Opening Statements In Next Freddie Gray Trial To Begin
Lieutenant Brian Rice is the highest-ranking officer charged in Freddie Gray’s death and faces assault, misconduct, manslaughter and reckless endangerment charges.
The controversy stems from evidence prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense until just days ago Rice’s training records. They said it took months to get them from the police department, but police now say that’s not true.
Prosecutors will stress his role as the highest-ranking officer and focus on his training. But the judge ruled prosecutors can’t use 4,000 pages of documents detailing that training because they waited too long to turn them over to the defense.
“It’s certainly a setback that the state didn’t get the chance to probe and mine through those documents to find out whether there was any smoking gun in there that said that this officer specifically knew that he had an obligation to seat belt Freddie Gray,” said Adam Ruther, Rosenberg Martin Greenberg.
Even stressing Rice’s supervisory role, prosecutors face the same judge who’s rejected their arguments in the past.“I don’t think there’s any chance that the case is going to get better. I think it’s going to be more difficult to prosecute the remaining officers,” said Warren Alperstein, lawyer and courtroom observer.