Marilyn Mosby, the state's attorney for Baltimore and the woman who very publicly brought charges against six police officers in the death of Freddie Gray, has been accused of — how shall I put this? — being political. There's a flash. Defense lawyers for the accused officers say Mosby ought to recuse herself because of a political relationship with Billy Murphy, the attorney for the Gray family, and because she's married to a city councilman who represents the district where Gray's arrest took place.
Now they want her to recuse herself because — take cover! incoming irony! — it was Mosby's office that had asked police to target the West Baltimore corner where Gray's ultimately fatal encounter with police started April 12. One of Mosby's division chiefs made that request about three weeks earlier, according to a defense motion.
Even that last claim by the defense smells of small-town politics, with the suggestion that the state's attorney might have asked for enhanced police efforts in a troublesome drug area in her husband's council district. (As if Councilman Nick Mosby couldn't get more cops on the corner on his own?)
Lawyers gotta lawyer. A judge gets to decide if any of those motions have legal merit.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can look at her behavior since May 1 — the outdoor spectacle when she shouted out the charges against the Freddie Gray 6; her decision to appear on stage with Prince and serve with her husband as honorary ringmaster of the UniverSoul Circus; the interview with Vogue — and see a person who clearly covets the limelight.
Marilyn Mosby is certainly a politician, more so in style than any state's attorney in memory.
In Baltimore, we've seen, since 1983, Kurt Schmoke, Stuart Simms, Patricia Jessamy and Gregg Bernstein — all buttoned-down, professional and serious, with only rare flashes of showmanship, and usually in an election year.
Call it a matter of taste, but I like prosecutors who are all business and kind of boring. Prosecuting crime is serious stuff, and it calls for a serious public style. You have to believe a prosecutor is making decisions in the interest of justice and not just to please the crowd.
Pardon me while I have a throwback Thursday interlude:
Once upon a time in Baltimore, police and prosecutors worked in the same buildings — eight district stations around the city in which the police roll call room, the sergeant's desk and the lockup were just one swinging door removed from an intimate courtroom and a sitting judge. It seemed like a convenient way to keep a District Court docket moving, but the arrangement also gave the appearance of prosecutors, judges and police being on the same team — not a good thing.
"No court ought to be located in a police station," declared the memorable Robert F. Sweeney, the first chief judge of the Maryland District Court after its creation in 1971. "It brings about an unwholesome relationship with the police. ... The image of justice suffers badly when courts and police are in the same building. Our citizens come to believe that the courts are run by the police or that the police are run by the courts.
"The courts and the police are not on the same side — the courts should stand independently between the police and the accused."
Sweeney was a first-class reformer. He separated police stations from courtrooms. He modernized a system that had been marked by political influence, incompetence and corruption. Under five governors, he pushed for the appointment of qualified judges and made the system less political.
"There were judges who were racists, who had alcohol problems, who were wife-beaters and who thought they had found the greatest 10-to-2 job in the world," Sweeney said in an interview when he retired in the 1990s. "I outlived the bastards, the whole collection of them."
He died in 1999 at 72, having made a mark and set a standard. He really believed that the law had to rise above politics, and that the appearance of propriety and integrity was utmost. It's what gave the public confidence in the rule of law.
Look, I don't like politics in criminal justice, but I'm a realist and understand that politics infests just about everything. However, when it comes to the courts, I favor keeping politics to a minimum.
I don't think circuit judges should run for election. Ditto sheriffs. Ditto clerks of the court and Orphans' Court judges. Ditto state's attorney. For state's attorney, I prefer a nominating system, with a committee reviewing candidates and sending recommendations to the governor. We should not have prosecutors who have had to raise campaign donations and make promises.
But that's not the system we have. In Maryland, we have a completely political system, where any member of the bar with two years' residency in the relevant jurisdiction can run for state's attorney. They campaign and schmooze, they ask for donations and votes. They're all politicians — just some more than others.
Dan Rodricks' column appears each Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. He is the host of "Midday" on WYPR-FM.