Still Some Justice on the East Coast?

Freddie Gray case: Judge allows malicious prosecution lawsuit against Mosby to proceed

A Federal judge is allowing key parts of a lawsuit against State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, brought by five of the officers involved in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray, to move forward.

Federal judge allowing malicious prosecution lawsuit against Marilyn Mosby in Freddie Gray case to continue.

A federal judge is allowing key parts of a lawsuit against Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, brought by five of the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, to move forward.

U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled that claims including malicious prosecution, defamation, and invasion of privacy can move forward against Mosby and Assistant Sheriff Samuel Cogen, who wrote the statement of probable cause.

Mosby's attorneys had said she has absolute prosecutorial immunity from actions taken as a state's attorney. But Garbis noted that her office has said it conducted an independent investigation.

"Plaintiffs' malicious prosecution claims relate to her actions when functioning as an investigator and not as a prosecutor," Garbis wrote.

Other counts, such as false arrest, false imprisonment and abuse of process, were dismissed, as Garbis had signaled he would do at an October hearing. All claims against the state were also dismissed.

The Maryland attorney general's office, which is representing Mosby, declined to comment on the 65-page ruling, saying officials needed time to review it.

Three of the officers charged in the April 2015 arrest and death of Gray were found not guilty of all charges by a judge, and prosecutors dropped charges against the remaining three officers last July.

How about charges of incitement to riot?

Marilyn Mosby Might Not Be Above The Law

Prosecutors seem to get away with lawlessness themselves these days. Marilyn Mosby rode roughshod over the officers involved in the Freddie Gray death, and made outrageous statements to the black community. The entire episode is ongoing, and has affected law enforcement in many cities outside Baltimore. Cops became afraid of prosecution and prison if something goes wrong with a bust.

Now Mosby has been the recipient of a complaint to the Bar Association regarding her false allegations and persecution of the officers. The official complaint is HERE. According to the complaint, Mosby violated a number of the Maryland Lawyer's Rules of Professional Conduct.

Not the least of her failures was to prosecute without adequate evidence of a crime. Two of the officers, including the driver of the van, have had their cases dismissed. The complaint against Mosby includes this:

The case against Officer Goodson is also especially important because it seemed to many quoted observers - and also upon an independent examination - to be the strongest case the prosecutors have against any of the officers. For example, it involves the most serious of all the charges (“depraved indifference”), and apparently the most charges: (1) second-degree depraved-heart murder; (2)involuntary manslaughter; (3) grossly negligent act; (4) assault; (5) manslaughter by motor vehicle;(6) grossly negligent driving; (7) criminally negligent manslaughter; (8) misconduct in office, by corruptly failing to do an act that is required by the duties of his office; and (9) reckless endangerment.

Thus their failure to present sufficient evidence to sustain even one of these many charges - and, in the opinion of Judge Williams, to even come close to doing so - shows that the prosecutors should have known that they lacked probable cause for many if not all of the charges, and that the evidence was insufficient to support a conviction on many if not all charges. And, if this is in fact their strongest case, it would follow that they likewise lack probable cause and sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction regarding the other still-to-be-tried (or retried) cases against other officers.

A third reason why the findings regarding Officer Goodson are especially important is that Goodson,as the driver of the van, was the central figure in this matter; the single person around which all of
the other defendants interacted. Thus, in a very real sense, any criminal liability of the other defendants would appear to be derivative from, and/or interconnected with, that of Goodson. In other words, if with regard to Goodson there is no probable cause for most if not all of the charges against him, and if there is insufficient evidence to sustain these charges against him, it would appear even more strongly that the same would apply with greater strength to the other remaining officers.

A final reason why the Goodson decision is so important is that it clearly established - in what would appear to now constitute the “law of the case” with regard to all officers - that several legal theories upon which the prosecutors were heavily relying for their cases against other officers were not valid. For example, the court firmly rejected the suggestion that the mere failure to use seat belts - even if it might constitute a violation of a new rule - would rise to the level of a crime and/or support convictions of crimes such as “misconduct in office.”

Mosby is a terrorist using her power against the police.