BALTIMORE — Baltimore prosecutors are facing mounting obstacles in their manslaughter case against the highest-ranking officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray, and his trial Thursday hasn’t even begun.
Baltimore Circuit Judge Barry Williams ruled Tuesday that prosecutors can’t enter into evidence 4,000 pages of documents involving the training of Lieutenant Brian Rice, the fourth of six officers — three black, three white — to be tried in the young black man’s death.
Gray died after his neck was broken inside the metal prisoner compartment of a police van. Prosecutors say the officers were criminally negligent when they bound Gray’s hands and feet with handcuffs and shackles, but left him unrestrained by a seatbelt, vulnerable to injury.
Prosecutors are expected to argue that the 17-year Baltimore police veteran knew or should have known that he and the officers he commanded were violating orders by intentionally leaving Gray unbuckled. Examining his in-service training records in court might have helped.
After three trials, Williams has yet to rule that the officers committed any crimes. The first, heard by a jury, ended in a mistrial. The next two officers let Williams decide their fates, and he acquitted both. Now Rice wants a bench trial as well, on charges that also include assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment.
In a final pre-trial hearing Tuesday, Williams denied a defense bid to dismiss the charges, but he also denied the use of Rice’s training documents, saying the state failed to share them with the defense in time.
Chief Deputy State’s Attorney Michael Schatzow said prosecutors had been seeking the documents from police ‘‘for months and months,’’ and gave copies to the defense on June 29, the day after they got them.
‘‘Why would you expect the court to allow you to drop 4,000 pages on the defense a few days before trial without repercussions?’’ the judge countered. ‘‘You’ve said it’s been difficult for you to get the documents from the Police Department. OK, then go up the chain. Talk to people. Go to the court. You didn’t do that.’’
Later Tuesday, police spokesman T.J. Smith said the department received a written request for the documents on June 18, and worked overtime to produce them 10 days later.
City Solicitor George Nilson said the state requested Rice’s training records in May and October 2015, and were given a single six-page document in response. The state broadened the scope of its request on June 18, yielding much more voluminous results, he said.
The dispute shows how difficult it is to prosecute police officers, said University of Baltimore Law School professor David Jaros.
‘‘Given that the state was already facing a serious uphill battle, the inability to bring in any evidence of Lieutenant Rice’s in-service training on how to secure a suspect made their case that much harder,’’ Jaros said.
But Schatzow’s explanation — that the Police Department was reluctant to turn internal documents over to the state — will be viewed quite differently on each side of society’s divide on criminal justice issues, Jaros predicted.
People who believe criminal trials are unwarranted in Gray’s death could see this as yet another example of incompetence in the prosecutor’s office, he said, while those who believe a crime occurred will likely instead blame the police.
