Officer Must Testify In Freddie Gray Trials
BANFIELD: Have breaking news to report to you now in the Freddie Gray case. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruling that Officer William Porter can be forced to testify against five fellow police officers who were also charged in the Freddie Gray case. You will remember that Porter's December trial ended with a hanged jury. So he needs to be retried. But then those five others do too. I want to discuss this major development with Miguel Marquez. He's been following the case and also with me CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson. All right first to you Miguel. Just to sort of help me get my head around the scheduling that this is going to create. That the scheduling mess is the least of Porter's worries.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is the least of his worries. Now he is -- could testify against five other police officers, certainly in two cases. There were two separate rulings in this from the Court of Appeals today, in one of them, the one dealing with Officer Goodson and Alicia White.</s>BANFIELD: He worked with them.</s>MARQUEZ: He worked with them on that day that Freddie Gray was arrested. He came across them specifically. He had interactions with them. And that's where his testimony could be most damaging to those other officers. With regard to the other three officers, he could testify in those cases. It's not clear what the prosecution would do. Clearly though this does strengthens the prosecutions hand enormously in getting him to testify and possibly testifying against other officers.</s>BANFIELD: How they're going to retry him, whether is it the front of the line so he gets the first crack at the case again ...</s>MARQUEZ: That's the big question. The court will probably by beginning today or very soon the court in Baltimore will have to revisit that and have a schedule.</s>BANFIELD: So this is where I have the issue Joey Jackson because there's this little thing called your Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination. That little tiny thing that's constitutional and if he testified five times in other cases before he's tried how on earth can even use immunity to protect him in his own trial?</s>JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well let's break that down. The first thing is, think about of the implication of this. This is a court ordering a defendant, who has a pending case, who's going to be retried to testify. So his attorneys are arguing it implicates the right that you talked about against self incrimination. What's the response by the prosecution and what did the court say that they have it released of formal opinion they said it's to come but here's their thinking, if you're offered immunity to the extent that anything you can't say cannot be used against you, it does not implicate your right against incrimination. Now we can argue that point. And here's what the argument would be. Think about how it would impair his right to a fair trial. These trials of every public and you mentioned testifying five times. If he testifies one time against Officer Sergeant White who was the supervisor, if he testifies against one time against Officer Goodson who was the driver, what does that do to public perception? What does that do to when a jury pool would view and evaluate him? And you can argue that he testified for four hours in his trial already and he gave a lot of statements already. But still to the extent that he'll be viewed and potentially could viewed by a jury in a different way it implicates his right to a fair trial. I think it is a problematic ruling but it's a ruling by the highest court in Maryland.</s>BANFIELD: I'm very uncomfortable only because look, he's not Joe Schmo off the street, it is televised. So offensively it's going to be televised. And I hope they will at least consider putting that in front of the queue and retrying him first before he testifies ...</s>MARQUEZ: That maybe what happens.</s>BANFIELD: Yeah, we'll keep an eye on him.</s>JACKSON: And they have discretion not to go forward again with him either. That will be up to them, the prosecution.</s>BANFIELD: Well, all right, there's a lot more reporting that we still have to get on this. So Miguel and Joey, thank you to both of you.</s>JACKSON: Thank you.</s>BANFIELD: And then there this other case that's hanging out there as well. Hulk Hogan, perhaps the biggest wrestling star in WWE history. But now in the courtroom and on the stand for a second day in a sex tape trial, he is suing the website Gawker and just like in the ring he is promising to slam his competitor.