Maryland’s system of ‘justice’

OPINION:

When it comes to virtually everything related to criminal justice, Maryland is gaining a national reputation for all the wrong reasons: as a place where judges, politicians and corrections officials go to absurd lengths to give violent criminals the benefit of the doubt at the expense of public safety. Here are a few of the beneficiaries of this generosity who have been in the news in recent weeks:

m Mahamu Kanneh. In 2004, Mr. Kanneh was indicted on charges of raping and molesting a 7-year-old girl who was a relative. According to charging documents, he also fondled an 18-month-old girl. For close to three years, Mr. Kanneh remained free on $10,000 bond while his attorneys insisted that he be provided with a translator of an obscure African language — even though Mr. Kanneh graduated from Montgomery County Public Schools and appeared to be fluent in English. After a lengthy search, one was found last month. But by then it was too late for an impatient Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Katherine Savage, who dismissed the charges against Mr. Kanneh on July 17. The state appealed, and Mr. Kanneh skipped an Aug. 3 court hearing, moved to Philadelphia and attempted to escape when police and federal marshals came to arrest him there. Extradited to Montgomery County and appearing on Monday before a different judge, Ann Harrington, Mr. Kanneh, a possible illegal alien, was freed pending appeal. But before he could leave the courthouse, prosecutors announced that he was in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

m Matthew Dieterle. On Nov. 16, 2001, he pulled a gun on two men during a confrontation and pulled the trigger twice. But the gun failed to go off, so Dieterle emerged from his SUV with a baseball bat and beat one of the men. He was convicted of assault and illegally carrying a handgun and sentenced to 18 months in prison to be followed by work release by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Joseph Manck in October 2002. In May 2006, Judge Manck, responding to pleas from Dieterle’s father that the young hoodlum had turned his life around, terminated his probation more than two years early and permitted him to move to Florida. But according to authorities in Pinellas County, Fla., Judge Manck’s generosity proved deadly to 19-year-old University of Tampa student who had become Dieterle’s live-in girlfriend. Police say that in July, he beat, stabbed and strangled the girl, Samantha MacQuilliam. Dieterle is charged with first-degree murder. (Incidentally, in June, Judge Manck triggered a firestorm of criticism when he sentenced a Severna Park real estate agent convicted of molesting his own daughter to just four months in jail).

m Charles Hopkins. On April 13, 1976, Hopkins came to Baltimore City Hall with a gun, searching for Mayor William Donald Schaefer. Hopkins, who was angered by the city’s decision to shut down his carry-out restaurant, couldn’t find Mr. Schaefer, but he did find Councilman Dominic Leone and shot him to death and wounded three other people. Hopkins was found innocent by reason of insanity, and he has been locked up in mental hospitals for close to 30 years. He was treated for schizophrenia before moving to a halfway house, only to have his release revoked in 2002 when he was caught using marijuana. Several weeks ago, Baltimore Circuit Court Judge John Glynn ordered Hopkins moved out of a locked mental facility to a less secure residential program (For now at least, he is required to wear a monitor. Hopefully police and mental health officials will be paying attention if Mr. Hopkins decides to take a trip down to City Hall.)

m Arthur Bremer. Sentenced to 53 years in prison for shooting and paralyzing Alabama Gov. George Wallace in May 1972, Bremer will be paroled sometime before December. In explaining the decision to release Bremer, corrections officials say he was a “model” inmate who accumulated a large number of good-time credits. Leave aside for a minute the question of whether behavior in a highly regimented prison setting is any indication of how Bremer will behave when out on the street. While he was behind bars (Bremer pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity at his 1972 trial), Bremer refused treatment for his psychological problems. According to David Blumberg, head of the state Parole Board, Secret Service agents preparing for Bremer’s release asked that he be psychologically evaluated by mental health professionals, but Bremer refused and cannot be forced to undergo an evaluation. Mr. Blumberg calls Bremer’s proposal “disappointing.” Richard Rosenblatt, assistant secretary for treatment services for the state Department of Correction, told the Baltimore Sun that Bremer’s decision to refuse treatment might be reasonable because he does not have a “treatable diagnosis.”

m Lawrence Lannin. How do you punish an inmate already serving a double life sentence for murder when he kills in prison? You give him another life sentence. Lannin, an inmate at the maximum-security Jessup Correctional Institution, received — you guessed it — another life sentence for strangling a fellow inmate.