Despite public anger over Freddie Gray death, police convictions elude prosecutors

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• Editor’s Note:

  In the introduction to this segment, we incorrectly stated that Freddie Gray died in the police van. He died some days later.

• JUDY WOODRUFF:

  Now the latest on the Freddie Gray case and the trials surrounding his death.

  Six officers were charged after Gray broke his neck and died while in a police van in Baltimore April 2015. His death led to riots and civil unrest. But prosecutors have not secured any convictions in those trials or in the trials of those officers yet.

  Jeffrey Brown has our look.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  The first prosecution of an officer ended in a hung jury. The two that followed, both heard and decided by a judge, resulted in acquittals.

  Now Lieutenant Brian Rice has elected to have Judge Barry Williams decide his fate, rather than a jury, in a trial that begins this week. In the meantime, state's attorney Marilyn Mosby and prosecutors face wide and critical scrutiny.

  We look at these cases and beyond with Debbie Hines, a former Baltimore prosecutor and now a practicing trial attorney, and Lawrence Brown, a professor of public health at Morgan State University. He wrote a recent op-ed in The New York Times titled "More Injustice in Baltimore."

  Welcome to both of you.

  I want to start with you, Debbie Hines.

  Why has it been so hard for prosecutors to get a conviction?

• DEBBIE HINES, Former Baltimore Prosecutor:

  Well, you know, despite what everybody thinks, these cases have always been an uphill battle.

  They have not been the slam dunk that the public may think.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  From the start, you mean?

• DEBBIE HINES:

  From the start, from the very start.

  There are circumstantial murder cases. I have tried circumstantial murder cases. They are extremely difficult, because what we mean when we say circumstantial is, there's no witness. There's no eyewitness. The only people that really know what happened is the victim, who is deceased, and the police officers that are tried.

  So I try to compare the case not to just this case, but to the other infamous case of Casey Anthony, where everyone thought in America that she had killed her 2-year-old toddler, but that was a circumstantial case, and it's really hard to pull them together.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Lawrence Brown, do you buy that as a reason for the no convictions in this case, or do you see something more going on?

• LAWRENCE BROWN, Morgan State University:

  Well, I think that's certainly a part of it, but what's really also a factor is, I don't believe that the prosecution has ever shown exactly when the murder of Freddie Gray had taken place.

  I don't think they have shown the exact time of the jury, who caused it? What was — what is it that caused his vertebrae to crack in three separate places and his voice box to be crushed? So, without showing that, all the officers can say, well, I wasn't involved in this part, I wasn't involved in that part, and no one is held accountable.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  So, staying with you, do you see then — you are saying it's a weak prosecution strategy? Do you think that state attorney Marilyn Mosby oversold or overpromised what she had in terms of the evidence?

• LAWRENCE BROWN:

  Well, I mean, when she went out on May the 1st, 2015, to reassure Baltimore and to really sort of let people know that she was going to seek justice for Freddie Gray, that had a really powerful effect, because it wasn't just what she said. It was the way she said it.

  So to see now the way that the efforts are going, it's a real disappointment, I think, to many. It's not just the police brutality that I think a lot of people are looking at. It's also a way that the prosecution and seemingly the entire criminal justice system is failing people who live in those disinvested Red Line black communities who are more exposed to police brutality.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Debbie Hines, of course, from the beginning, this case and others have also raised the questions of more systemic issues involving the police and young black men in particular.

  Do you see — for example, some people have thought that the judge might be giving the extra benefit of the doubt to the police?

• DEBBIE HINES:

  I think the judge — and I have all respect for Judge Williams, but I think that he doesn't like the prosecution's case.

  What he is saying, though, is not that they have a weak case. He is saying as to going to what Lawrence said, that he understands what the prosecution is saying as to how Freddie Gray died at what was this fourth stop of the van, where he was injured at that moment in time.

  But he also sees the defense's position, which is that it was a freak accident, it just happened, it was nothing criminal. And in a criminal case where a judge says, I see what the prosecution is saying, I see what the defense is saying, you can't have those things equal, because then the state doesn't meet its burden of proof.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  So, Lawrence Brown, you're in Baltimore. What is the mood there? Is there a gathering sense that there just may not be any convictions in this case that got so much attention and roused the community so much?

• LAWRENCE BROWN:

  Well, I think there is the sense that people are really disappointed at this point in the efforts of the prosecution team.

  Again, the passion with which she came out with — Marilyn Mosby — on May the 1st, which was only four days after the uprising itself on April the 27th, which was the day that Freddie Gray was being laid to rest, you know, it really did set up a situation where we thought it was a moment of catharsis, it was a moment of jubilation.

  And now that sort of sense of catharsis and jubilation is rapidly fading away with the hung jury, two not-guilty verdicts, and what looks like a possibility that none of the officers will be held accountable.

  And I think that's something that's very frustrating for many residents here in the city. And I feel that we're really a city on edge right now, and I don't know that we're really doing anything to really address that.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  Debbie Hines, there's also been — if you look at this case and others even beyond Freddie Gray, some have said that just by bringing them to trial, right, it raises enough public scrutiny to make — perhaps bring some changes, certainly in police processes. Do you see that?

• DEBBIE HINES:

  I definitely see that. And I have always said that I think the cases should always have been brought.

  I think there was always enough there in terms of probable cause to bring the cases. And even Judge Williams, although there may have been the acquittals and the hung jury, he didn't dismiss the case. Even today, that is what Lieutenant Rice wanted, was a dismissal of the charges, and he didn't dismiss the charges.

  But out of the cases, I see a greater thing happening. And what I mean by that is, the police department in Baltimore has already instituted changes as a result of this case. They're going to require body cameras. They're going to require that the police officers must sign off when they get the general orders. They can't say, oh, I wasn't at work that day, I didn't have the general order.

  And the most important thing in terms of with respect to the Freddie Gray case, the chief of police is saying that if someone like Freddie Gray or any other prisoner in Baltimore city requests a medic, the Baltimore police must take the prisoner to a hospital.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  This is happening whether there are convictions or not?

• DEBBIE HINES:

  Exactly.

• JEFFREY BROWN:

  OK.

  Debbie Hines and Lawrence Brown, thank you both very much.

• DEBBIE HINES:

  Thank you.

• LAWRENCE BROWN:

  Thank you.