The hung jury in Baltimore

The first of the trials in Baltimore has ended with a hung jury.  The truth is that the prosecutor is lucky.  There was a big chance that there would be an acquittal.  Let's forget whether or not the policeman involved is guilty of any crime.  Without any doubt, the prosecuting attorney is guilty of malpractice.  The trial began with an opening statement from the prosecutor in which the jury was told that the state would present testimony from the other man in the back of the vehicle with Freddie Gray.  This was important, since in order to find the policeman guilty, the jury had to believe that he had personally done something which affected Gray.  Simply riding in the front of the van on the other side of a partition would not be sufficient.  The state had to prove what the defendant had done wrong.

As the trial progressed, the state never put on that other prisoner to testify.  That means that the jury was promised it would hear from a key witness about what happened, but that witness never appeared.  Most jurors would conclude from this that had that witness actually appeared, he would not have supported the position being taken by the prosecution.  Promising to produce a witness and then failing to do so is the kind of mistake that any first year lawyer would understand.  For an experienced prosecutor to do this is completely incomprehensible.

The city of Baltimore already screwed up in how it handled the arrest of Freddie Gray and the riots that followed his death.  Now they have messed up the trial of the first defendant.  It's really unbelievable.