State v. Rice, Nero, Miller; White & Goodson
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On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray suffered an injury while in police custody; one week later, he died
from those injuries. The state charged six Baltimore police officers in connection with Gray’s
death. Officer Porter’s trial ended in a mistrial in December 2015. The state has indicated it will
retry him and wants to compel him, before his retrial, to provide immunized testimony against
the remaining officers. In two cases the trial court granted the motion to compel; in three cases it
denied the motion. The Maryland Court of Appeals held that the state’s compelling Officer Porter
to testify in the trials of his fellow officers, under the grant of use and derivative use immunity,
does not violate Porter’s privilege against compelled self-incrimination under the Fifth
Amendment or the Maryland Declaration of Rights. The trial court lacks the discretion to deny a
properly pled motion to compel immunized testimony. Denial of such a motion constitutes a final
judgment from which the state can appeal immediately. Porter was the proper party to the appeal
because he, not the defendants in the underlying trials, is the party interested in the subject
matter of the motion to compel immunized testimony.
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