quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
I wonder if the judge, defense attorneys, and prosecutors know the break out of the jury vote.

They might not. Perhaps the jury just says they don't have consensus.

It would seem important to know the details. If it was 11 to convict and 1 to acquit, that would push towards retrial.

But if it was reversed, 11 to acquit and 1 to convict, that would lean to dropping it.

These prosecutors are in a spot. They need to press on and try for a conviction. It would be a monumental disaster for them if all 6 trials were hung jury or some acquittals. (although that would be closer to true justice)

family attorney Billy Murphy :

"We've all worked very hard to get it to this process"

and

"This saga is not over...It's just a bump on the road to justice"

Billy Murphy is thought to have received 40% of the 6.4 million award.

quote:

Originally posted by ChicagoSigMan:

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
I wonder if the judge, defense attorneys, and prosecutors know the break out of the jury vote.

They might not. Perhaps the jury just says they don't have consensus.

It would seem important to know the details. If it was 11 to convict and 1 to acquit, that would push towards retrial.

But if it was reversed, 11 to acquit and 1 to convict, that would lean to dropping it.

These prosecutors are in a spot. They need to press on and try for a conviction. It would be a monumental disaster for them if all 6 trials were hung jury or some acquittals. (although that would be closer to true justice)

family attorney Billy Murphy :

"We've all worked very hard to get it to this process"

and

"This saga is not over...It's just a bump on the road to justice"

Billy Murphy is thought to have received 40% of the 6.4 million award.

Not sure if it's the same in Maryland, but where I practiced law, the vote count was not known to anyone but the jurors. Once the jurors are discharged, the lawyers from either side were free to interview them, and the jurors were free to talk or not to the lawyers. So if one of the jurors is willing to talk, then the lawyers will know what the count was and what issues went good or bad for them in the deliberations.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Where's the damn CVS?

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
I wonder if the judge, defense attorneys, and prosecutors know the break out of the jury vote.

quote:

These prosecutors are in a spot. They need to press on and try for a conviction. It would be a monumental disaster for them if all 6 trials were hung jury or some acquittals. (although that would be closer to true justice).

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
I'm starting to really enjoy watching Mosby crash and burn.

quote:

I'm not sure how you get that vote, but I will say this... I was foreman on a jury trying a black man. We had a similarly mixed jury. The folk most intent on burning the defendant at the stake were the black women. They are well aware of who is screwing up their neighborhoods, and they are out for blood. They have watched their neighborhoods be busted up by guys like Freddy Gray their entire lives, and they don't have any sympathy for guys like him. A black cop? They will have plenty of sympathy for him, and won't want to see him railroaded. He is the only thing between their neighborhoods and anarchy, and they know it.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
Regardless of the verdict Baltimore will still burn. It is not about the verdict, it is not about justice.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/ne...-20151217-story.html

Prosecutors and defense attorneys met Thursday behind closed doors to decide what happens next in the case against Baltimore Police Officer William Porter — but did not set a new date for a retrial.

The lawyers were seen Thursday morning at Circuit Judge Barry Williams' chambers. A uniformed deputy was stationed outside. About half an hour after the lawyers started arriving, they were seen leaving the chambers. They declined to comment, citing the judge's gag order in the case.

******************************
seems odd the judge doesn't say something

there is a lot of public interest and a another trial scheduled for 6 Jan. He could at least give a status

quote:

Originally posted by Ironbutt:
Mosby, (the DA) was planning on a conviction here, so she could offer leniency in return for his testimony against the other five officers.

That's out the window now. Obviously a few on this jury have a functioning brain & found that was reasonable doubt, because they couldn't agree on a conviction on any of the four charges against him.

He should be released, but Mosby's not going to let twelve jurors get away with this. She's going to demand a new trial & if there's another mistrial, she's going to keep doing it until she gets the verdict she wants.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
I read somewhere that his attorneys are obligated at this point to try and negotiate with the prosecutors for the best plea bargain.

Then they offer that to Porter and he decides whether to take it.

I hope he doesn't deal with the prosecutors.

Even though the van driver faces a lot of charges, it still comes down to the issues of seat belt and when Gray hit his head (or rather the uncertainty of when Gray hit his head).

I was surprised that the defense didn't call the other prisoner who was in the van. They said they were going to.

quote:

[b]THE CORNER
THE ONE AND ONLY.
[go to URL to view photo] The Travesty in Baltimore Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby (Mark Wilson/Getty)

December 17, 2015 2:34 PM @ANDREWCMCCARTHY

The chilling thing about the hung jury that resulted in a mistrial for Officer William G. Porter, the first Baltimore cop to stand trial on charges arising out of the death of Freddie Gray, is that it was a hung jury.

This was a prosecution that should never have been brought, based on such a stark lack of evidence that there was not even probable cause to make an arrest, much less proof beyond a reasonable doubt to convict a man presumed innocent. The jury should have acquitted Officer Porter in record time. Indeed, the case should never have gone to jury deliberations because the trial judge should have dismissed it when the state rested without proving any crimes.

Yet, the demagoguery created such an atmosphere of intimidation that at least one juror voted to convict. We may never know what the numerical split was in the vote of the twelve jurors. We know for a fact, however, that a riotous element of the community, which has the prosecutors and the government in its thrall, has made clear that no verdict except “guilty” – regardless of the lack of proof – will be acceptable if Baltimore is to be spared more violence.

Jurors, who are supposed to weigh cases without fear or favor, are beset with concerns about their personal safety, the safety of their families, and the fate of the city. In that setting, even though there was no proof, it was an act of great courage for jurors to vote “not guilty.”

Understand that when defendants are tried separately – there are six police officers charged in Mr. Gray’s death – the prosecution will always start with its strongest case. Winning a conviction makes convictions (by trial or guilty plea) much more likely in the other cases; anything less than a conviction can make the other cases unravel. In fact, the remaining cases are rumored to be so weak that prosecutors reportedly see the conviction of Porter as critical – i.e., once convicted, Porter would have no more Fifth Amendment privilege to refuse to testify, so the state could then compel him to appear as a witness and, they hope against hope, provide the evidence they now lack.

So the Porter case was state’s attorney Marilyn Mosby’s best shot. That the prosecution’s presentation was woeful will come as no surprise to readers who’ve followed Mosby’s antics here: her rush to bring charges before the investigation was anywhere near complete; her politicized rant in announcing the charges, nakedly acknowledging that they were intended to satisfy the mob’s cries of “no justice, no peace”; her embarrassing need to dismiss false-imprisonment charges brought because she was either unaware of or indifferent to the governing law; and so on.

Nor should anyone have been surprised by her signature tactic: a relentless pattern of concealing exculpatory evidence from the defense: e.g., the fact that Gray was under the influence of drugs when arrested; the fact that he’d claimed prior back injuries in the few weeks before his death; the fact that the medical examiner initially ruled Gray’s death accidental but changed the finding to “homicide” after meeting with Mosby; the fact that the medical examiner concluded that the police did not intend harm to Gray and that Gray would not have sustained his severe injuries if he had remained in the prone position the police had placed him in; etc.

The prosecution did not have a case. Mosby, instead, had a cockamamie theory in search of supporting evidence that never materialized, namely: Gray died of preventable injuries at some undetermined point during the ride in the police van because police intentionally failed to strap a seatbelt on him knowing this was likely to cause him injury, and then callously failed to get Gray medical attention when it was clear he needed it. It is far from clear that the theory would have warranted convictions if there had been witnesses to support these propositions. But there weren’t: the case was basically built on rank speculation by the obviously pliant medical examiner.

The actual evidence established that Porter was unaware of the recent change in police policy regarding seatbelts and had never used one or seen one used in his career. The jury learned that failure to comply with a policy guideline is not grounds for prosecution even if the officer knows about the guideline, and that it can be dangerous for police to try to affix a seatbelt on a criminal, so police commonly do not do it. In any event, having the seatbelt affixed would not necessarily have kept Gray in place. He was under the influence of narcotics and uncooperative. Porter and other police repeatedly checked on Gray, inquired about his condition, and at one point reasonably believed Gray was faking an injury. But as soon as Porter realized Gray was actually injured, he immediately called for medical help and, in the meantime, attempted to provide aid.

As Andrew Branca points out at Legal Insurrection, the evidence established that, if anything, Porter went “above and beyond his duty in dealing with Gray.” The jury could not convict him on any of the four charges: manslaughter (a truly absurd overreach), assault, reckless endangerment, and misconduct in office (each only marginally more plausible).

Finally, it bears noting that, like Freddie Gray, Officer Porter is African-American. That fact is clarifying. The campaign against the police is driven by race-mongers pushing a racial injustice narrative. But it is against the police. We’re told “Black Lives Matter,” but when it comes to black cops … not so much.