ANNAPOLIS, Md., March 8 (UPI) — Baltimore police officer William Porter, to be retried in the death of Freddie Gray, must testify against his five co-defendants, Maryland’s highest court ruled Tuesday.
The Maryland Court of Appeals heard oral arguments last week on whether Porter, the first person to be tried in Gray’s death and whose trial ended in a hung jury, could be compelled to testify against the five other officers in the case. The court rejected Porter’s request to not testify against Officer Caesar Goodson and Sgt. Alicia White, and reversed a lower order denying prosecutors’ requests to call Porter to testify against Officer Edward Nero, Officer Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice.
Prosecutors successfully argued that since Porter was offered limited immunity, they could compel him to testify.
The six officers are charged with crimes stemming from the April 2015 death of Gray, who suffered a neck injury while being transported, unrestrained except for handcuffs and leg shackles, in a police van, and died a week later. The incident, ruled a homicide, provoked several weeks of rioting in Baltimore and discussion nationwide of the relationship in America between minorities and the police.
The officers were charged with a range of crimes, including manslaughter, gross negligence, involuntary manslaughter, misconduct, false imprisonment, reckless endangerment and assault. Goodson, the van driver, was also charged with second-degree depraved heart murder.
Porter will be retried in June.
