Baltimore’s top prosecutor, Marilyn Mosby, has made going after cops for criminal or unethical behavior a hallmark of her time in office. But since at least 2019, her office has kept a secret list of 305 members of the Baltimore City Police Department with known “integrity issues” that at minimum would need to be disclosed to the defense attorneys for suspects should those officers be called to testify in court, the Baltimore Sun reports.
She’ll finally be making that list public after complaints from public defenders and advocacy groups about the need to know which cops are on it and why, and after a court order last fall to release it.
From the Baltimore Sun
The identities of the 305 officers are now public after Baltimore Action Legal Team, a community nonprofit known as BALT working to make the legal system more accessible to the public, won a lengthy court battle to force the state’s attorney’s office to release its list.
“There is no accountability without transparency,” said Iman Freeman, executive director of BALT, which provided the list to The Baltimore Sun. “This request for this list is just one part, just one tactic in our entire campaign.”
The newly released roster of 305 names approximately triples the number of names on a list Mosby’s office released in October 2021. Unlike the October list, the vast majority of people on the new list still are employed with the Baltimore Police Department, according to a comparison of BALT’s list and city salary records.
The existence of such a list is important because officers’ testimony often holds significant weight in front of judges in jurors and can help determine whether a person accused of a crime is found guilty. If cops are known to be dishonest or have a track record of questionable behavior, defense attorneys can use that information to help their clients. Mosby’s office even kept a separate “do-not-call” list of more than 100 officers that its prosecutors won’t put on the stand because of their lack of credibility.
The Baltimore Police Department itself is notorious for scandal, most notably its former Gun Trace Task Force, members of which have been convicted of federal crimes for planting guns and drugs, robbing and extorting dealers and terrorizing neighborhoods. The misdeeds of Baltimore officers are so legendary they’ve become almost their own genre on HBO, with series from The Wire to the current “We Own This City” to the documentary “The Slow Hustle” all featuring or focusing on corruption in the department.
Mosby, who is currently running for re-election, is facing her own problems. She’s under federal indictment for allegedly falsifying information in loan applications related to properties she bought in Florida.