2015/5/28-The six Baltimore police officers who were charged this month in the death of Freddie Gray asked a Maryland judge on Wednesday to move their trial from the city, where suspicions of police misconduct provoked both violent unrest and days of peaceful demonstrations.

The 85-page motion, filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, chronicled the widespread anger in Baltimore after Mr. Gray’s death, as well the effects of the strategies to restore order, including a 10 p.m. curfew. The demonstrations and the government’s response to them, lawyers for the officers wrote, would make it all but impossible to select an impartial jury.

“Every citizen of Baltimore was impacted by the events surrounding the arrest and death of Freddie Gray,” the motion said, “and every potential juror would bring their passions and prejudices relating to the events with them to the courtroom.”

A spokeswoman for Marilyn J. Mosby, the state’s attorney for Baltimore City, did not respond to a message seeking comment.

Although the officers facing prosecution — Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Garrett E. Miller, Edward M. Nero, William G. Porter, Lt. Brian Rice and Sgt. Alicia White — were charged with different offenses, their lawyers filed the motion together. The officers will be arraigned on July 2, more than 10 weeks after Mr. Gray died of injuries he suffered while in police custody.

The officers’ request for an alternative venue had been expected. In their motion, lawyers for the officers argued that prospective jurors had been influenced by the onslaught of public attention to Mr. Gray’s death and the protests that followed, as well as comments by elected officials.

“The jurors watched on the news (or in person) their community burning, vehicles being smashed and set on fire, riots erupting around the city, businesses being vandalized and looted,” the motion said. “The potential jurors also witnessed a phenomenon that will likely occur during trial. That is, every time a decision in the Freddie Gray case had to be made, a large demonstration was scheduled outside of the applicable venue.”

Compelling Baltimore residents to serve as jurors with such “a spectacle” underway during a trial in the city, the lawyers said, “would be unfair and wholly improper.”

Source: The New York Times

Alan Blinder