CINCINNATI (AP) — The attorney for a white former police officer facing a second murder trial is indicating he will oppose the prosecutor’s request to move it out of the Cincinnati area.
Attorney Stewart Mathews says he doesn’t have an immediate position, but would lean toward keeping Ray Tensing’s trial in Hamilton County. Mathews says there are various reasons, including an “extreme hardship” logistically and financially to have the trial in another county.
Mathews had asked for a change of venue before the first trial, but notes a jury was seated. He says he doesn’t think moving the trial would have a huge impact on the case outcome.
Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced Tuesday he will retry the case, but wants a jury away from local pressures after a mistrial.
A state police union leader is criticizing Deters’s decision the officer he says had to make a split-second, “life-or-death judgment call.”
Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio president Jay McDonald adds in a statement that the murder case could be a “dangerous precedent” that might cause other officers to hesitate in a critical moment.
McDonald says the case is especially meaningful at a time when police officers around the country are being targeted and assassinated.