The lawsuits filed against Marilyn Mosby, the Baltimore District Attorney who tried unsuccessfully to prosecute six Baltimore police officers for the death of Freddie Gray, could have far-reaching consequences.
Warren Alperstein, a legal analyst, told the local CBS affiliate that if the lawsuits filed by the officers are allowed to continue, Mosby could lose her immunity and her compulsion to testify in the case could cause major rifts in the state’s attorney office.
“You can bet that the officers and the attorneys are champing at the bit to get Mrs. Mosby under oath,” Alperstein told CBS.
Alperstein noted that the highly political decisions Mosby made by her failed attempts to prosecute the officers for the death of Freddie Gray could force her to testify and eliminate her immunity.
“In a civil case like this, you as a defendant don’t have that right. You must testify or be held in contempt of court,” said Alperstein. “It is unprecedented. It is unheard of.”
The lawsuits were filed starting in April just before every case Mosby tried to prosecute for the suspect’s death was thrown out of court.
In their complaints, the officers charged that Mosby knew many of the statements she was making during her announcements to indict the officers were false and were made for political, not legal, reasons. The lawsuits allege false arrest, false imprisonment, defamation or false light, and other assertions.
For her part, in a recent speech delivered at Johns Hopkins University, Mosby implied that the current legal actions being taken against her by the officers may have to do with her race.
“As a woman of color, I represent one-percent of all elected prosecutors in the country,” Mosby said.
Mosby insisted that all her decisions in the indictments were the correct, legal moves.
“Had I not had a seat at the table to make the unprecedented decisions that I was forced to make based upon the facts and the law,” Mosby added.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.