The Mosby Years

At the outset of her first term Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby became a national sensation when she charged six police officers in the death of minor criminal Freddie Gray.

That she filed her charges with disregard for her prosecutorial oath, resulting in spectacular failure (none were convicted) seemed not to matter to voters, who elected her again. I assume they gave her credit for trying to do something about police brutality. I get it. That the Freddie Gray case was not the George Floyd case is something lost on lay persons.

But to elect her again could only lead me to conclude that the voters will get what they deserve: four more years of violent, unabated crime in Baltimore. The same thing we have had since the Freddie Gray case, when violent crime exploded on Mosby's watch.  

Mosby is great at blaming others for her failures. But she told us who she was with Freddie Gray: an attention-seeking politician without regard for facts and law. And since then she has made clear that she has no plan to address the city's crime, other than to not prosecute minor criminals. Philosophically, I support alternatives to incarceration. In fact, a great plan was in place more then two decades ago to provide services to minor criminals struggling with addiction and mental illness: Community Court. But another newly-elected city leader torpedoed the plan as he pursued his own idea to reduce crime: Mayor Martin O'Malley, the architect of "zero tolerance" (or lock 'em up.)

Mosby had the right idea, but no plan to make it work. She just unilaterally turned a blind eye to minor criminals and let others deal with the problems they created. Likewise, she has told us through her actions that she has no plan to fight violent crime, either. She has provided the city seven years of inceasingly inexperienced prosecutors, brutally high murder rates, and a revolving door for dangerous criminals. We can expect more if she prevails again in the Democratic primary this month.  The same two challengers who split the opposition vote last time are in the race again.  I said then that neither could win if one would not put aside his ego, and we face that prospect again.

This time Mosby is weaker, in part because I suspect her supporters are growing weary of violence, and because of the federal perjury pending against her. Her defense has illustrated the same style she exhibiterd in the Freddie Gray case: regardless of the facts and the law, make it a political and racial issue. Maybe, just maybe, voters will begin to see through her.

I'm not convinced that a federal conviction ends her career. The Maryland Constitution requires that she be removed from office, but is she prevented from running in the general election in November if she wins the primary?  The surest impediment to preventing her return at that point would be disbarment, but attorney Ken Ravenell, who was convicted on federal money laundering charges last December, is still practicing law.  If he can, why not her?

So it may be up to the voters after all.   And if they have the wisdom to kick her out, the next State's Attorney has a long way to go fix the office.  But at least we will have hope for the future.

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Last blog I promised more statistics on Mosby's office, but I fear the ones I first provided were too dense.  The criminal bar understands the leniency they represent, but the average citizen may not.

Nevertheless, in much simplied form, here are the results of the second and third batch of cases that I tracked from January - June, 2022. More than half are cases from the August and September dockets from 2021. The rest came from dockets in January and February. Anyone who wants the raw data is welcome to them.

My purpose in tracking the later batches were to see if the pandemic affected the results of the first batch, as the courts were reopening last summer. The simple answer is no. The overall conviction rate, including expunged cases, is about the same: 60%. Plea bargains resulted in the release of nearly 45% of convicted defendants who were charged with gun-related crimes, including armed robbery, attempted murder, carjacking, and felon in possession of a firearm. Those who got prison time averaged 3 years (before the parole system cuts that down further. ) Drug dealers, who drive so much of the violent crime, did even better: 71% were released through plea bargaining, and prison sentences averaged about 2 years.

The one exception to these dismal results came in murder cases.  Prosecutors won two trials and got from 25 years to 60 years in plea bargains on five others. Bravo!

By the way, the Governors Office of Crime Control and Prevention ought to be doing these studies on a regular basis statewide, to create public accountability and visibility. I hope the next governor will create such a mandate.  

Addendum:  Three days after I posted this, Ken Ravenell's law license was "temporarily suspended," pending a hearing, at last.