Second Freddie Gray trial on hold over officer testimony

The Maryland Court of Appeals has reportedly postponed the trial for Officer Caesar Goodson, one of six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray. The state responded Friday, but Goodson’s trial was still on track to begin with jury selection Monday until the new appeals order was handed down.

Porter’s first trial on charges that included involuntary manslaughter ended in a hung jury last month. Now the case can not proceed until that appeals court rules on Porter’s eligibility to be forced to testify as he awaits his own trial. If the Maryland appellate court rules that Porter can not be compelled to testify with use immunity, prosecutors must weigh heavily towards granting full immunity to Porter.

Prosecutors have referred to Porter as a “material witness” against Goodson and Alicia White, another officer charged in Gray’s death.

Gray’s death exposed the deep divide between the public and the police in Baltimore, and became a national symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Goodson is one of five officers facing charges related to Gray’s death, and the second to go to court. His lawyers say that this would violate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, since he faces a second trial in June, since the original case against him ended in a mistrial last December.

Porter’s attorneys filed for an injunction Thursday, asking the appeals court to “stay the Order to Compel Porter’s testimony until such times as the interlocutory appeal is adjudicated”.

“Every police officer knows that someone in the back of that van, if they’re not seat-belted in, they’re, because of the inertia from making turns, from making starts, from making stops, they’re going to be thrown all over the inside of that van”, he said. But in a pretrial hearing last week they said they would call a witness who specializes in “retaliatory prisoner transport practices”, indicating they intend to bring up the possibility that Gray received a “rough ride” in the van.

“It could potentially taint the jury pool that would be available in the retrial of the porter case”, Banzhaf tells TheDCNF.

Goodson and Porter have pleaded not guilty.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors can’t comment on the case because they are under a gag order. According to their theory of the case, Goodson is more culpable for Gray’s death than Porter, anyway.

If he is forced to testify and refuses, Porter could be jailed for contempt. Yet if he does testify, he could face perjury charges over any inconsistencies, his attorneys argued.