
Cops will opt for a judge over a jury trial 100% of the time because they know the judge will have their back no natter how egregious their crime.
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