It is clear beyond real-world doubt, as opposed to reasonable doubt, that Freddie Gray died as the result of foul play. So why was the man who drove the police van, Baltimore police officer Caesar Goodson, acquitted last week? Well, NBC News may have found one possible explanation. The prosecutors failed to turn over evidence that may have helped in his defense.
As most of us know, whenever prosecutors discover exculpatory evidence, or evidence that could potentially prove a defendant is innocent, they must turn that evidence over to the defense–no ifs, ands, or buts. However, on the first day of Goodson’s trial, his attorneys dropped a bombshell. Prosecutors spoke with the other passenger in the van, Donta Allen, on two occasions before the trial. The second meeting took place in the presence of Allen’s attorney, Jack Rubin.
However, the defense didn’t know about these meetings until Rubin told them. When Judge Barry Williams heard this, he hit the ceiling. Before the lead prosecutor on the case, Michael Schatzow, began opening statements, Williams demanded to know if he was aware that he had “a duty to turn things over.” He then loudly wondered, “what else is out there that you didn’t turn over?”
Williams didn’t have to wait long to find out. According to notes from the lead investigator in Gray’s death, Dawnyell Taylor, the medical examiner who conducted Gray’s autopsy suggested early in the investigation that Gray’s death was “a freakish accident.” However, this was never shown to the defense. Later, Taylor testified that prosecutor Janice Bledsoe pitched a fit when she tried to show Bledsoe the notes.
It wasn’t the first time that Williams busted the prosecutors in the chops for not turning over evidence in a case related to Gray’s death. During William Porter’s trial, prosecutors didn’t tell Porter’s attorneys about a witness who claimed Gray had told a police officer that he’d had back problems for a month before his death. Porter’s trial, for those who don’t know, ended in a hung jury; he will be retried this fall.
Several legal experts interviewed by NBC News collectively rolled their eyes at the prosecutors’ behavior. University of Maryland law professor Carey Hutchins thinks the failure to turn over evidence was the result of “poor training or bad judgment calls.” Regardless of the reason, Hutchins said that the prosecutors violated “rules that are clear and longstanding” requiring them to turn over evidence. Former Baltimore prosecutor Warren Alperstein thinks that “there really should be no debate” in these circumstances–if prosecutors find evidence that could even potentially be helpful to defendants, “they have to hand it over.”
There’s a reason Hutchins and Alperstein sounded so incredulous. The precedent in this case is Brady v. Maryland, a 1963 Supreme Court case which found that failure to turn over exculpatory evidence violates a defendant’s right to due process, and is thus a 14th Amendment violation. This case has been stamped in cement for over half a century. The fact that any prosecutor would fall down on this is bad enough, but I suspect that Hutchins and Alperstein were stunned that Baltimore prosecutors would disregard a precedent from Maryland.
From the looks of it, it was probably pre-ordained on the first day of the trial that Goodson would have been acquitted. Even if he had been convicted, it would have likely been tossed out on appeal. Failing to turn over exculpatory evidence results in convictions getting almost automatically reversed. Fundamental fairness demands no less–even if it results in manifestly guilty defendants being acquitted.
What happened to Gray was a miscarriage of justice. The city of Baltimore admitted as much when it agreed to pay Gray’s family $6.4 million last fall. But whether inadvertent or not, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s team may have committed another miscarriage of justice in their zeal to hold the cops who arrested Gray to account. As much as I want to see justice for Gray’s family, there is no reason to shred the Constitution. If manifestly guilty people being acquitted is the price to pay for preserving the integrity of the system, so be it.
