Via CNN:
CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has a term for where he thinks the prosecution in the case of Baltimore police Officer William Porter is right now.
“Up a creek,” he said Wednesday, shortly after a judge declared a mistrial in Porter’s case because jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
Porter is one of six officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, a young African-American man who suffered a fatal injury while in police custody.
Toobin said he believes the hung jury will benefit the defense — not just in Porter’s case, if he’s retried, but in the cases of the other five officers as well. Prosecutors have not yet said whether they will retry Porter.
“A hung jury is a defeat for the prosecution, especially when they needed Porter to make some of these other cases,” Toobin said.
“Now there are lots of strategic decisions ahead. They may decide to give up on prosecuting Porter, give him immunity and use him as a witness anyway, but that’s obviously not a solution they wanted. All of these issues will have to be debated, and the prosecution here is in serious trouble.”
Porter was picked to go ahead of the other officers, at least in part, because prosecutors wanted to have him as a witness, according to Andrew Alperstein, a Baltimore defense attorney and former prosecutor.
Keep reading – [HERE].
Hung jury for cop charged in Freddie Gray’s death: What’s next? Click [HERE].
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