Legal News

Lawyer for ex-transit officer wants temporary gag order lifted

By Richard Binder

The attorney for a former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer charged with murder for the shooting death of Oscar Grant III early on New Year's Day is asking a judge to lift his gag order in the highly publicized case.

Michael Rains, who represents 27-year-old Johannes Mehserle, said in a legal brief filed on Friday and made public late Monday that the gag order "has hamstrung Mehserle by preventing any attempt he might otherwise make to address the barrage of negative publicity in the case which has presumed his guilt as murderer."

Rains said Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson's decision to issue a temporary gag order at the end of Mehserle's bail hearing on Jan. 30 was prompted by the defense giving a copy of its motion asking for bail to the San Francisco Chronicle shortly before the hearing. Rains also said the bail motion had already been filed with the court before it was provided to the newspaper.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty to murder in the New Year's Day shooting of Oscar Grant on a train platform in Oakland. Prosecutors say Mehserle, 27, shot Grant, 22, in the back while he lay facedown on the ground.

See here and here for details.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 11, 2009 (boomark / email).