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| FILE - In this Nov. 30, 2015 file photo, William Porter, one of six Baltimore city police officers charged in connection to the death of Freddie Gray, walks to a courthouse for jury selection in his trial in Baltimore. In Porter’s case, an officer’s negligence, rather than violent acts or excessive force, is on trial. He is also charged with assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office. If convicted, Porter faces up to 25 years in prison. Legal experts say when it’s inaction rather than action that’s in question, it could be a hard case to prove. |
BALTIMORE
(AP) -- He didn't fire a gun or wield a Taser. He didn't place
anyone in a chokehold or wrestle anyone to the ground. In fact, William
Porter barely touched Freddie Gray.
But
Porter, the first officer on trial in Gray's death, is accused of
manslaughter for failing to pay enough attention to the 25-year-old
black man, who was handcuffed and shackled in the back of a police van
and suffered what would be a fatal spinal injury.
In
Porter's case, an officer's negligence, rather than violent acts or
excessive force, is on trial. He is also charged with assault, reckless
endangerment and misconduct in office. If convicted, Porter faces up to
25 years in prison.
His crime, according to
prosecutors, is failing to immediately call a medic to the scene when
Gray indicated he needed medical attention and ignoring a Baltimore
Police Department general order requiring officers to buckle prisoners
in with seat belts.
Jurors will begin
deliberating on Monday. But with no eye witnesses and no unequivocal
evidence as to exactly how or when Gray was injured, negligence could be
difficult to prove, legal experts say.
"Usually,
criminal law has to do with intentionally doing something - stealing,
assaulting," said Baltimore attorney David Irwin, who recently
represented an Episcopal Church bishop in Maryland. The bishop pleaded
guilty to vehicular manslaughter and other charges because she left the
scene of a crash with a cyclist and failed to call an ambulance.
Porter
was present during five of the six stops the police van made during the
45-minute ride between Gilmor Homes, where Gray was arrested when he
ran from officers, and the Western District station house, where Gray
arrived unresponsive. He died a week later.
Porter,
who testified on his own behalf, told jurors that Gray wasn't visibly
hurt and didn't exhibit any signs of distress when the officer offered
him aid. Porter testified that Gray never once asked for a medic, but
simply said "yes" when Porter asked if he'd like to go to the hospital.
Porter
said he told van driver Caesar Goodson to take him there, because while
he still didn't believe Gray was really hurt he knew the jail would
reject a prisoner claiming injury. He didn't think it was an emergency,
he told investigators, because Gray had been kicking inside the van at a
previous stop, and "he didn't appear hurt in any way, shape or form."
Porter
testified along with other defense witnesses that included a law
enforcement expert and a Virginia police chief that it would have been
van driver Caesar Goodson's responsibility to buckle Gray into a seat
belt, though officers are permitted to skip the seat belt if they feel
they're in danger or at risk.
Instead of going
to the hospital, Goodson picked up a second prisoner and drove both men
to the station.
By the time they arrived, it was too late.
Steve
Levin, a Baltimore-based attorney and former federal prosecutor who has
represented Baltimore police officers in the past, said the charges are
unusual based on what he knows about the case.
"It'd
be difficult to prove that Mr. Porter's failure to follow policy caused
Mr. Gray's injuries," he said. "It's easier to prove affirmative
misconduct than misconduct by failing to do anything at all."
That's
because of the way American laws are written, according to David
Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes
in policing, adding that the Porter case is unusual "not just in police
cases but in criminal law."
"The criminal law
is set up as 'thou shalt not kill, steal, rob, break.' We handle
criminal conduct in terms of things that people are prohibited from
doing. 'You may not,'" Harris said. "It's fine to tell us what not to
do, but we don't like to be told you must. That current runs very deep
in the American psyche. When it comes to criminal liability for criminal
omissions we're very stingy about how we allow that."
Gray's
death from a critical spinal injury is not the first in Baltimore's
recent history: an eerily similar case 10 years earlier saw civil
litigation but no criminal charges.
In the
case of Dondi Johnson, a man who died in 2005 two weeks after suffering a
near-identical injury as Gray in the back of a Baltimore police wagon,
his family won a $7.4 million judgment after suing the police.
The
officers who transported Johnson were never criminally charged, and in
fact, two of the three remain on the force despite the lawsuit's finding
of liability due to negligence.
Gray's family settled with the city for $6.4 million without ever filing a lawsuit.
Tonya
Kelly, a defense attorney and former state prosecutor, said there are
implicit realities that come with being a police officer that jurors
will likely consider: Porter's duty to act, and his understanding of
certain policies that require him to do so. Still, she said the state's
case is a difficult one to prove,
"If you
don't know when the injury occurred, how can you possibly tie his
inaction to Freddie Gray's harm? There are so many facts that aren't
linear," Kelly said.
