Court of Appeals to Hear Freddie Gray Appeals

The Maryland Court of Appeal, the highest court in the state,  will hear appeals in the trials of five of the six Baltimore police officers charged in the Freddie Gray case and has halted all proceedings for now.

The appeal was filed because a circuit court Judge order the first office to be tried Porter, to testify against two other officers while declining to order him to to the same in the three remaining officers’ cases.

2. Does the state’s immunity statute “require a court to order compelled, immunized witness testimony after verifying that the statutory pleading requirements of the prosecutor’s motion to compel have been met, or does the statute instead permit a court to substitute its own discretion and judgment as to whether compelling the witness’s testimony may be necessary to the public interest such that the court may deny a prosecutor’s motion to compel even if the motion complies with the statute’s pleading requirements?”

3.  Whether “the circuit court’s order denying the State’s motion to compel Officer William Porter to testify is appealable i.e. whether the order is a final judgment or an interlocutory order subject to appeal or an order appealable on any other basis?”

Oral arguments are scheduled for March 3 which means that a decision will most likely be issued sometime in the summer. But given the sensitivity of this case, a decision may come sooner than that.