Wednesday, March 14, 2007

March 14

Murder Ink covers a multitude of homicide convictions and closed cases, along with the deaths of Michael Woods, Richard Stuckey, Anthony Bryan, Allen Coates, and Damon Smith. This is the first media mention of Anthony Bryan's death, who was 37 years old when he was shot once behind his right ear in the Southwest neighborhood of Rosemont last Friday.

Three men have been killed in Baltimore since Monday. An unidentified man was shot late yesterday morning during an argument in the 1600 block of Cliftview Ave. in East Baltimore. Early yesterday morning, Tyrone Jackson Jr. was fatally shot on the front porch of his family's house on Brook Ave. in the Northeast. On Monday night, Mark Robinson was found on the sidewalk in the 2700 block of Harlem Ave; he had been shot repeatedly and died at Shock Trauma.

Nancy Jean Siegel allegedly killed her much-older boyfriend more than 10 years ago, and his been cashing his Social Security checks ever since.

Convicted murdered Lawrence Banks may go back to prison for parole violations, while PG police investigate whether he was involved in the murders of his girlfriend's daughter and granddaughter.

Death row inmate Lawrence Borchardt, convicted for killing an elderly couple who helped him while he was a heroin addict, died in his cell on Sunday.

There's a serial bank robber running amok in the city. And a former bank robber contemplates all of the wasted years and wasted lives.

A citizen in Charles County helped capture some neo-Nazis.

A mother and son in Washington County were indicted for stealing from the liquor board.

9 comments:

burgersub said...

i like how the sun has the balls to tell us there have been 56 murders this year while not even bothering to report anything about one of the last 5 or so (they were up to date last week, but as of today they have only reported on 55 of them).

taotechuck said...

If you look at the very end of the article that covers the three murders since Monday, there's a paragraph about Anthony Bryan. It's the first mention of him I've seen in the Sun.

In the Sun's (possible) defense, I don't know when the BPD released info about Mr. Bryan's death. It was early enough that Anna Ditkoff included him in Murder Ink. Hypothetically, if the BPD released details of his death yesterday morning, it would have been after press time for yesterday's edition of the Sun but maybe in time for today's City Paper.

Is this shoddy reporting by the Sun or not? Anybody out there care to enlighten us?

ppatin said...

I heard Anna Ditkoff on the Ed Norris show today, and according to her there have been five murders since the ones covered in this week's Murder Ink, including four that happened yesterday. It sounds like the homicide unit had a busy day.

Maurice Bradbury said...

The CP closes Saturday night, I believe.

John Galt said...

Perhaps this increase is the justification for the 18% pay increases proposed for city leaders ???

Marc said...

Wow, Lawrence Banks did two murders and served 11 years. Nice.

John Galt said...

Which brings me back to the adulteration of the instruments of justice.

While the accused is constitutionally guaranteed the opportunity of a jury trial before imprisonment pursuant to a guilty verdict, the victim is actually guaranteed precious little. Criminal cases are only brought by and in the unreviewable discretion of an agent of the State, in our case the S.A.

If the S.A. isn't inclined to aggressively pursue the case, justice vanishes. If the judge errs as to fact or law, he may brought up on appeal, but this remedy is unavailable where his discretion is challenged.

If the jury is sympathetic as against the interests of justice, then there is no mechanism for mistrial on the basis of their animosity.

And so, when you live amongst savages, is equal protection thwarted ??

Well, consider Little Rock, 1957. A higher (federal) government undertook to ensure the rights of a minority which was being oppressed by the legitimate democratically-elected government put in place by the majority. The supercession of state perogatives followed Brown v. Board. Later, the Burger Court ruled in Milliken v. Bradley that whereas school districts must bus between schools within a district, the failure to overcome differences across district boundaries was only unconstitutional where an intent to conspire to violate civil rights can be demonstrated.

Does the jury, judge, or S.A. intend to facilitate criminality ?? Probably not.

So,... I look at historical antecedents to today's Baltimore.

Founder James Oglethorpe in his 1739 letter to the Trustees of the Georgia (prison) Colony states on multiple occasaions that his Magistrates are weary of bringing charges against criminals who have "so many friends amongst the freeholders that they publicly declared in town that no jury would convict".

When the then State of Georgia finally adopted its constitution, it provided for both jury trials and a method of qualifying jurors, which was never considered racially-motivated, since it was at the time every bit a slave state with nary a freeman in residence.

My point... oh, yes, the point.... is that these institutions are failing us here because the tipping point in criminal-sympathetic population composition has been passed.

The criminally-inclined must be very much excluded from the process of election and jury service, even if political winds are blowing in another direction. Otherwise this city's CJ system will collapse upon itself and its problems will spill over into adjoining jurisdictions.

John Galt said...

I wonder, of those following clearance rates for violent offenders, does anyone know the average time actually served per each count of the various violent offenses in Baltimore City??

ppatin said...

24 hours, four dead, three wounded