Alan Dershowitz: Charges Against Baltimore Cops Won’t Stick

Saturday, 02 May 2015

By Bill Hoffmann

Criminal charges filed Friday against six Baltimore police officers in the death of Freddie Gray were based on “politics and crowd control,” not justice, renowned civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax TV.

“This is a very sad day for justice . . . Today had nothing to do with justice. Today was crowd control. Everything was motivated by a threat of riots and a desire to prevent riots,” Dershowitz said on “The Steve Malzberg Show.”

“The mayor outrageously said we’re going to get justice for the victim, the family and people of Baltimore, never mentioning the defendants. Under our Constitution, the only people who are entitled to justice are the defendants.

“They are presumed innocent, they need due process of law, and the mayor and the state attorney have made it virtually impossible for these defendants to get a fair trial. They have been presumed guilty.”

Dershowitz made the comments hours after Baltimore’s top prosecutor, State Attorney Marilyn Mosby, announced criminal charges against six cops who were suspended after Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury while in custody in a police van.

The charges came nearly two weeks after Gray’s death, which sparked riots that caused millions of dollars in damage and left dozens injured. The stiffest, second-degree, “depraved heart” murder charge was lodged against the driver of the van. The others face charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault and illegal arrest.

But Dershowitz, a Harvard Law professor emeritus and Newsmax contributor, said the case will very likely be thrown out for lack of evidence.

“I understand why the mayor and state attorney want to prevent riots . . . but that’s not the job of the justice system . . . You cannot allow police officers or any other defendants to become scapegoats for crowds demanding a continuation of rioting,” he told host Steve Malzberg.

“There’s no plausible, hypothetical, conceivable case for murder under the facts that we now know them. You might say that conceivably there’s a case for manslaughter. Nobody wanted this guy to die, nobody set out to kill him, and nobody intentionally murdered him.

“The worst-case scenario is a case for involuntary manslaughter or some kind of reckless disregard, but the idea of without further investigation coming down with murder indictments . . . This is a show trial. This is designed to please the crowd. It’s designed to lower the temperature.”

Dershowitz added that the charges did not meet the criteria for justice in the United States.

“It may have been the criteria in Rome, for Fidel Castro, in Iran, and in other countries, but in our country you don’t base indictments on what impact it’s going to have on the crowd,” he said.

“You base it on a hard, neutral, objective view of the evidence, and it doesn’t look like that was done here . . . They have invited a mess. What they did is they bartered short-term results today for long-term problems in the future.

“My prediction? They’ve over played their hand, it’s unlikely they’ll get any convictions in this case as a result of this, and if they do, there’s a good possibility it’ll be reversed on appeal and will just postpone the riots for months ahead.”

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Peter King Slams Balt. Prosecutor’s Statement as ‘Very Political’

Friday, 01 May 2015 09:58 PM

By Todd Beamon

Rep. Peter King told Newsmax TV Friday that Baltimore City Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s strong statement in announcing the charges against six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray was “very political” and could damage the first-time prosecutor’s case in the long run.

“What happened here was obviously tragic and it demands a full investigation,” the New York Republican told “Newsmax Prime” host J.D. Hayworth. “The whole impression generated by the media and by the political people in Baltimore was that it had to be a decision made by a certain date that they didn’t want to wait until an exhaustive investigation was done.

“In the end, this could end up hurting the prosecution if they rush too quickly, without getting all the evidence,” added King, who is a member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

But the 12-term congressman, who is considering a run for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, expressed concerns about the environment surrounding Mosby’s announcement.

“There is something so unseemly about seeing people demonstrating in the streets, demanding an indictment — then coming out and publicly announcing an indictment and people cheering,” King said. “It has too much of an atmosphere of a spectacle.”

Mosby, 35, who was elected four months ago, said that the six officers involved in Gray’s death would face felony charges that could each bring as much as 10 years in prison. The driver of the van in which Gray, 25, was placed after being handcuffed by police could be sentenced to 30 years if convicted.

The city remains under a curfew imposed Tuesday by Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan after protests following Gray’s funeral on Monday turned violent with widespread looting and property fires throughout the community. The 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew was expected to continue through the weekend.

King told Hayworth that while Gray’s death was “tragic,” that “if it’s criminal, the officers have to be prosecuted.

“But people have to realize that criminal prosecutions are generally not carried out in a carnival-type atmosphere,” he said. Such an air could be detrimental “for those who are charged and for the system itself.

“In the end, you can rush into something and people who ought to be guilty end up getting off because of the mistakes that are made.”

Two other panelists appearing with King were Ron Hosko, former FBI assistant director, and Larry Elder, Newsmax contributor and radio talk-show.

They agreed with the congressman, with Hosko saying that “time is going to tell us all whether the facts really line up behind these charges and they’re provable in their current form, whether this case has been over charged and there’s a lack of proof.

“The facts will determine the result,” he said.

Elder said: “It’s far more prudent to bring the case, lose it than not to bring it, and have to defend it later on.”

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