BALTIMORE (AP) - The judge presiding over the pretrial hearing of six police officers accused in the death of a black man who was in their custody has ruled against two defense motions.
Judge Barry Williams on Wednesday denied defense requests to drop the charges against the officers and to have the prosecutor removed from the case due to misconduct and conflicts of interest.
Williams was to hear arguments later Wednesday about whether the officers should be tried separately or together.
They are accused in the death of Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a spinal cord injury while in police custody on April 12. He died a week later.
Marilyn Mosby
Judge Barry Williams rejected a defense motion asking for the Office of the State's Attorney to be removed from the Freddie Gray case. The decision came at a pretrial hearing Wednesday, shortly after Williams had denied a defense motion seeking to have the charges dropped.
Williams said that while he was "troubled" by some of the comments State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby made during a May 1 news conference, they did not compromise the defendants' right to a fair trial.
Williams said prosecutors' chief responsibility is to investigate and prosecute cases, and that the office conducted an independent investigation is not unusual.
Williams also said the assertion that Mosby's judgment was impacted by the fact that her husband, Nick Mosby, is a councilman in a district that experienced a disproportionate amount of violence during the riots that Gray's death sparked is "condescending. Being married to a councilman is not a reason for recusal."
Officers Edward Nero, Garrett Miller, William Porter and Caesar Goodson, as well as Lt. Brian Rice and Sgt. Alicia White, face charges in connection with the death of Gray. All the officers face second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office charges. Rice, Porter and White also face manslaughter charges, and Goodson faces an additional charge of second-degree murder.
Protests Outside Courtoom
Dozens of protesters rallied for more than an hour outside the Baltimore courthouse where a hearing will take place for six police officers charged in the death of a black man.
Many protesters marched in the street to the city's Inner Harbor area, where they blocked a main road briefly. Police lined up behind them, and directed them out of the road. Police handcuffed one protester while he was on his stomach in the street.
The situation was tense outside the courthouse ahead of the hearing.
They chanted: "Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell" and "Tell the truth and stop the lies, Freddie Gray didn't have to die."
