Trials of the six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray will resume on 10 May with the trial of officer Edward Nero and continue well into October, court officials announced Wednesday.
The closely watched trials of five remaining officers, which were set to start in January, will consume most of 2016 after unprecedented legal wrangling that followed the mistrial of officer William Porter in December.
The trials will not recommence until after the anniversaries of Gray’s death on 19 April and the protests, riot and curfew that shut down the city during the following week.
Nero, who was involved in Gray’s arrest, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. His trial will be followed that of Caesar Goodson, who drove the van in which prosecutors allege Gray sustained his fatal spinal injuries, and faces a second-degree depraved-heart murder charge.
Goodson’s trial was originally scheduled for earlier this year but was postponed because the state said Porter’s testimony was essential in their case against Goodson, and Porter’s lawyers argued that to ask him to testify, when he faces a retrial, would violate his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination.
The trials were free to be rescheduled when the state’s highest court ruled that Porter could be compelled to testify in the cases of all the officers – but that the state would have to prove it wasn’t using information gleaned from that testimony against him.
The last trial, of Sgt Alicia White, is not scheduled to begin until October.
