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Defense attorneys for the first Baltimore police officer due in court in the
Freddie Gray case have asked that jurors be fully sequestered during trial: put up in a hotel with no access to cellphones, limited access to television, and sheriff's deputies monitoring any interactions with family and friends.
Jurors should also be "told that their names will be screened from the outside world" so they don't feel pressure to convict Officer William G. Porter as a "sacrificial lamb" to avoid "further civil unrest" in the city, Porter's attorneys argued in a motion filed in Baltimore Circuit Court.
His attorneys, Gary Proctor and Joseph Murtha, said the "extra precautions" are necessary because of the decision by Judge Barry Williams not to move the trial out of Baltimore. The defense had previously argued that publicity surrounding the case and the unrest that followed Gray's death so tainted the city's juror pool that it would be impossible to seat an impartial jury.
Williams has said jurors can be screened for bias during the jury selection process known as voir dire. Porter's attorneys, however, argue that jurors who say they can be fair during the vetting process could be swayed later if they are "bombarded with opinions, TV news, Facebook posts and the like" during their time on the jury.
