More Freddie Gray.

Pretty much from the start of the prosecution over the death of Freddie Gray lawyers representing the accused have been pushing for the case to be moved outside of Baltimore. Their argument being that the city is unable to provide a fair trial in the case.

Looking at the players involved - particularly the prosecutor Marilyn Mosby and the Judge W. Michel Pierson - I've always been inclined to agree with them. However it is the conduct of the Grand Jury that really convinces me.

The argument presented to the Grand Jury is that being racist three white police officers had illegally arrested Mr Gray as punishment for being black and then conspired to have him killed/seriously injured whilst being transported to a detention centre. By rejecting the charge of unlawful imprisonment the Grand Jury found that this did not take place so no conspiracy to kill/injure Mr Gray occurred between the six officers. However the Grand Jury proceeded to indict the arresting officers on conspiracy charges. A trial that is prepared to accept that a person is innocent but then chooses to punish that person anyway is by definition "unfair." As such this case needs to be moved to a different jurisdiction.

One thing that would start to convince me that Baltimore was capable of conducting a fair trial would be if they were prepared to end the prosecution of the three arresting officers who happen to be white. That would remove the racial element of the trial by instead making the case about whether the three transporting officers who happen to be black - either through malice or negligence - failed in their duty of care towards Mr Gray resulting inhis death.

Although my argument is premised on a point of law I think that once the element of race has been removed a fair trial in front of a majority black jury could be possible. I suspect that Baltimore will continue to disappoint me though.

Obviously I could have said all that last Tuesday (7/7/15) or even the Tuesday (30/6/15) before. However by that point in the morning mischief had decided to rule the day.




Changing the topic completely when talking about nuclear issues as we have been doing with Iran it's common to apply something called the "Rational Actor Test." Rather then asking whether we agree with a person's point of view or not this involves simply asking whether if a person is presented with a course of action that is guaranteed to lead to their destruction they will take that course of action regardless.

At this point I'm inclined to think that current Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras fails that test.

20:15 on 14/7/15 (UK date).