The defense is boosted by a legal setback for the prosecution and tough cross examination of a key witness who is important to proving Freddie Gray was mortally injured after he was given a "rough ride."

Attorneys for Officer Caesar Goodson, the driver of the van, are expected to ask Judge Barry Williams on Thursday morning to acquit their client on the sixth day of the trial.

Their arguments will come a day after the judge ruled prosecutors violated discovery rules when they did not turn over to the defense notes from a detective that indicate an assistant medical examiner at one point considered that the death of the 25-year-old man might have been an accident. That could contradict earlier testimony from Dr. Carol Allen, who determined Gray's death was a homicide and not an accident.

The discovery violation comes after Williams asked prosecutors to review their files for evidence they had not disclosed to the defense - after the judge had found prosecutors violated discovery rules about information concerning a witness in another case.

"It's never a good thing when a judge finds the state has committed a discovery violation," said Warren Alperstein, a Baltimore attorney who is uninvolved in the case but has observed nearly all the legal proceedings. "It's certainly not good when there are repeated discovery violations, and what's so significant is that these are discovery violations that are so egregious because there's an absolute affirmative obligation for the prosecution to turn over any evidence that is favorable to a defendant."

http://www.wbrc.com/story/32234733/defense-set-to-push-hard-to-acquit-baltimore-police-officer

Every attorney on the prosecution side should be disbarred and put on trial for this sham.

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.”

“It’s not your contention that Officer Goodson in any way engaged in a rough ride?” Fraling asked.

“I can’t say for sure,” Franklin responded.

On redirect, assistant deputy state’s attorney Michael Schatzow did not ask any further questions about the rough ride before resting his case.

Longtime public defender Todd Oppenheim said the prosecution seems to have fallen short of making its case that Goodson took Gray on a rough ride.

“There is a basic threshold that you have to cross and it doesn’t seem like any of that was laid out,” he said of the state’s effort to show Goodson intentionally drove in a manner that would hurt Gray.


In another ruling that could severely undermine the case, Judge Barry Williams ruled that the defense could allow testimony by a detective claiming that the medical examiner initially deemed Gray’s death to be an accident, rather than a homicide as the medical report says.

Williams decided to allow the defense to call Detective Dawnyell Taylor to testify about the medical examiner’s remarks, which would normally be prohibited by rules against hearsay, after ruling that the state had failed to provide the defense with potentially exculpatory evidence.


The testimony of Taylor could be essential to the defense in its argument that Gray’s death was “a freakish accident” and that “Dr Allan’s report deserves no weight” given that it “quickly changed from accident to homicide under pressure”.


“It is truly disappointing to see the reckless disregard the state’s attorney’s office has for the rule of law and the rights of the accused,” Latoya Francis-Williams, Davis’s attorney said, linking what she says is Mosby’s failure to disclose potentially exculpatory information in his case and that against Goodson.

The defense will begin its case on Thursday, but Judge Williams said that the defense expects to be able to offer a “truncated” case.

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

Judge Barry Williams expressed concerns about the state's case for second-degree murder against Officer Caesar Goodson but allowed the state's case to move forward after a defense request for an acquittal.

The defense made the request after the state rested its case, arguing prosecutors had shown no evidence to support their theory that Goodson gave Freddie Gray an intentional "rough ride" in the back of a police van, causing fatal neck injuries.

"There's been nothing introduced to support the state's centerpiece of its case: that Officer Goodson gave Freddie Gray a rough ride," Andrew Jay Graham told Williams Thursday morning.


Williams questioned Schatzow before making his ruling, at one point saying the state had no evidence of anyone observing a "physical manifestation of anything wrong" with Gray prior to him being discovered not breathing in the back of a transport van.

He also asked the state to acknowledge that it had not presented evidence of a rough ride.

"The No. 1 piece of evidence," Schatzow responded to that question, "is that the man suffered an injury that killed him."

"The fact that a very serious, fatal injury was suffered is a fact from which an inference can arise," he said.


Schatzow said police general orders require officers to seat belt prisoners for their safety.

"It is a policy, it is not a law," Williams said. He noted that he had prevented the defense from bringing up the fact that other surrounding jurisdictions do not have seat belts at all in their arrest vans.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-day6-20160616-story.html

Taylor testified that Allan had said during a meeting in the days after Gray's death that it was a "freakish accident, and that no human hands can cause this."


Schatzow asked Taylor who else from the police department was with her when Allan allegedly said Gray's death was a "freakish accident."

She identified a long list of top commanders, including current Commissioner Kevin Davis.

Schatzow asked her if all of the commanders in the room had suggested to Allan that Gray's death was an accident. Taylor said they had not, and that Allan had offered the assessment on her own.

After Taylor, the defense called Officer Mark Butler, who like Goodson is a longtime van driver for the department. He said he was never trained on seat-belting passengers.

Police investigators questioned the legitimacy of prosecutors' investigation because detectives said they never ran into witnesses who said they had also been questioned by investigators working for the State's Attorney's Office.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-day6-main-20160616-story.html

BALTIMORE—A prosecutor and a police detective sparred in open court on Thursday, during the trial of the police-van driver who is charged with murder in the death of Freddie Gray.

The heated exchange occurred after Detective Dawnyell Taylor testified that an assistant medical examiner twice described Mr. Gray’s April 2015 death as an accident before ruling it a homicide days later.


Detective Taylor testified that she tried to give Ms. Bledsoe her notes about Dr. Allan’s alleged comments, but Ms. Bledsoe “pushed them back across the table and stormed out of the room in a tantrum.” She added that Ms. Bledsoe threw “another tantrum” when she returned.



Late Thursday, Officer Goodson’s lawyers called to the stand Donta Allen, who was arrested April 12, 2015, the day of Mr. Gray’s in-custody injury, and loaded into the van carrying Mr. Gray. This occurred at the fifth of six stops the van made with Mr. Gray inside. The two men occupied separate compartments divided by a metal wall.

On the stand, Mr. Allen told defense lawyer Matthew Fraling he didn’t recall anything from that day. The defense then played a videotaped statement Mr. Allen gave police that day in which he said he heard banging from the van’s other compartment.

“It sounded like he was banging his head against the metal, like he was trying to knock himself out or something,” Mr. Allen says on the video, adding that it sounded “like a crazy person.”

The medical examiner has said she believes Mr. Gray was injured before the fourth stop; if so, his neck was already broken when Mr. Allen got into the van. The defense argues Mr. Gray wasn’t hurt until after this fifth stop.

But Mr. Allen later recanted his account in media interviews. During cross-examination on Thursday by Ms. Bledsoe, the prosecutor, a more talkative Mr. Allen said he couldn’t see Mr. Gray that day and wasn’t sure he was banging his head. As for the noise, Mr. Allen testified that it “wasn’t very, very loud, but it was loud enough.”

In response to a question from the prosecutor, Mr. Allen testified that when the van reached a police station, the sixth and final stop, he heard someone say of the unconscious Mr. Gray, “We must have gave him a run for his money.” Mr. Fraling noted Mr. Allen didn’t mention hearing that comment in his statement to police.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-denies-motion-to-drop-charges-in-freddie-gray-case-1466093746


I believe the judge is letting this thing run it's course so that as much information as possible is in the public record and the prosecution is seen as putting on a bogus case before he renders the "not guilty" verdict.

What does this mean, a “truncated” case..?

The defense rested their case just before 11:30 Friday after brief testimony from Officer Edward Nero, who was acquitted of all charges in the arrest of Gray last month.

Nero did not testify at his own trial, and his appearance Friday was his first court testimony in the hearings related to Gray's arrest and death.

His testimony lasted only minutes.

Goodson's defense asked him about Gray's demeanor at the second stop of the van in which Gray was injured. Nero said Gray was combative with officers and that he heard "loud banging" coming from the van where Gray was placed alone.


The prosecution had few questions for Nero on cross examination.

Williams then denied a motion filed Thursday by Goodson's attorneys to allow as evidence in Goodson's trial statements made by Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow during closing arguments in Nero's trial last month.

Goodson elected not to testify Friday.


Goodson, 46, is the third officer to stand trial. The first trial, of Officer William Porter, ended in a hung jury and mistrial in December. He is scheduled to be retried in September. Last month, Nero was acquitted on all counts by Williams after a five-day trial. Nero, 30, had faced misdemeanor charges of second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and two counts of misconduct in office.


http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-day7-20160617-story.html

Williams then denied a motion filed Thursday by Goodson's attorneys to allow as evidence statements made by Schatzow during closing arguments in Nero's trial last month. In those arguments, Schatzow referred to Gray being in the custody of multiple officers — not just Goodson's as the van driver — during certain points of his arrest and being placed in the van.

Williams said the closing arguments in Nero's trial had been more of a freewheeling discussion, and that it wouldn't be appropriate to let the comments into Goodson's trial.

Two defense attorneys who are not involved in the trial but have observed it said the state has put on a weak case. Warren Brown said he was surprised that the state did not take the opportunity to present rebuttal witnesses after the defense case.


"This whole thing is really an 'Alice in Wonderland' type of situation," Brown said. "I think the prosecution decided early on that they were going to prosecute, and attempted to make the evidence fit. When the [Police Department] investigation showed some reluctance in that regard, it was not acceptable to the prosecution."

Warren Alperstein, another defense attorney, said he thought the defense "did a very good job" of discrediting state witnesses, including Allan. Taylor's testimony "undermined Dr. Allan's credibility, and of course Dr. Allan's conclusions are vital to a successful prosecution," he said.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/freddie-gray/bs-md-ci-goodson-day7-20160617-story.html

Above