Vox Sentences: The Baltimore police prosecution begins

1. Depraved heart murder

When's the last time you saw a demonstrator with a sign thanking a prosecutor? (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

• Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is charging six police officers involved in the arrest of Freddie Gray, whose death of a spinal cord injury while in police custody has sparked widespread protest in the city.

  [Vox / German Lopez]

• Mosby said that Gray's injury occurred while being transported in a police van, as a result of being transported without a seatbelt while handcuffed and shackled by his feet.

  [NYT / Alan Blinder and Richard Pérez-Peña]

• She also concluded that Gray's initial arrest was illegal; the knife he had on him was legal, and wasn't even discovered by police until after he'd been arrested.

  [The Guardian / Oliver Laughland, Raya Jalabi, and Jon Swaine]

• "Rough rides" like the one that allegedly killed Gray have historically been a common form of police violence in Baltimore.

  [Vox / Libby Nelson]

• All six officers were charged with second-degree assault and misconduct in office. Caesar Goodson, who drove the van, was also charged with second-degree murder and a number of manslaughter counts; three other officers were also charged with involuntary manslaughter.

  [Baltimore Sun / Pamela Wood and Scott Dance]

• Goodson was specifically charged with "depraved heart murder," a term some states use for murders that signal a "callous disregard for human life."

  [Vox / Jenee Desmond-Harris]

• The Baltimore police union protested, sending Mosby a letter claiming "none of the officers involved are responsible for the death of Mr. Gray" and asking her to appoint an independent prosecutor; Mosby replied, "The people of Baltimore City elected me, and there is no accountability with a special prosecutor."

  [The Hill / Ben Kamisar]

• It's incredibly rare for police officers to face charges for killing civilians …

  [Vox / Amanda Taub and Dara Lind]

• … and even when they are charged, police officers are twice as likely to get acquitted as normal defendants.

  [Vox / Amanda Taub and Dara Lind]

• It took 19 days from Gray's arrest and 12 days from his death, for Mosby to issue charges; by comparison, it's been 160 days since Tamir Rice's death in Cleveland, and the investigation is still ongoing. It took 139 days for a grand jury in Staten Island to fail to indict Eric Garner's killer, and 107 days for a grand jury in Ferguson to fail to indict Michael Brown's.

2. Time for some indictments in Fort Lee

US Attorney for New Jersey Paul J. Fishman announces indictments, uses some scare quotes. (Kena Betancur/Getty Images)

• Two aides to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) have been indicted by a federal prosecutor, and a third has pled guilty, as a result of the "Bridgegate" scandal.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• Reminder: "Bridgegate" involved Christie aides ordering the closure of two lanes on the George Washington Bridge (which connects Fort Lee, NJ to Manhattan), allegedly to punish Fort Lee mayor Mark Sokolich for not endorsing Christie's reelection.

  [Vox / Andrew Prokop]

• You can read the full indictments of Bill Baroni (formerly the Port Authority's deputy executive director and top official from New Jersey) and Bridget Kelly (formerly Christie's deputy chief of staff) here. They each got nine counts, including conspiracy to commit fraud by "knowingly converting and intentionally misapplying property of an organization receiving federal benefits."

  [NYT]

• David Wildstein, another former Port Authority official, pled guilty to that charge, as well as to violating Fort Lee residents' civil rights, to whit "the right to localized travel on public roadways free from restrictions unrelated to legitimate government objectives."

  [US Attorney for the District of New Jersey]

• Prosecutors recommended Wildstein serve from 21 to 27 months.

  [Politico / Nick Gass and Adam Lerner]

• By contrast, the most serious charges against Kelly and Baroni carry sentences of up to 20 years.

  [NJ.com / Kelly Heyboer]

• Christie on Twitter: "Today's charges make clear that what I've said from day one is true. I had no knowledge or involvement in the planning or execution of this act."

  [Chris Christie]

• But Wildstein's lawyer stated that "evidence exists" that Christie was aware of the lane closings at the time.

  [NYT / Kate Zernike and Marc Santora]

• Christie's still weighing a potential presidential run; he has a trip to New Hampshire scheduled for next week.

  [National Journal / Nora Kelly]

3. Elon Musk's Arc reactor

Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveils the company's new line of batteries. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

• The electric car company Tesla has announced a new product known as the Powerwall, a large battery meant to be kept at home for grid-less electricity.

  [Tesla Motors]

• The units ship this summer; a 10 kilowatt-hour version, which "will allow you to run a handful of home appliances for a few days in case of an outage," runs for $3,500, but the units can be stacked if you need more power than that.

  [Bloomberg / Tom Randall]

• There's also a 100 kilowatt-hour version for utility companies.

  [Scientific American / Benjamin Hulac]

• For home consumers, this solves a major problem with rooftop solar, namely that you can't use it at night (or when it's not sunny); home batteries enable one to capture solar energy in the day for use later.

  [Vox / Brad Plumer]

• Utilities, meanwhile, use batteries to make electricity produced at wind or solar farms available when it's not windy or sunny.

  [WSJ / Alexandra Berzon and Cassandra Sweet]

• Tesla and its founder/CEO Elon Musk are hardly the only ones working on battery technology. Big tech companies like Apple and Google, as well as a number of startups, are investing heavily in battery R&D.

  [Quartz / Steve LeVine]

• Solar is getting cheaper and more efficient at an impressive rate, and there's a plausible argument that it could become the world's dominant power source.

  [Vox / David Roberts]

• But batteries have generally improved more slowly than solar technology (or computer processors and other electronics), which could place a limit on solar's growth.

  [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]

4. Misc.

• Alissa Starzak helped expose the CIA's torture program, and now noted torture fan Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) is making her pay for it.

  [The Week / Ryan Cooper]

• Have a song stuck in your head? Grab a stick of gum.

  [NY Mag / Sofia Lyons]

• The Boston Globe FOIAed former Mayor Thomas Menino's FBI file. The one thing he was investigated for? "Menino was captured on camera supposedly trying to shake down the telecommunications giant Sprint — to donate $25,000 to buy T-shirts for a youth basketball league."

  [Boston Globe / Andrew Ryan]

• The linguistics of why some people hate Hillary Clinton's voice.

  [New Republic / Elspeth Reeve]

5. Verbatim

• "Most of the problems that people expressed had less to do with e-mail specifically than with the difficulty that many—most? all?—humans have expressing certain thoughts and feelings via any form of communication."

  [New Yorker / Reeves Wiedeman]

• "Every room in my house has an impeccably decorated glass bowl of slightly damaged doll's eyes."

  [Comment is Weird]

• "China Says Please Stop Hiring Funeral Strippers"

  [WSJ / Te-Ping Chen and Josh Chin]

• "This is more of an observation than a question – in fact it’s not a question at all – in fact it’s less an observation than an open-ended series of unconnected thoughts wrapped in a thin veneer of criticism – I’ve never asked a question in my life."

  [The Toast / Mallory Ortberg]