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Dershowitz: Charges in Freddie Gray case about crowd control

Dershowitz: Charges in Freddie Gray case about crowd control

“Who is there on behalf of the people charged with crime?”

Harvard Professor Emeritus, Alan Dershowitz, joined Fox News’ Megyn Kelly last night to discuss charges filed against Baltimore law enforcement officers in the Freddie Gray case.

Kelly addressed speculation about bias in prosecutor Marilyn Mosby’s public statements and then gave the floor to Dershowitz.

“If you’re the prosecutor, you have to be concerned about doing justice for everybody — not just for the victim, not just for the family of the victim, not just for the youth of Baltimore, but also for the accused, for the policemen who have been accused and may have been scapegoated,” Dershowitz explained.

Recognizing Mosby’s intent was likely to “quell the riots,” something she did with relative success, Derschowitz said, “but you can’t sacrifice individual defendants to the need to stop riots. Imagine jurors who are going to sit now in Baltimore and say, if we acquit these defendants, our houses might get burned down, our stores will be attacked, our children won’t be safe.”

Can the accused get a fair trial in Baltimore? Not according to Dershowitz. “This trial can’t proceed in Baltimore, it will have to move out of Baltimore and it will need a new prosecutor,” he suggested. Though as Kelly pointed out, Gray’s family wants the case to stay put.

But what about the rights of the accused? What about the presumption of innocence? And that whole due process thing?

“Who is there on behalf of the people charged with crime?” Dershowitz asked. Indicating he’s seen no evidence of murder, Dershowitz suggests Mosby has overcharged and is now at risk of “losing everything.”

Mosby may have temporarily calmed the Baltimore rebellion, but she may have sacrificed justice, due process, and future safety to do so.

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Comments

“Crowd control”?

If by that you mean “capitulation to mob rule” and “self-promoting grandstanding while misusing your office, while crushing the rights of other public servants”…

then, yeah. But that’s not how we “control crowds” in the U.S.

    n.n in reply to Ragspierre. | May 5, 2015 at 1:20 pm

    America was intended to be a constitutional republic, an experiment in principled governance that recognizes individual dignity and intrinsic value, but it progressed to become a socialist democracy, which is a pseudo-religious and crony political system of governance.

      Not A Member of Any Organized Political in reply to n.n. | May 5, 2015 at 3:00 pm

      “Bias in favor of anti-police protesters…”
      Well that’s the UNDERSTATEMENT of the century!!!!!!!

Regardless of the actual facts of the case or the outcome of any trial, Mosby’s statements may make it impossible for any of the six officers to work in Baltimore, either as police officers or anything else. Having now built up the mob’s expectations and stoked their anger, it may be unsafe for any of the officers to live or work in Baltimore.

    casualobserver in reply to siguiriya. | May 5, 2015 at 1:40 pm

    That seems defacto lately. If you aren’t behind bars, you will not be safe. The officer in Ferguson MO is a similar victim. I haven’t heard much since his resignation. But, then, maybe he no longer goes by Darren Wilson for reasons of safety.

      And if you are behind bars, you are arguably even less safe.

      How many of the thugs behind bars were arrested by the former officers who could be forcibly cohabitated with them?

    Not A Member of Any Organized Political in reply to siguiriya. | May 5, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    Biased Mosby needs to be on trial – and not trial run for a higher office.

Sometimes “the Dersh” is spot on. Ms. Mosby seems to be using the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman case via throwing every possible charge at the accused, hoping something will stick. A good way to lose it all, even if appeals are needed.

The problem is that these guys can’t be convicted. At some point they will walk, and then you’ll have a new crowd to control.

    mariner in reply to Petrushka. | May 5, 2015 at 1:47 pm

    Get real.

    If these officers are tried in Baltimore they can and will be convicted.

    Stan25 in reply to Petrushka. | May 5, 2015 at 3:49 pm

    The crowd will be the same agitators that started the uproar in the first place. Only this time, there will be wholesale murders of cops and white civilians, all in the name of #blacklivesmatter and #handsupdon’tshoot.

Of course these charges are about crowd control, which is an entirely legitimate function of local public office. And reasonable minds can very will differ on how to best handle those crowds. Some days, you just do not get choices that are satisfactory in all respects. On those days, you choose, act, and learn from the results.

I don’t regard the steps taken in Baltimore to be optimal, but at least they were different, and we did see something new: civilian black people of ordinary authority (parents and ministers, for example), horrified by the property damage that resulted from scrupulous concern for the lives of criminals, stepping up to assist the elected officials and police when the curfew was declared. They certainly demonstrated the difference between “grown ass people” and grown-ups.

It is also wholly legitimate to criticize the actions of public officials, particularly where the public officials have encroached on the rights of individuals to satisfy a mob. The actions and words of the prosecutor in this case did not show satisfactory concern for the individuals charged.

Meanwhile, we need an easy way to secure obstreperous individuals in police vans.

American Human | May 5, 2015 at 2:15 pm

I must say that this Mosby person is now in prime position to assume the mantle of soon to be retired senator Barbara Mikulski. I was thinking that the frog-faced senator could retire and step down and the governor could appoint Mosby but then I thought, hey he’s a Republican and would appoint Bongino!!!!

Subotai Bahadur | May 5, 2015 at 3:33 pm

It is not only sacrificing the rights of all defendents [who will trust the State’s Attorney to charge anything on other than a political basis in the future?]; she is doing it incompetently. The court documents are in the public domain. There are people with the same name who are not at all related to the case. The court documents charging the police listed the names of two people, and their addresses, who are not the cops charged. Those people are receiving threats. Don’t know their race; one is a plumber, one runs an elementary school lunchroom. But if they are white, and they are killed by a group of “misunderstood yutes who are turning their lives around” it sure would look like a declaration of a race war.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/05/sheriff-baltimore-states-atty-marilyn-mosby-charged-wrong-people-wrong-names-wrong-addresses-of-2-officers-video/

Note that this statement is not by a political pundit, but by the local sheriff.

while I don’t disagree with him it bugs me he’s speaking as if he has seen the evidence.
we, including he, have not seen it all.

MouseTheLuckyDog | May 5, 2015 at 10:04 pm

I posted this in the article about the gun but for some reason it didn’t take. So reposting here:
The defense has filed a motion to inspect the knife.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-freddie-gray-statements-20150505-story.html#page=1

A link to a pdf of the motion appears on the left.

A brief observation and thought:
Is all this stuff about illegal arrest because if those charges are dropped, then the only police charged are black?

When those 6-Cops are all found to be “guilty as charged,” will Baltimore hold a public hanging? That would only be fair, after all, isn’t that what this upcoming trial is all about?

The Maryland tourist bureau hardest hit.

You misunderstand a fundamental fact. To this prosecutor and more likely than not all or nearly all black Americans, justice is not a process. Justice is not following the rules of procedure and evidence and that whole dance in the courthouse. Justice is the outcome. If the black person wins, it is justice. If the black person doesn’t win, it is injustice. Period. If you think about it, most if not all progressives are the same. It really isn’t a double standard or even really racism. If their guy or gal wins or is vindicated, that is justice, no matter what the process was, no matter if the rules were followed or not. No matter what the facts are or what the truth is. That is why you hear that so often from both progressives and black Americans, “Facts don’t matter.” They are being utterly truthful. To them and their view of the world, justice is they win. That and that alone constitutes justice. How else court an Attorney General of the United States tell Congress that he understood is primary duty was to “my people”? Exactly that. How can black Americans vote for Democrats year in and year out and get diddly from them in return? Because the Democrats back them on “justice”. That is what “social justice” means: our side wins your side loses. Nothing will change that view.