The NYCLU wants the evidence made public in the grand jury’s decision to not indict Officer Daniel Pantaleo and plans to fight for it in court on Friday.
“The outcome of grand jury proceeding has left many questions as to whether secret grand jury proceedings are instruments of injustice and whether the grand jury system should be abolished,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said in a statement last week. “The Garner grand jury is central to that public discussion. And it is important to that conversation for the public to know how and why the grand jury reached the conclusions that it did.”
But the judge weighing whether to make the grand jury proceedings public has pulled himself off the case.
Judge Stephen Rooney just recused himself from the case, calling it a conflict of interest. Sources told CBS2 his wife works for the same hospital as the EMTs who responded to the Garner incident on Staten Island back in July.
NYCLU leaders will be in court Friday hoping to get another judge assigned to the case, CBS2’s Ilana Gold reported.