Attorneys for Six Baltimore Officers Call for Prosecutor to be Dismissed

Attorneys for the six Baltimore police officers charged with a long list of crimes in the death of Freddie Gray are calling for the case to be taken out of the hands of State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby and re-assigned to a special prosecutor.

Mosby has come under fire from a variety of sources for her handling of the case and especially her hasty decision to charge the officers with murdering Gray.

By some reports, State’s Attorney Mosby took only a few hours to decide on the long list of charges she filed against the officers who arrested or transported Gray. She then quickly rushed out to a press conference and announced to the rioters destroying the city, “I heard your calls of no justice, no peace.”

But in short order, as her case came under scrutiny by court watchers, Mosby came in for criticism for her hasty decisions.

One report even embarrassingly revealed that Mosby’s office had wrong names and addresses and even the wrong dates of birth on the paperwork filed against the officers.

Further, it became public that Mosby had taken campaign money from Freddie Gray’s family attorney.

This and more was cited by the attorneys for the six officers as reason enough for the case to be taken away from Mosby’s office.

A selection of some of the reasons why attorneys representing the officers feel Mosby should be removed were reported on Friday. Those reasons include:

• Mosby and her husband, City Council member Nick Mosby, stand to gain financially and politically
• She has personal relationships with potential witnesses
• Her office took a role investigating the case
• There is a pending civil lawsuit against her office
• An attorney for Gray’s family, William “Billy” Murphy, is a close friend, supporter, and a lawyer who represented Marilyn Mosby in an ethics complaint.

The Baltimore Federal Order of Police (FOP) have also decried Mosby’s office at one point, saying that the charges against the officers were a political move, not any search for justice.

The FOP also demanded that the case be taken out of the hands of the State’s Attorney, citing the political ties Mosby has to the Gray family.

Funeral services for Freddie Gray were held on April 29. As he did with the funerals for Florida teen Trayvon Martin and Missouri teen Michael Brown, President Obama sent three White House officials to represent the federal government.

Obama, however, sent no representatives to the funeral for slain, 25-year-old New York police officer Brian Moore, whose funeral was Friday.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com