CITY HALL -- Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s upcoming disciplinary trial in 2014 death of Eric Garner will move forward on Monday as planned, an NYPD judge ruled Friday.
On Monday, Pantaleo will face excessive force charges for allegedly using a banned chokehold against Eric Garner, who died in 2014 in Tompkinsville after the officer used put him in a chokehold while arresting him.
NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who is set to oversee the trial, had been mulling a decision on Pantaleo’s defense’s challenge on the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s charges against Pantaleo.
CITY HALL -- Officer Daniel Pantaleo’s upcoming disciplinary trial in 2014 death of Eric Garner will move forward on Monday as planned, an NYPD judge ruled Friday.
On Monday, Pantaleo will face excessive force charges for allegedly using a banned chokehold against Eric Garner, who died in 2014 in Tompkinsville after the officer used put him in a chokehold while arresting him.
NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner of Trials Rosemarie Maldonado, who is set to oversee the trial, had been mulling a decision on Pantaleo’s defense’s challenge on the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s charges against Pantaleo.
The CCRB is trying to charge Pantaleo with felony and misdemeanor offenses and is using the NYPD’s Patrol Guide to prove he used excessive force on Garner.
But Pantaleo’s attorney Stuart London is has been trying to get the CCRB’s Patrol Guide charges dismissed because he said the board did not file those charges within 18 months.
The CCRB is trying to charge Pantaleo with felony and misdemeanor offenses and is using the NYPD’s Patrol Guide to prove he used excessive force on Garner.
But Pantaleo’s attorney Stuart London is has been trying to get the CCRB’s Patrol Guide charges dismissed because he said the board did not file those charges within 18 months
On Friday, Moldonado ruled that the Patrol Guide violations cannot be the basis for a disciplinary decision against Pantaleo because the CCRB failed to bring those charges forward after the statue of limitations expired.
The CCRB will have to prove charges of a higher degree showing that Pantaleo committed either an assault in the third degree or strangulation in the first degree.
MAYOR AVOIDS WEIGHING IN ON UPCOMING TRIAL
Mayor Bill de Blasio avoided weighing in Friday on how justice should run its course in the upcoming trial.
"It’s a trial, it is due process, it’s not my place to pass judgment, it’s a full trial that needs to take place and once and for all have closure on this case,” de Blasio said when asked on “The Brian Lehrer Show” what he justice would look like for him in the upcoming trial.
"We owe it to the people of the city and the Garner family to get to whatever resolution a court process brings and that will happen this year,” he continued.
The mayor said the biggest mistake was that the U.S. Department of Justice let its civil rights investigation fall through the cracks.
After a Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo on criminal charges, the DOJ moved forward with a civil rights investigation into the incident.
Because of that investigation, the NYPD said it would delay its own internal disciplinary proceedings against the officers involved to not influence the DOJ investigation.
But over the summer, several years after Garner’s death, the NYPD changed course and said it would proceed with departmental charges against Pantaleo that could result in his termination.
The NYPD’s decision came a day after the DOJ told the NYPD it had no objection with it moving forward.
Both the mayor and Garner family say they have yet to hear from the DOJ about the status of its investigation.
Meantime, the Garner family and advocates have been calling for other officers involved in Garner’s death to also face disciplinary proceedings.
Police Commissioner James O’Neill has declined to say whether those officers would face disciplinary proceedings or if he would agree to fire Pantaleo if the judge overseeing his trail ruled against him.
Pantaleo and Sgt. Kizzy Adonis are the only two officers with pending disciplinary charges.
Asked why the other officers are not also standing trial, the mayor avoided weighing in and said he trusts the NYPD’s disciplinary process.
“I think that the NYPD process is effective, I've watched it in many many cases and I've seen real consequences in the cases there was proof that an officer had done something wrong, but I'm not going to get into the details of this one because this is an ongoing trial but there was a full disciplinary review.”
“The NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Trials has denied the Pantaleo motion to dismiss based on the existing law that applies in all administrative cases. This means that the trial will proceed on Monday, May 13, and the prosecution, based on the existing law, must prove that the misconduct encompasses the factual elements of a criminal offense before an officer may be found guilty of an administrative violation, as it is now beyond the 18 month statute of limitations period," NYPD spokesman Phil Walzak said. "The burden of proof in this Administrative proceeding remains the same -- by preponderance of the evidence -- and the same legal and evidentiary standards apply, as they do in all department trials.”
On Thursday, a New York State Supreme Court judge said Pantaleo’s trial could proceed as planned.
Pantaleo’s defense had tried to get the Civilian Complaint Review Board from prosecuting the case, arguing the board lacked jurisdiction to do so.
But the judge denied Pantaleo’s attorneys petition for a preliminary injunction against the upcoming trial
“All we have asked for in this process is fairness, so we are glad that the judge has rejected the CCRB’s attempt to skirt the law. This case now boils down to a single fact: P.O. Pantaleo did not commit a crime. A grand jury of regular New Yorkers has already reviewed the same evidence and come to that conclusion. This disciplinary trial must yield a similar result," said PBA President Patrick Lynch.