Statements by five Baltimore officers charged in the high-profile death of a black man injured in police custody were made admissible in their criminal trials on Tuesday.
Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Barry Williams found that Officer William Porter and Sergeant Alicia White, two of the six officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, had made their statements without compulsion to internal investigators.
"Sergeant White had the opportunity to say no," Williams said, ruling against defense motions to suppress the statements during a pretrial hearing. A second day of the hearing was canceled.
Three of those charged - Lieutenant Brian Rice and Officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero - also agreed to drop motions to suppress their statements.
Gray, 25, suffered a spinal cord injury after being arrested in April and transported in a police van. His death triggered rioting and looting in the largely black city and fueled a U.S. debate on police treatment of minorities.
Williams also imposed a gag order barring lawyers from discussing the case publicly and ordered prosecutors to turn over documents to defense lawyers by Oct. 28. Defense attorneys had sought prosecution material about a man who had been arrested and put in the police van with Gray.
The only officer to decline to give a statement, van driver Officer Caesar Goodson, faces the most serious charge, that of second-degree depraved-heart murder, suggesting he showed reckless disregard for Gray's life.
White, Porter and Rice are charged with manslaughter, assault and misconduct. White, Goodson and Porter are black, and the other three officers are white.
The officers are being tried individually. The first trial will be Porter's, scheduled to start on Nov. 30. The last one is set to begin on March 9.
Prosecutors have argued Porter is a key witness against Goodson and White. Citing an internal police review, the Baltimore Sun newspaper reported last month that Porter told Goodson that Gray appeared to need medical assistance, but none was provided at the time.
In a case stemming from the April rioting, federal prosecutors said they had charged Donta Betts, 19, of Baltimore, with trying to torch a police cruiser and making a homemade firebomb out of propane canisters during the looting of a CVS pharmacy.
