"The family and friends of Elizabeth Walters came to Baltimore County Circuit Court on Monday expecting some measure of closure with the sentencing of David Lee Miller, convicted in March of killing Walters and their unborn child. Instead, because of an apparently misplaced court order, Walters’ loved ones must return in September to learn Miller’s fate." This is shocking? Danny Jacobs must be the new guy.
The Baltimore City Grand Jury indicted Herlinda Rodulfo, 25, of Brooklyn, Maryland on charges of first-degree murder. Court documents allege on May 17, 2008 Herlinda Rodulfo was responsible for a shooting incident in the 800 block of Pontiac Avenue. Valerie Barnes, 19, was found lying on the rear steps in the unit block suffering from several gunshot wounds. She died later at Shock Trauma. An arraignment is scheduled for July 28, 2008 before Judge W. Michel Pierson, Room 329 Courthouse East.
Jarmarl Jones got 20 federal years for the her-ron.
Get your salvia before it's hot!
11 comments:
Boy, this is one church where you don't want to shortchange the collecion plate.
I am in favor of "abatement by arrest". But I'm not so sure I like the new expungment idea.
Remember, one of the reasons why the city has been successful lately at putting a dent in crime is that they have been tracking offenders by ARREST STATISTICS rather than by the old way which was CONVICTION STATISTICS (or nothing at all).
I don't care what people say, you either have to be a criminal, belligerent, or a fool to get arrested in this town. That should mean something.
"I don't care what people say, you either have to be a criminal, belligerent, or a fool to get arrested in this town."
Not necessarily. Hell, a few years ago Anna Ditkoff from the Citypaper spent a day in Central Booking because of a mixup over a traffic ticket. She wrote a pretty interesting article about that experience.
When I have time, I'm going to have a longer post on my blog about this whole expungement business. But there has somehow surfaced a mythology about this abatement by arrest stuff that all these arrests for "minor, nuisance charges" were somehow illegal, that the police were just like, making stuff up.
I'm sure there were probably small numbers of abusive cases, but basically the prosecutors simply made a value judgment to get rid of these huge number of cases to relieve strain on the system, which had been brought to its knees by the police enforcing the laws rigorously. The prosecutor said, for example, ok, he was disorderly last night, it's over, the arrest took care of it.
Unfortunately, it leaves the arrestee with the impression that we and the law are chumps, that the cops did something to them, and, in fact, that they are "victims". Just drive around the city in the evening, and you'll see people fighting, yelling, drinking on the street, urinating, a lot of in your face littering, in your face driving, etc., etc, etc. So when their cases are "abated by arrest", there is a feeling that they didn't do anything wrong, in fact, they're victims.
well let us know when that post's up.
But there is nowhere else on earth where "abated by arrest" is legal. Either you go through the process and your charges are dismissed, or you're convicted of something. "Abated by arrest" assumes someone is guilty without due process. If it's not an arrest-worthy crime, then you issue someone a citation, no?
"Abated by arrest" is better than the alternative - "Beat and release"
My sense is that, unfortunately, the majority of Abated by Arrests are really nuisance offenses of which the perps are quite guilty, but the prosecutor knows the Court is just going to wrist-slap with 'time served', so it doesn't justify (in the SA's view) the court time for prosecutors nor police.
However,... a minority, but a large one, of police officers in this town have absolutely engaged in false arrests which were resolved by Abated by Arrest.
It has happened to me on multiple occasions. It is real. It is common.
In a real city, officers who can be demonstrated to have done so are toast. Here, neither the command hierarchy nor the officers of the Court seem to take an interest. And neither the department nor the arresting officer apologizes, even if superiors offer their sympathy upon reviewing the facts.
False arrest is no joke. It's the first step in the march to tyranny.
No one said dealing with crime was effortless nor cheap. If you want to shift the burden, increase the penalties if found guilty. But arresting instead of prosecuting is just bullcrap.
Oh, and in case you were wondering, Internal Affairs is uninterested in false arrest infractions. They're looking for corruption. Further, officers are largely shielded by the procedural barriers of the LEOBOR.
Maybe we should give officers tazers so they can administer on the spot punishment to knuckleheads. That seems especially appropriate for drunken stupidity, I've heard that a few hundred volts are great for sobering someone up :)
One comment in sympathy with the SA's who dump these cases:
it is not uncommon that the paperwork from the police officer suggests one set of facts, a slam dunk case, yet when they interview the officer at the courthouse, the real story diverges from what the officer wrote.
Had the officer stated things properly in his report, the SA would have dumped the case at the time of charging.
The problem is that officers who do this are never prosecuted for filing false reports, they never get reprimanded, and other officers get the idea that it's sort of o.k.
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