Eric Garner death: Judge won't release grand jury testimony in chokehold death

 

 

NEW YORK --

Testimony heard by a grand jury that declined to indict a police officer in the chokehold death of Eric Garner will not be released, a judge said Thursday, arguing there wasn't a good enough reason to make the secret information public.

The New York Civil Liberties and others had asked the court to order Staten Island District Attorney Daniel Donovan to release the grand jury transcript, including the testimony of the officer involved, Daniel Pantaleo, and dozens of witnesses, detailed descriptions of evidence and other documentation. A similar step was voluntarily taken by the prosecutor in Ferguson, Missouri, when a grand jury there refused to indict an officer in the fatal police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Both Garner and Brown were black; the officers involved are white. The deaths sparked nationwide protests about the treatment of communities of color by law enforcement and a debate about the role of race in policing.

Civil liberties lawyers had argued that the public needed to reconcile the widely watched video of the arrest with the decision not to indict the officer involved.

But State Supreme Court Justice William Garnett wrote that the law required the NYCLU and the other parties who brought the lawsuit to establish a "compelling and particularized need" to release the grand jury minutes.

"What would they use the minutes for? The only answer which the court heard was the possibility of effecting legislative change," he wrote. "That proffered need is purely speculative and does not satisfy the requirements of the law."

Donovan argued that the disclosure would damage the credibility of prosecutors seeking to assure both grand jurors and witnesses that details of their participation would be kept from public view. Following the grand jury's decision, Donovan asked for some information to be made public, but it didn't include testimony or exhibits shown to jurors.

The judge also agreed with arguments by Donovan's office that secrecy was needed to assure witnesses that they would not be subjected to public criticism for their cooperation.

"This concern is particularly cogent in 'high publicity cases' where the witnesses' truthful and accurate testimony is vital," Garnett wrote. "It is in such notorious cases that witnesses' cooperation and honesty should be encouraged - not discouraged - for fear of disclosure."

The proponents claimed Donovan was duplicitous for going to court to ask for a partial disclosure of details like the number of witnesses, only to turn around and argue against the release of more meaningful information like testimony and prosecutors' instructions to the grand jury.

Pantaleo and other officers stopped Garner on July 17 on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. A video shot by an onlooker and widely watched online shows Garner telling the officers to leave him alone and refusing to be handcuffed.

Pantaleo responded by wrapping his arm around Garner's neck in what he said was a sanctioned takedown move and not a banned chokehold. The heavyset Garner, who had asthma, is heard on the tape gasping, "I can't breathe." He later was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Jonathan Moore, who represents Garner's family, said they were "disturbed" by the ruling.

"We think this grand jury process was deeply flawed," he said. "We think the ability for the public to see what that process was like would have been an important step in understanding what happened here."