The trial of Baltimore City Police Officer William Porter is set to begin Monday, with jury selection scheduled for 9:30 a.m.
Porter is one of six officers charged in the April death of Freddie Gray, who died one week after he was arrested in West Baltimore.
Prosecutors say Gray had suffered a spinal cord injury as he was being driven in a police van to the Western District precinct.
Gray's death led to two days of rioting and a week long state of emergency in Baltimore City in late April.
Porter is charged with manslaughter, second degree assault, misconduct in office, and reckless endangerment.
Porter could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted. He has been free on bail since his arrest.
The 26-year-old Porter was one of three officers who police say checked on Gray while he was in the van.
Prosecutors wanted Porter tried first, because they view him as a material witness in the trials of two other officers, Officer William Goodson, who was the van driver, and Sgt. Alicia White. Both are scheduled to go on trial in January.
Prosecutors believe Porter, Goodson and White ignored Gray's injuries and contributed to his death.
At a motions hearing last week, Judge Barry Williams rejected a defense request to sequester the jury. However, the jurors' identity will remain anonymous, with their identities known only to the judge, prosecution and defense attorneys, the defendant and courthouse staff.
A court spokeswoman would not speculate as to how long either jury selection or the entire trial would take. She also refused to say how many potential jurors are being questioned.
Porter's attorneys, Joe Murtha and Gary Proctor, along with the attorneys for the other officers have asked the judge repeatedly to move the trial out of Baltimore City, but the judge has rejected that request.
Judge Williams has said he would revisit that issue if a jury cannot be picked.
The Court has not released the questionnaire potential jurors will likely fill out.
However, according to a voir dire list submitted to the Maryland State Bar Association and posted on its website, Judge Williams is expected to ask potential jurors if they would, "give either more or less weight to the testimony of a police officer simply because the person is a police officer?"
Those questions are not specific to this case. It also asks jurors if they or members of their immediate family have ever been arrested, or have been a victim of the crime.
According to documents submitted by the defense, Porter's attorneys say their client, "anticipates testifying in this matter."
Porter's defense team is expected to present as many as 25 character witnesses, after Judge Williams last week rejected a prosecution motion to limit the number of character witnesses.
The jury will get to see videos shot by a number of people of Gray's arrest. Porter doesn't appear in the videos, but the prosecution believes they are relevant to the case showing Gray's initial injuries. Judge Williams rejected a defense motion last week to bar the videos from being introduced as evidence.
Last month, Judge Williams imposed a gag order, barring any attorneys or the defendant from talking to reporters about the case.
In September, before the gag order was imposed, Porter granted an interview with the Washington Post, in which he described growing up in the same neighborhood as Gray.
“If I had made different choices, I would have been Freddie Gray,” Porter told the Washington Post.
“If he had made different choices, he could have been an Officer Porter.”
Porter and the other five officers have remained suspended from their jobs without pay while awaiting trial.
Source WBAL
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