Porter walks to a courthouse for jury selection in his trial.
Pool / Via Getty Images
A 12-person jury — eight of them black — was seated Wednesday morning in a racially-charged trial for the first of the six police officers charged in the death of a Baltimore man.
The selection of the panel completed the first phase of the trial of Officer William G. Porter, who faces charges of involuntary manslaughter, second-degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment associated with the death of Freddie Gray, whose death in police custody in May sparked unrest throughout the city.
Porter, who’s been on the Baltimore police force since 2012, has pleaded not guilty.
The other five officers will be tried consecutively, starting Jan. 6. Judge Barry Williams, a former attorney who made his name pursuing police misconduct cases for the federal government, said the trial should last no longer than Dec. 17.
Following two days of questioning from the judge and attorneys, the result is a panel of five black women, three black men, three white women, and one white man. Of the four alternates, three of them were white men and the other was a black man.
Most of the prospective jurors exempted from the panel Wednesday appeared to be young black men.
In a city where nearly two-thirds of the population is black, the racial demographics of the jury was one of the most highly-anticipated developments in the case. Defense attorneys had previously argued there was no way their client, also a black man, but member of a police force long dogged by accusations of racial profiling and brutality, could receive a fair trial in Baltimore.
The trial is expected to feature the first public account of what happened April 12 when Gray, a 25-year-old high school dropout who’d been in and out of prison for various drug charges, was arrested on a weapons charge after running from an officer in his West Baltimore neighborhood. During his arrest, Gray suffered a severe spinal cord injury in the back of a police van that led to his death seven days later.
The nature of Gray’s injuries has led to speculation that he was subject to a “rough ride,” in which a handcuffed suspect is placed in the back of a police van and deliberately jostled.
Porter’s attorneys have said Porter will likely take the stand. The Baltimore Sun has previously reported Porter was present at multiple stops of the van in which Gray was injured, with prosecutors likely to allege that he should have sought medical attention for Gray.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1QUchBX
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