Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Monday, December 07, 2015

Porter Trial Starts Its Second Week Today

The trial of Baltimore City Police Officer William Porter resumes this in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

Porter is one of six police officers charged in the April death of Freddie Gray.

Porter is 26 years old and a two year veteran of the Baltimore City Police Department.

He was one of the officers called into assist the other officer's who arrested and transported Freddie Gray to the Western District Police Station on the morning of April 12.

More

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

assistant med examiner who conducted autopsy was cross examined today. anyone can pretty much conclude that her findings were nothing more than a theory and not backed up by either evidence or any scientific proof. now on stand a medical expert hired by the state and paid $12,000 to testify that he basically would have come to the conclude as the assistant med examiner. what's telling is the state's hiring of this 'expert.' it's as if they need him to substantiate homicide as manner of death. this is really unheard of that the state would bring in someone to back up ME's office findings.

Anonymous said...

Interesting info from the live feed:

“Murtha (defense attorney during cross) asks if Allan was advised of prior neck injuries to Gray (this has never been substantiated). Multiple bench conferences, now break"

"More: Dr Allan says she “discussed the possibility” that Gray had prior neck injury “based on my examination & what found at autopsy”

So was this information excluded from the autopsy report, and if so, why?

And why has the prosecution fought so hard to keep evidence of Gray's prior injuries from the defense?

If we were talking about evidence concerning a stumped toe, ok, sure, that wouldn't be relevant... but a prior neck injury would be entirely relevant to a case involving a neck injury that resulted in a death which went on to be classified as a homicide.

Anonymous said...

discovery violation by the state. defense asks for mistrial. judge says trial will continue and defense allowed to use Gray's "bad back" doctor. Gray did have a previous injury.

Anonymous said...

at this moment there are about 10 protesters outside courthouse
signs say 'what side are you on' message to jurors?

Anonymous said...

He'll walk.

Anonymous said...

this is really unheard of that the state would bring in someone to back up ME's office findings.

December 7, 2015 at 3:30 PM

not at all. it happens all the time but both sides. you can 'buy' an expert in any field you like including law enforcement. throw enough money at them and they will say whatever you want them to..

Anonymous said...

@1:06 you are partially correct. It does happen but not "all the time." it is highly unusual for the prosecution to hire expert witnesses. They work on a budget. Only in a high profile case does this occur. As far as the defense hiring them, it only happens when 1. either high profile case OR 2. defendant can afford to pay for them.
The bottom line is that yes, it's almost unheard of for the prosecution to hire expert witnesses much less one whose only purpose was to "prove" the ME's theory.

Anonymous said...

9:31 AM

not all expert witnesses testify in a trial, but they are still hired as experts.