Porter compelled to testify against fellow BPD officers

Baltimore Police Department (BPD) Officer William Porter will be compelled to testify against all five of his fellow officers implicated in the death of Freddie Gray, per the ruling of the Maryland Court of Appeals delivered on Tuesday.

The highest court in the state heard arguments last Thursday from prosecutors who petitioned for Porter to be forced to testify with limited immunity, and Porter’s defense attorneys who argued that compelling Porter to testify will violate his Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate himself.

Porter was tried in December on the charges of manslaughter, assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. Judge Williams declared a mistrial after a hung jury was called. Porter will be retried June 13.

Porter was the first officer to be tried so that he could testify against Officer Caesar Goodson, Jr., the driver of the van that transported Gray to the Western District police station, and Sergeant Alicia White without fear of self-incrimination.

According to Porter, he told both of them that Gray asked for medical attention. The prosecution said back in September that Porter was a “necessary and material” witness against Goodson and White.

After his mistrial, Porter pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid incriminating himself in testimony against Goodson, whose trial was scheduled to start Jan. 6.

Prosecutors motioned for Porter to be compelled to testify against both Goodson and White with limited immunity, which Williams granted. Porter’s attorneys then turned to the Court of Appeals, hoping it would overturn William’s decision. The court instead ruled in favor of the prosecution on Thursday and upheld William’s ruling.

Thursday’s decision was also a major victory for the prosecution on a second front. At a hearing in January over which Williams presided, prosecutors motioned for Porter to be compelled to testify against Lieutenant Brian Rice and Officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero.

“We tried to learn something from our experience in trying Officer Porter,” Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow said at the hearing. “We think we have the right to change our mind, and we acknowledge we are changing our mind.”

Schatzow told Williams that Porter could help shore up the reckless endangerment charges against Miller and Nero and the manslaughter and assault charges against Rice by testifying that Gray was not secured in the van and therefore was injured.

Williams did not agree that Porter’s testimony would be necessary or relevant and stated that he believed prosecutors were simply trying to delay the start of the officer’s trials in light of Porter’s mistrial. The Court of Appeals has overturned that decision Thursday.

During the appeals process, all five of the officers’ court dates were postponed indefinitely. Rice, who was originally going to be the sixth and final officer tried will now be the second. His trial is set to begin on April 13, one day and one year after Gray was arrested. The other four officers’ court dates remain to be set.

Gray, 25, died from a severe spinal cord injury in April, one week after being arrested by the BPD officers. His death sparked more than a week of both peaceful and violent protests.