Last month, Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced sweeping proposals to reform the way police officers who are accused of misconduct are investigated and prosecuted.
During the 2015 Uprising following the death of Freddie Gray, State’s Attorney Mosby announced that she would be filing charges against six of the officers involved. Given the frustration in places like Ferguson, Missouri where charges were not filed against the officer responsible for the death of Michael Brown, Mosby’s announcement was widely credited for bringing an end to the unrest here in Baltimore. However, the trials that followed ended without any convictions.
In July, after one officer’s trial ended in a hung jury and three officers were acquitted by a judge in bench trials, Mosby held a press conference at the Gilmore Homes, the housing project where Freddie Gray was arrested, to announce that she would be dropping the charges against the remaining officers.
Some critics suggested that Mosby had overcharged the officers who were brought to trial. Police were angry that they were charged at all. Mosby has pointed to what she identifies as "systemic problems" with the way law enforcement officials are investigated and prosecuted, and her reform proposals are designed to address those systemic problems.
State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby joins Tom to talk about her proposals that include creating a special investigations team, giving State’s Attorney investigators the same powers as police investigators and giving prosecutors a say in a defendants' choice of a bench or jury trial.
Then, for an analysis of the State's Attorney's proposals, Tom is joined in the studio by two legal scholars: Edward Smith, a Baltimore attorney in private practice, and David Jaros, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore's School of Law.
