The other shoe dropped: prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers accused in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray,  following the acquittals of three other officers  by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams. He was expected to preside over the remaining trials, and, as the Bible says, the writing was on the wall.

Make no mistake: this result was completely and entirely the result of the incompetent, unethical conduct of State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, who vaingloriously announced charges against the officers in the immediate wake of rioting in Baltimore, following the dictates of a mob. She did this without sufficient investigation, evidence or, despite the ethical requirements of her office, probable cause. She had the city of Baltimore agree to a large damages settlement for Gray’s family before any of the officers were tried, prejudicing their cases. She spent millions on the prosecutions, and shattered the lives of all six officers, and yet never made a case that justified any of it.

There are more unethical things that a prosecutor can do, and they certainly do them. Some prosecute individuals they know are innocent, which is a bit worse than prosecuting someone who might be guilty because a mob wants blood. Those unethical prosecutors, however, try to cover their tracks. Not Mosby: she’s proud of being unethical, because its the kind of unethical conduct that African-American activists think promotes justice. Justice is when someone pays with their life or liberty if an African American dies, regardless of law or evidence.  That’s the theory, anyway.

We know Mosby is proud, because of the astounding press conference we just heard her give following the announcement. She accepted no responsibility for the collapse of the cases, although it was entirely her fault. Mosby defended her indefensible decision to bring the charges against the officers, saying that “as a mother,” the decision to drop them was “agonizing.”

You read that right: she played the ever-popular mother card. Being a mother has absolutely nothing to do with her job as a prosecutor. If, as her comments suggest, her status as a mother had anything to do with her decision to charge the officers despite insufficient evidence, she is as unprofessional as she is conflicted. She’s not in her position to identify with Freddie Gray’s mother, and if she did, she should have withdrawn. Is she aware that the six officers she sacrificed to mob extortion—Prosecute or we burn down the city!—also have mothers? I guess not.

She continued [my involuntary reactions to this offal are in bold]:

“After much thought and prayer [ And the God card, employing the time-tested tactic of scoundrels to implicate the deity in their personal misconduct, as if God wanted her to bring premature charges. Beneath contempt.], it  has become clear that without being able to work with an independent investigatory agency from the very start [ What was stopping her?] , without having a say in the election of whether cases proceed in front of a judge or jury [Yes, it’s called “the rights of the accused”..], without communal oversight of police in this community [But we saw the “community oversight”: members of the community were harassing and threatening officers as they tried to arrest Gray, which the judge found to be one reason he was put in the truck without being belted in]  without substantive reforms to the current criminal justice system [ You mean like allowing cops to be convicted of crimes without evidence if the “community” is sufficiently violent?], we could try this case 100 times and cases just like it and we would still end up with the same result.”

This is just a lie, designed to duck accountability and to inflame the public. The reason she “could try this case 100 times and cases just like it and we would still end up with the same result” is because she brought charges without sufficient evidence, and if she is right ( I doubt it, for bad cases do get convictions), then the criminal justice system needs no reform other than to purge itself of prosecutors like Mosby.

Then Mosby went on to condemn  the actions and testimony of some officers involved in Gray’s arrest and the police  department’s investigation of the incident, saying that there was “consistent bias” at “every stage.” This is a firing offense for her. Her case collapsed, and she is still impugning officers in public without evidence.

The American Bar Association ethics guidelines for prosecutors states ..