Thursday, March 27, 2008

March 27

More about Zach Sowers' death: the Sun, the Examiner, WJZ, WBAL TV, WMAR.

A 19-year-old man died this morning after being shot in the chest in the 100 block of Addison St. in Carrollton Ridge. An 18-year-old was injured in the same shooting.

Four people were shot in two separate shootings last night. In the Eastern, a woman was treated at Hopkins for a "graze wound," and three teenagers were shot on N. Gilmor St. -- including a 14-year-old girl who got shot in the face.

A man on Olympia Ave. in the Northwestern learned an important life lesson yesterday: don't lunge at cops with a knife if you don't want to get shot. He had about two hours to contemplate his mistake before he died.

Baltimore City juries aren't completely useless: (Oops. That was a Baltimore County jury. Anyway...) David Miller's jury deliberated for less than an hour before they found him guilty for killing Elizabeth Walters and their unborn baby.

Eugene Perry got two consecutive life sentences for murdering his ex-fiancee and her boyfriend. Perry was a police officer with the state Department of General Services, and his victims were both cops in the Northwestern.

In HoCo, a student testified against a teacher who allegedly took icky photos of the boy with his pants down.

14 comments:

Winston Smith said...

Zack's name needs to be added to the list on the right. He was murdered.

taotechuck said...

I don't know if he's been "officially" added to the homicide list in the City, but I agree and I have added his name.

gmd said...

Fortunately or unfortunately, David Miller was convicted by a Baltimore County jury rather than a Baltimore City jury. I was surprised that the prosecutors did not seek the death penalty given the location of the murders--just over the city line.

ppatin said...

You mentioned the David Miller case as an example of a non-useless city jury, but Miller was tried & convicted in the county. In fact I believe that Scott Schellenberger tried the case himself. I would hate to see Patricia Jessamy try that...

ppatin said...

GMD:

David Miller was not eligible for the death penalty. First degree murder isn't a capital crime on its own, there have to be "aggravating factors" such as felony murder, murder of multiple people, murder of an on-duty cop, etc etc. David Miller didn't meet any of those requirements.

This shows how silly our death penalty laws are, if Miller had stolen his victim's wallet after shooting her it would've been felony murder, and a death-penalty crime. IMO first-degree murder should be a capital offense under all circumstances...

gmd said...

ppatin:

Thanks for the clarification. I forgot that Maryland rules apply, and the cold-blooded assassination of your defenseless former lover and your unborn child wouldn't qualify.

ppatin said...

For a fine example of why our current system for deciding what crimes are eligible for the death penalty is silly, take a look at Joe Metheny. Metheny was a lunatic serial killer who was convicted of murdering three or four people (I can't remember all the details) back in the late 90s, and probably killed several more. In fact he was so awful that's his case was one of only two where Pat Jessamy sought the death penalty. Unfortunately, killing a whole bunch of people is not a capital crime in MD. If you kill them at the same time it is, but multiple murders in seperate incidents aren't enough to send you to death row. On the other hand, if you rob your victim then it's felony murder and the death penalty does apply, so city prosecutors tried to make it a robbery-murder case by saying that he took either a purse or some clothing (again I can't remember the details) from one of his victims after she was dead. The trial judge reluctantly agreed, but the MD Court of Appeals did not, and a confessed serial killer escaped the ultimate punishment.

ppatin said...

"Thanks for the clarification. I forgot that Maryland rules apply, and the cold-blooded assassination of your defenseless former lover and your unborn child wouldn't qualify."

John Allen Muhammed (the DC sniper) didn't qualify for the DP either when he was tried in MoCo. Unfortunately for him he also killed people in VA, and they know how to deal with criminals...

Anonymous said...

"John Allen Muhammed (the DC sniper) didn't qualify for the DP either when he was tried in MoCo. Unfortunately for him he also killed people in VA, and they know how to deal with criminals..."

Ppatin, you are a cold hearted person who does not care for criminals, and only wants them to pay the harshest of penalties for their crimes. Have you considered running for Governor?

Question for you lot - isn't there a moratorium on the Death Penalty right now anyway thanks to the Court of Appeals?

ppatin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ppatin said...

"Question for you lot - isn't there a moratorium on the Death Penalty right now anyway thanks to the Court of Appeals?"

Sort of. There are actually two seperate issues. Executions are on hold nationally because the Supreme Court is reviewing the constitutionality of lethal injection. That case should be decided by this summer.

There's also the totally seperate issue of the MD Court of Appeals decision from (I think) late 2006. Lawyers for Vernon Evans managed to convince the court that the rules on how executions were supposed to be carried out had been improperly adopted. All it would take is a new set of guidelines from the governor and that issue would be resolved, however our O'governor refuses to do his job and carry out the laws of the state. It's really typical O'Malley bullshit. If he's so anti-DP he could commute the sentences of all five death row inmates and that would be that. O'Malley still has political ambitions though, and commuting the sentences of monsters like Vernon Evans & John Booth (whose crime was so vile that THREE seperate Baltimore City juries sentenced him to die!) is not a good way to appeal to voters. So, our courageous leader lets the Court of Appeals do his dirty work for him.

Anonymous said...

If lethal injection is too cruel a way to kill the bastard, perhaps they should throw a few more options on the table. This is the exact reason why legislation from the bench does not work.

ppatin said...

I'm a big fan of the guillotine. It's quick, humane, and almost impossible to botch. It also leaves an executed inmates organs viable for donation. Condemned inmates would be an excellent source for organ transplants. Those pieces of human garbage will never contribute anything to society in their lives, so at least their deaths could accomplish something.

Anonymous said...

Well, it would give people more of a reason to advocate the death penalty...