Second Freddie Gray Trial Ends In Acquittal, Surprises No One

May 23, 2016
The Intercept

...“There’s a lot of skepticism or distrust that the criminal justice system as it exists in our country is really capable of holding police officers who break the law accountable for their crimes,” said Darius Charney, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “The evidence is pretty strong the other way; it almost never happens.”

Charney listed the closeness of prosecutors to police officers they normally work with as a main structural problem, but also a predisposition by the courts to trust officers.

“Police officers are no more or no less honest than the vast majority of witnesses that testify in court, but there’s this unofficial presumption that they are more honest and that their testimony should be believed more,” Charney said. “Part of it is because they are the police, the good guys, and part of it is that they are trained on how to testify. All of these things make it very difficult to get a conviction.” ...

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Last modified 

May 24, 2016