A Neighborhood's Frustration

When I first began this blog the thing I learned first was how illiberal liberal folks could be.

I began on Marc Steiner's Center for Emerging Media website, and almost instantly Marc got flak from liberal groups.  Even Marc himself suggested that I wanted to lock everybody up and "throw away the key."

I know this isn't unique.  I saw in yesterday's paper that many educated people are unhappy that eminent Hopkins neurosurgeon Ben Carson will speak at Emory University because they disagree with his views on evolutionary biology and ethics.  It's astonishing how people choose to stop up their ears to those with other perspectives.

Funny thing is, if liberals read my blog with open minds they would see that I am no Attila-the-Hun.  I support improved prisoner re-entry programs, bail reform, effective alternatives to incarceration, a radically new approach to drug crimes, reducing the barrier of criminal records to employment, and so forth.

But I do believe that there are people who need to be locked up for the public's safety and well-being.  Not forever (for most), but until the period of their greatest dangerousness passes.  This makes liberals scream.  They want more rehabilitation and prevention programs. 

Fine.  There's no conflict there.  But the existing criminal justice system still needs to improve its focus, prioritization and performance right now with the resources at hand.

Two young criminals are scheduled for trial on gun charges today, men who were brought to my attention by the Washington Village Development Association (WVDA.)  WVDA has been as active an anti-crime neighborhood group as I have ever seen.  They monitor the activities and cases of drug dealers and violent criminals, go to court, lobby police, prosecutors and legislators for action, and send e-mails to judges to voice their displeasure, e-mails like this one:

...On 1/24/2011, the Court sentenced [Robert] Uzzell to seven (7) years in jail.  However, The Dishonorable Circuit Court Judge, Pamela (I’m-going-to-legalize-drugs-from-my-bench) White, suspend [sic] the jail sentence—placing Uzzell on three (3) years of supervised probation and returning him to the streets of Baltimore...[Emphasis in the original.]

What prompted the WVDA e-mail was Uzzell's arrest on gun charges while on Judge White's probation. And the fact that  at the time Judge White put him on probation he had just finished another probation for drug dealing, with a prior arrest for using a gun to deal drugs.

A co-defendant, Corey Gibson, was also on probation for possessing over 65 units of cocaine and marijuana, a felony.  Judge Timothy Doory gave him probation without a conviction for this, something I don't criticize.  If the young man really wanted to turn his life around, not having a felony conviction would help him get a job.

But Doory didn't care much about the job thing after all.  When Gibson was arrested again Doory did nothing because the new charges were dropped.  Prosecutor Nancy Olin mentioned to Doory that Gibson had made no effort to find a job while on probation but failed to argue for any enforcement of this requirement.  Doory merely hoped that being in jail for three months on the new arrest had "gotten [Gibson's] attention."

What a tired, typical excuse for inaction.  Less than a month later Gibson and Uzzell were charged with gun crimes. Their level of dangerousness, and WVDA's frustration, is escalating.

Then there's 36-year-old career criminal Larry Lloyd, a likely addict who is less of a violent threat than Uzzell and Gibson but nevertheless a bane to the WVDA.  His many, many arrests for drug possession, drug-dealing, loitering, assault, harassment, etc. have resulted in short jail sentences, probation, more probation, or dismissals.  He's had plenty of chances at drug treatment and turning himself around, to no avail.  

A few years ago Lloyd was put on probation, convicted again while on probation, and returned to probation by Judge Lynn Stewart.  Then police charged him with felony drug charges, only to have the case dropped last December.

Why?  Because Judge Gale Rasin suppressed the evidence.  I listened to the hearing, expecting to find that the police had botched the case.  Instead I found that it was Rasin who botched Fourth Amendment analysis.  It's the second time I've seen this judge fail to follow the law to reach a result she personally preferred.  Basically, she ruled that the police can't approach a suspect and tell him they heard he had drugs on him without instantly violating his rights.

Nevertheless, WVDA says that prosecutors raised their hopes by promising to charge Lloyd with violating Judge Stewart's probation.  They never followed through. 

It's hard to blame WVDA for ill-tempered e-mails with experiences like these.   Are they supposed to wait for some new social programs to deal with the Uzzells, Gibsons, and Lloyds of their community?

Or could the criminal justice system at least be trying to do a better job right now?

The Phylicia Barnes Case: A Questionable Start for the Defense and Prosecution

Kudos to The Baltimore Sun for reporting the conflict of interest that Mead, Flynn, & Gray, a criminal defense law firm, got itself into in the high-profile Phylicia Barnes murder case.

According to The Sun, the firm represents Daniel Nicholson IV, a city detective who is currently under investigation for misconduct and was also charged with assault in Baltimore County last year.  He happens to be the lead detective who investigated the disappearance and murder of Phylicia Barnes.  Nicholson's credibility in the Barnes case will be at issue every step of the way.

Yet when Michael Johnson was recently arrested for the murder of Barnes, there was Mead, Flynn & Gray, challenging the police evidence and arguing that Johnson be released on bail.  It's a blatant lapse of ethical judgment.  Perhaps the publicity and money to be earned from the case blinded the firm's attorneys to their higher duty.

The Sun wasn't blind.  And when asked about it, Johnson's other attorney, Russell Neverdon, suggested that Mead, Flynn & Gray will not participate in future proceedings.   It's a no-brainer that shouldn't even have come up. 

The prosecution isn't putting its best foot forward, either.  For some reason State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein has entrusted this case to one of his least effective trial attorneys, one who has long lacked a reputation for hard work.  

It's the same prosecutor who lost the case against Eric Stennett for murdering Police Officer Kevon Gavin in 2001.  After fleeing the scene of a shooting, Stennett sped through city streets at 80 m.p.h. and crashed into Gavin's police cruiser, causing a fiery, fatal explosion.  

While there were multiple problems with how the police handled evidence in the shooting and crash, even the defense attorney conceded that Stennett was at least guilty of manslaughter in the officer's death.  But the jury acquitted him completely, stunning everyone.  

More recently, in 2010, the same prosecutor tried a murder case against a city police officer who shot a fleeing theft suspect in the back.  Another acquittal.

With this prosecutor's dismal record in high-profile cases , Bernstein is taking a big chance.  Maybe he expects that Phylicia Barnes is so sympathetic a victim that a jury will be loathe to let her accused murderer go, whoever prosecutes.   Maybe he will assign a very competent, meticulous prosecutor to second-chair the case.  

But why take any risk?

 

Judge or First Lady?

We can count on the Baltimore Sun to publish a fawning piece on Katie O'Malley every few years.  How she raises her children while being both judge and mayor's wife ...how she does it as the governor's wife...with continuing installments to come.

Quick answer:  she's got plenty of help, including being driven to work in a big, gas-guzzling Chevy Suburban, and having a job that gives her lots of free time.  For example, at Central Booking last week Judge O'Malley arrived one day at 9:20, had no work until 11:00, spent less than two hours on the bench, and was done for the day. It's a great gig.

The latest Sun puff piece (March 5) paints Katie O'Malley as one who "fights for those on the outside."   The evidence, aside from the puffery, centers on one real issue: the gay-marriage bill, drafted by her husband the governor.  Her "fight" boiled down to one speech.

But oh, what a speech.  Made to a national gathering of gay rights advocates, in the middle of a local political debate over her husband's bill, O'Malley called legislators who had changed their minds about voting for the bill "cowards," making it crystal clear that she was engaging in "partisan political activity" that is prohibited by judicial ethics. 

Katie O'Malley is every bit as politically ambitious as her husband, reveling in her role as First Lady.  And that's her right.  But not when she is also a judge.  That job comes with restrictions, namely, her duty to remain impartial.  She can't use "equal rights" as a cover for wading into political debate.  She certainly can't expect anybody accused of beating up a gay person to anticipate a fair hearing or sentence from her.

O'Malley became a judge when her husband became mayor of Baltimore, even though she was deemed unqualified just one year before.  That's how the system works.  But O'Malley holds her judgeship dearly to define her own identity and achievement.  When word reached her that a prosecutor had referred to her in an internal e-mail as "the mayor's wife" she called him up and chewed him out.

Yet when she was assigned to Early Disposition Court, the program her husband had promised would cure the criminal justice system, she revealed her lack of independence.  In meetings to address the court's problems, having zero experience both as a judge and in Early Disposition Court, O'Malley rudely dismissed any idea that the program might be too conceptually flawed to work.  (It was and it failed.) 

O'Malley wants it both ways.  When she apologized for her political speech, it wasn't for violating her ethical duty to avoid partisan politics.  It was for hurting people's feelings, while insisting that she would never "back away and say I don't support equal rights for all our citizens."

She never should have said anything from which to back away.  As a judge, O'Malley should demonstrate her commitment to equal rights in her courtroom decisions, not on the  national political stage her husband created.  She should have been doing her judicial duty on the bench the day the gay-marriage bill was signed.  Instead another judge covered for her while she was photographed in Annapolis, basking in the accolades by supporters of her speech. 

As for that speech, Katie O'Malley's use of the word "cowards" is particularly ironic since Martin O'Malley was not nearly so courageous about gay marriage before Governor Andrew Cuomo took the lead on the issue in New York last year.  After Cuomo's success, Martin used the issue this year to get himself all over the national news and talk show programs.  Ambition, not courage, drives Martin as he continues to lift his national profile.  Eventually Katie's will follow, too.

But Katie's support for gay marriage or any other political issue, whether it stems from political or personal motivations, has no place in the public forum while she sits on the bench.  If she wants to get out there and mix it up, that's fine.  But she will have to choose which job she wants more, First Lady or judge, because a politically active First Lady cannot also sit impartially in judgment of others.