Baltimore approves huge settlement to family of Freddie Gray

From Hot Air:

Yesterday Ed broke the news about an agreement which had been reached between the City of Baltimore and the family of Freddie Gray in which they would be paid $6.4M to avoid any sort of civil claims or liabilities on the part of the city. The Baltimore PD is up in arms and even the legal analysts at CNN seem to be gobsmacked, but the City Council has met and held a vote and, well… the check is in the mail.
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As I noted above, even the legal beagles on CNN this morning (who have been more than a little sympathetic to the rioters in the past) were left scratching their heads and describing Rawlings-Blake as being detached from reality. The entire idea of providing this sort of payment to the Gray family is based on the assumption that there was a “wrongful death” and that they should therefore be compensated for it. Until the trials are concluded and there is a finding of innocence or guilt, we have no idea if the death in question was “wrongful” or not. Further, they have just completely poisoned the well as far as the jury pool for the officers (not that it was looking that promising in terms of being unbiased to begin with) because everyone who hears of the settlement – which would be everyone in the city – is going to take that as an admission of guilt. Why would you provide the payout if you did nothing wrong?
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I don’t know if those six officers are guilty of any of the charges. But that’s the point… nobody knows yet, and we won’t know until they’ve had their day in court. But if they are found guilty they should be primed for an appeal, hopefully to be heard elsewhere, because City Hall has been setting them up for failure since day one.

This is Jury Tampering, plain and simple. There is not way these officers get a fair trial. The Jury Pool and been poisoned even more. It will only strengthen their appeal, if convicted.