Alan Dershowitz, the famous defense lawyer, has called the case against the six Baltimore officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray “a show trial.” The actions of prosecutor Marilyn Mosby “had nothing to do with justice,” but instead amounted to “crowd control,” Dershowitz said in remarks reported by the Daily Caller.
With regard to the second-degree murder charges against Caesar Goodson, Dershowitz stated that “there’s no plausible, hypothetical, conceivable case for murder under the facts as we now know them.” At most, there may be a case for involuntary manslaughter.
Dershowitz believes that, having overplayed its hand, the prosecution is unlikely to obtain any convictions. And if even if it does, there’s a good possibility the convictions will be reversed on appeal.
Dershowitz compared the case of the Baltimore six with that of George Zimmerman. In that case, Dershowitz accused the prosecutor of overcharging Zimmerman and argued that she should be disbarred for unethical behavior. As we all remember, Zimmerman was acquitted.
Speaking of the Zimmerman case, Chuck Ross reports that after Zimmerman’s acquittal, Marilyn Mosby denounced the verdict during a protest rally at the federal courthouse in Baltimore. Her husband, city council member Nick Mosby, went even further, calling for a boycott of Florida businesses.
Either the Mosbys don’t understand the concept of self defense or they are demagogues. Maybe both.
Marilyn Mosby also had plenty to say about the Ferguson case, in which officer Darren Wilson acted in self-defense against Michael Brown. According to Ross, during a panel discussion last December, she called the local prosecutor’s handling of that case “problematic” and “questionable.” “We have to question the motives,” she declared, while strongly implying that racial dynamics were at play.
Given the speed with which Mosby brought charges against the Baltimore six case, the strong likelihood that she has overcharged, her grandstanding to the mob, and her marriage to a West Baltimore politician whose interests lie with throwing the book at the six officers, I think we have to start questioning her motives. As Mosby would put it, racial dynamics may well be at play.
There’s a final twist. In the Ferguson case, Mosby called for a special prosecutor to take the place of the local one. But in the Baltimore case, she has rejected bringing in a special prosecutor notwithstanding the potential for a conflict of interest that stems from the fact that her husband’s political interests are served by coming down with maximum impact on the police officers.
In rejecting calls for a special prosecutor, Mosby stated, “The people of Baltimore City elected me and there is no accountability with a special prosecutor.” But the people of St. Louis County, of which Ferguson is a part, elected prosecutor Bob McCulloch six times, and a special prosecutor in the Ferguson case would have had “no accountability.”
Marilyn Mosby, it appears, is a hypocrite, an ideologue, and a political grandstander. It may well be that one or more of the Baltimore six deserves to be prosecuted. But Alan Dershowitz is right to be concerned that Mosby’s actions have nothing to do with “deserve” and that she wants to conduct a show trial.
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