The re-trial of a former University of Cincinnati police officer charged with Murder started Thursday in a Hamilton County, Ohio courtroom. It actually started the day before when the defense filed a Motion for Dismissal alleging that Prosecutor Joe Deters violated the Court’s gag order in an attempt to poison prospective jurors by doing a television interview.
Mr. Deters was too busy to personally attend the hearing on the motion sending his first assistant to apologize for the “mistake” of his boss. Judge Leslie Ghiz, who previously worked for Mr. Deters, ruled that she could not dismiss the case because “the community would not be served.”
The second day of the case presented other motions for the Judge to rule on. The defense requested that an undershirt, worn under the ballistic vest, which had a Confederate flag should be excluded from evidence. Judge Ghiz ruled that the prejudice would outweigh the probative value. The Judge also excluded a defense expert who did an animation from the body cam stating that it would make an imperfect event into a perfect event. The jury will still see a video enhancement which broke the event into milliseconds.
The jury will be picked after the Memorial Day holiday and the trial is expected to last about three weeks. There are cries of racism as the small number of African-American jurors in the pool have claimed hardships. The Black Lawyers Association is calling for the jury pool to include any person who possesses a driver’s license rather than only registered voters.
Mr. Deters, who led the prosecution in the first trial, assigned the presentation of the case to two of his senior prosecutors. The trial will be live-streamed on the websites of all of the local television stations and the jury will be sequestered for their deliberations.
New blogs will be posted each day to update the events of the day.