Cops file defamation suit against prosecutor in Freddie Gray case
BALTIMORE - Two Baltimore police officers facing criminal charges in the death of a young black man whose neck was broken in the back of a police van have sued the city's top prosecutor and an official in the sheriff's office for defamation.
Officer William Porter and Sgt. Alicia White filed the suit against Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and Maj. Sam Cogen in Baltimore Circuit Court on May 2.
Porter and White are among six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. Gray, 25, died on April 19, 2015, a week after his neck was broken in the back of a police transport van while he was handcuffed and shackled, but left unrestrained by a seat belt. His death prompted protests that gave way to looting and civil unrest.
Cogen signed and filed the initial charging documents in the case against the officers, and Mosby announced the charges in a news conference just days after the worst of the rioting.
Speaking on CBSN this week, CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman acknowledged that the charges were filed quickly, but, she said, "there was a grand jury that sat here. It wasn't just the prosecution."
Porter and White face identical charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office.Porter's trial in November ended in a mistrial. His retrial is scheduled for September. White is scheduled to be tried in October.
Earlier this week, a judge acquitted Officer Edward Nero of assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges.
After the acquittal, New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton chided Mosby for what he described as a rush to charge the officers, calling her "inexperienced" and accusing her of "playing to the crowd," reports CBS Baltimore.
"In her rush to judgement I believe she had a totally inadequate investigation of the circumstances involving those officers, and so all she did was kick the can down the road, in the sense that if she's taken more time to investigate, she might not have overcharged," Bratton said, speaking Tuesday on WNYC radios' Brian Lehrer show.
A spokesperson for Mosby told CBS Baltimore the prosecutor can't respond to the criticism because she's under a gag order instituted by the judge.
One June 6, the trial of Officer Caesar Goodson is scheduled to begin. Goodson was the driver of the van Gray rode in and Klieman calls his trial "the big one." He is the only one of the six officers who were charged in connection to Gray's death who is charged with murder.
In their defamation suit, Porter and White said Mosby, who announced charges on May 1 of last year, knowingly made false statements when she alleged wrongdoing on the part of the officers.
The suit cites statements Mosby made that Porter and White knew Gray was in distress when they checked on him in the back of the transport wagon, but ignored his cries for help and did nothing to administer aid.
"These statements were defamatory because they exposed Plaintiffs to public scorn, hatred and contempt, and thereby discouraging others in the community from having a favorable opinion of, or association with, Plaintiffs," the lawsuit says.
The suit also reads that Mosby and Cogen "breached their duty to Plaintiffs by bringing unsupported criminal charges then publicly publishing same," and that Mosby's statements were made "for the purpose of quelling the riots rather than prosecuting police officers who had committed crimes."
None of the parties involved is permitted to comment due to a gag order in the case.
Legal experts say the officers' lawsuit is a stretch.
David Jaros, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, said prosecutors have "absolute immunity unless they show true malice" toward a defendant.
"If the state's attorney's office is ultimately mistaken about whether or not a crime occurred, or they lose a trial, those things don't give grounds to a defamation case," Jaros said.
The plaintiffs moved to seal the suit, but Baltimore Circuit Judge Althea Handy denied the motion Wednesday.
Generally, it is difficult to convict American police officers of serious crimes. Since 2005, 70 officers in this country have faced charges related to an on-duty shooting. Only 23 were found guilty. That is a conviction rate of less than 33 percent.
"When officer's convicted of murder or manslaughter...what we're seeing is the sentences are fairly light. ... But on average, officers are receiving sentences, maybe three years," Bowling Green University researcher Philip Stinson told CBS News.
Stinson, a former police officer, thinks the proliferation of video cameras will lead to more prosecutions in the future.
"We're seeing patterns where some officers seem to get caught in lies," Stinson said. "They make false statements, they write up false reports, and when the video evidence contradicts that, prosecutors take a closer look."
But videos don't tell the whole story. In the Freddie Gray case, videos showed his apparently limp body being put into the back of a Baltimore police van, but didn't show how he might have gotten injured.