Nero was charged with assault, misconduct in office by corruptly performing an unlawful act, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office by corruptly failing to do an act that is required by the duties of his office.
These charges all arose from the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore.
There was no assault, the judge found, because the accused did not arrest Gray; Officer Miller did. Nero had no duty to inquire of Miller as to any specifics of the arrest, and the state’s theory that criminal liability attaches to Nero because he was part of the entire chain of events is not sustainable.
Similarly, the unlawful act was supposedly the arrest of Gray without probable campuses, and since Nero did not arrest Miller, no finding f guilt can be had on that charge.
Finally, as to the reckless endangerment, which was the only charge I thought had any basis in fact here to begin with, the judge found that a reasonable police officer would not have believed it necessary to question a superior officer as to whether Gray was belted in, or to climb in after the senior officer left to check. Therefore, it could not be “reckless” to have failed to do so.
This verdict strikes me as absolutely correct, given the evidence against Nero adduced at trial.
Good call and really the only possible decision. The officer should not have been charged in the first place, it was prosecution by vox populi. One wonders if the other cases are this weak.
I’ll admit I haven’t been following the case. What exactly was Officer Nero’s alleged role in the incident? From what I’ve read, he was present during the arrest but didn’t perform the arrest. Was he also involved in Gray’s transportation? (Another officer named Goodson was driving the vehicle.) Did Nero have any supervisory capacity? Was Nero’s role essentially that he was present when other police officers allegedly acted wrongly? Or was there something he personally was alleged to have done?
No reason to think so. Based on Bricker’s summary, Nero was acquitted because he was found not to be responsible for the various acts complained of. And the reason he wasn’t responsible for them is because another officer was.
That officer, if prosecuted, obviously can’t run the same defence. He could argue that the acts alleged did not occur, or that they were lawful, but he can’t run Nero’s defence.
This was why I was wondering about the specific allegations against Nero. I was trying to guess whether his acquittal was an indication of how the other trials would go or whether he got off because he was the least guilty person who was charged.
based on what I’ve seen so far I don’t see any chance of false arrest from any of them. It appears that Freddy Gray sustained a serious injury to his neck during transit. Officers were asked with checking on him and it doesn’t appear to me that there was a sufficient response.
Gray’s injury was a broken neck. The van carrying Gray was stopped several times to check on Gray who claimed to be having an asthma attack. He was put in restraints and another prisoner was picked up for transportation. The other prisoner has said that the ride to the police station was “smooth”. It was during that time that Gray’s neck was broken.
This does not seem to be a case of rough riding.