
Attorneys for the six Baltimore City police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray filed a motion Friday to have the State’s Attorney for the city recuse herself from the case.
The 109-page motion alleges that State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has too many conflicts of interest with the case for the officers to receive a fair trial.
It reads, in part:
“Rarely in the history of any criminal case has a prosecutor so directly maintained so many conflicts of interest.â€
The attorneys request that the case instead be argued by another State’s Attorney or be dismissed in its entirety.
Among the conflicts of interest cited by the attorneys in the motion, per WBAL-TV:
•That Mosby’s comments during the May 1 press conference announcing the charges violate the state’s law on prosecutor conduct, specifically “refraining from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accusedâ€;
•That Mosby is married to Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby, who represents the district where Gray’s arrest took place and that was most significantly damaged during the subsequent riots;
•That personal ties exist between one of the prosecutors in Mosby’s office and a member of the media who interviewed Donta Allen, the other man in the police transport van with Gray on April 12;
•That the prosecution conducted its own investigation of the case separate from the official one conducted by the Baltimore City Police Department;
•That there is a pending civil claim against Mosby and her office over the prosecution using “false and misleading statements and omissions†in the charging documents, specifically with regards to the legality of the knife Gray was carrying at the time of his arrest; and
•That Mosby is too closely linked to Billie Murphy, the attorney for Gray’s family, as he donated to her 2014 campaign and is considered to be a “mentor†to the first-term prosecutor.
Mosby charged the six officers May 1 on several counts, including second-degree murder, manslaughter, misconduct in office and false imprisonment.
That same day, the city’s Fraternal Order of Police called on Mosby to recuse herself from the case, citing several of the above reasons in an open letter.
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