Freddie Gray trial: expert witness crumbles in van driver's prosecution

[Calista241]

Source: The Guardian

Prosecutors seeking murder charges over Freddie Gray’s death rested their case against Caesar Goodson on Wednesday with an expert witness who crumbled under cross-examination. His testimony was the latest of several blows in the trial that experts say is prosecutors’ best shot at getting a conviction for Gray’s death.

Witness Stanford O’Neill Franklin, a former police commander, was called to support the prosecution’s theory that Gray suffered what is known as a “rough ride”, a practice in which a driver jolts and takes sharp turns, jostling a prisoner who is handcuffed and shackled without a seatbelt.

But when asked by defense attorney Matthew Fraling whether he saw any evidence of Goodson’s erratic driving, he couldn’t say.

Asked if, in reviewing footage of the van’s stops, he saw evidence of unexpected starts, stops, or turns, Franklin answered: “I did not.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/16/freddie-gray-trial-caesar-goodson-rough-ride-prosecution

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This trial is a farce. Either they are throwing it intentionally, or they have no evidence and are conducting a show trial.

[cstanleytech]

1. Hmm I am leaning towards show trial which irks me because they are wasting alot of money, time

and effort when they only get one bite of the apple and after that they cant charge them with the same crime so if evidence actually were to be discovered they couldnt do shit to them then.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

2. I have a problem claiming there is no evidence of malfeasance....

.....when a person can be put in a transport van perfectly fine and come out of that transport van with a severed spine.

Something went seriously wrong in there, and I don't see how it was anything that Freddie Gray did to himself.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.

[Blandocyte]

3. Careful

they'll call you to be an expert witness.

[anigbrowl]

9. In a criminal trial you have to go beyond reasonable doubt

Would Freddie Gray have intentionally thrown himself around the van to get beaten up and thus get sympathy/medical treatment instead of a jail cell? Probably not because that would be sort of stupid, but I don't know him or his background to say for sure. Could he have? Sure possibly, and without other evidence to settle the question that means a reasonable doubt exists as to whether the driver was responsible.

Please recall that 'reasonable' in law doesn't mean 'what the average person considers sensible' or suchlike, but a doubt that can be raised by using reason/logic. So you could argue that the victim's injuries were inflicted by passing ninjas, for example, but you'd have a hard time coming up with a logical explanation of how that might have happened.

On the other hand people have been known to injure or kill themselves deliberately even though the reasons for doing so don't necessarily make sense to others; this is a fact. We can't ask Freddie Gray because he's dead, sadly, and as a result a doubt exists about how he incurred his injuries absent other evidence. Where a doubt exists you can't have a conviction.

This is one of the difficulties of the US being a common law country; our trails are about establishing whether a sufficient burden of proof has been met to impose criminal liability. In some other countries that use a civil law system trials are conducted more like inquests, with the highest priority being to find the truth of what happened and allocation of responsibility and punishment a secondary objective. One interesting side effect is that a system like this eliminates plea bargaining. If someone is murdered in Germany, for example, the trial is going to take place regardless of whether the prime suspect admits guilt or not; even if the person freely accepts responsibility for a crime the trial is carried out anyway to establish a record of what actually happened. We could do worse than incorporate that idea here.

[Kelvin Mace]

4. So, if the guy was genuinely this incompetent

he will be fired after the trial, right?

[Taitertots]

5. Ex police officer is star witness for the defense...

Putting this person on the stand is inexcusable.

[Calista241]

6. They can't have a rough ride being their theory of the case

and then present no evidence that a rough ride took place.

[Taitertots]

7. I agree. That's why it's inexcusable to call an "expert"...

When they gave him no evidence to support the claim.

Is the prosecutor an idiot or intentionally throwing the case? Didn't they think they should ask the "expert" if they believed the evidence supported the case for a rough ride?

[Igel]

8. Wait for the verdict.

On the other hand, they needed a trial. It was demanded. Grayson deserves justice, and that means a trial. Even if there's no evidence, or weak evidence, a trial was demanded and provided. It's the price we pay in some areas for having an elected DA: It's a political position. And the "state's attorney" in Baltimore is elected. That's more of a mock trial.

Sadly, for a lot of people it also means there must be a conviction, a "guilty" verdict. That doesn't necessarily follow. They already know the verdict and want the trial to show it. *That* is a show trial.

Wait for the verdict.

[TipTok]

10. That's the trouble I have understanding Mosby and her motivations...

She came out hard and strong in the media and the level to which she charged the police was very aggressive.

So far, based on what we now see she has on hand for evidence, she is going to get smoked. Why did she go so hard with so little in ammunition?

Maybe it was just a calculated risk that she would get the lower charged officers to plea out IOT go after the murder charges. As it stands, she just looks incomptent and like a political opportunist.

I think her career is going to take a hard hit.

[joshcryer]

11. Gray got seriously injured by the police actions.

What is hard to prove is what actions by what police caused him to die. It's like someone dying at a rave or something, due to people trampling them. Technically many people would be responsible, but it would be impossible to try each case.

Mosby's case hinged on them all being tried together. When the judge gave each of them their own trial, it became impossible to pin the actions on any one actor.

I agree Mosby is probably going to get heat for this one, though, but I don't think she's an opportunist, I think she is sincere in what she saw happened. I don't think she would have won a depraved heart murder case but an assault case yeah.

[TipTok]

12. She overcharged ...

... and IMHO acted pretty unprofessionally during her press conferences.

Obviously, we can't know her true motivations but to me it came off as opportunistic and strongly motivated by politics as opposed to the law.

[joshcryer]

13. No, she is young, she just didn't go in the right direction.

She could've got lethal assault on all of 'em pretty easily. She just had grandiose visions of what she could do. I do not in any way fault her for that. Because I know what she felt at the time.

I maintain that all the cops involved murdered Gray. They had no care for his well-being. But. Individually, I know that they are all innocent. It was a killing by the total of the group.

[TipTok]

14. You can't speak to her true motivations any more than I can...

In any case, youth is no excuse. If she is in the job, she should be able to perform adequately.

[joshcryer]

15. I disagree, inexperience is a legitimate excuse.

Inexperienced people can get elected to positions.

That doesn't make them bad.

[TipTok]

16. It does make them wrong...

If she is too inexperienced to charge appropriately then she shouldn't have the job.

Especially that job. Aside from this case, she literally holds life or death power over millions of people.

[joshcryer]

18. I can't disagree.

And she may lose her job. I don't fault her for trying nor do I consider her malicious. She did what she felt was right.

I've not seen evidence in other cases where she wrongly prosecuted anyone. And like I said, in this case, she probably had something if all the officers were tried together. The case hinged on that. They obviously and factually and objectively killed someone. It's simple impossible to peg it one a single individual. Grays death happened because of everyone involved. This is not controversial. Everyone treated him like garbage. Where the act of his death, his irreversible injuries occurred, is unprovable.

[Calista241]

19. You can't put people on trial just because.

There has to be a reasonable expectation of conviction. If these cops didn't have a union to pay for their representation, they'd have to mortgage their entire lives to pay for a defense.

If this happened to a regular person, they'd be paying lawyers for their defense for decades. It is absolutely, 100% unconscionable for a prosecutor to behave hat way.

[TipTok]

20. You can as this trial shows...

Whether you should or not is another issue.

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. The angry mob demanded prosecutions and they got them

[eastwestdem]

21. This whole thing is ridiculous. Something needs to be done to our justice system. nt

[philosslayer]

22. What would you suggest?