Judge: No Confederate flag T-shirt in officer’s retrial

CINCINNATI » The jury in the murder retrial of a white Ohio police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black motorist will not see the officer’s undershirt depicting a Confederate battle flag, because a judge ruled Friday that the garment is too prejudicial.

Prosecutors said the Tshirt Tensing wore under his uniform the day of Samuel DuBose’s death was relevant because it was undamaged, countering Tensing’s claim he was getting dragged by DuBose’s car as he tried to drive away from a traffic stop in 2015.

Defense attorney Stewart Mathews called it an improper effort “to inject an issue of race” into the case. He said it could be inflammatory to the jury.

Hamilton County Judge Leslie Ghiz said any potential evidence value was “far outweighed” by its prejudicial value.

“If it had been ... an allblack T-shirt that said ‘All people are God’s children’ I still would exclude it,” Ghiz said. “It is too prejudicial to the jury, one way or the other.”

Jurors in the first trial saw a photo of the shirt. Those jurors were unable to reach a verdict in November.

The former University of Cincinnati officer testified that a relative who visited Tennessee gave him the Great Smoky Mountains Tshirt with the flag on it and that it was among various black T-shirts he wore under his uniform. Tensing denied he was racist or targeted blacks and said the T-shirt meant nothing to him.