Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has announced probable cause for criminal charges to be filed in the death of Freddie Gray. Gray’s death while in police custody has set off a chain of protests in Baltimore. Mosby is a 2005 graduate of Boston College Law School and was a participant in BC Law’s Defenders and Civil Litigation Clinics as a student. At just 35 years old, she is the youngest chief prosecutor of any American city.
Associate Dean Tracey West and Professor Sharon Beckman spoke to Newsweek about their recollections of Mosby as a student, calling her “a zealous, passionate and compassionate advocate” (more from Newsweek.com).
Mosby, who has been in office since January, said during her campaign that she would work to establish trust between Baltimore’s citizens and their justice system.
A native of Boston neighborhoods similar to those in Baltimore where the recent riots broke out—and the first in her family to go to college—Mosby was drawn to the law by the murder of her 17-year-old cousin by another teenager in 1994. Having come from a family of police officers that included her grandfather, several uncles, and her mother, she was sensitive to law enforcement’s perspective on crime, but she was also impressed by the work of prosecutors in her cousin’s case.
After attending Tuskegee University, where she met her husband, Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby, and BC Law, Mosby moved to Baltimore and worked as an assistant state’s attorney, then for Liberty Mutual as a civil litigator, before running for the state’s attorney’s office.
For the latest in media coverage of the case and of Marilyn Mosby’s involvement, see CNN.com:
Prosecutor: ‘Probable cause’ for charges in Freddie Gray death
Prosecutor in Freddie Gray case has talked of need to ‘repair’ trust