Reflections on 2009

After I retired from the Baltimore prosecutor’s office I went to the Baltimore Sun with a proposal to write a series of articles on the criminal justice system and why it wasn’t working. When I submitted my first piece on a violent criminal who was repeatedly set free, an editor took out the names of all the officials involved and wrote that the criminal had “slipped through the cracks” of the criminal justice system.

I’m sick of that stupid, journalistic cliché. The criminal justice system wasn’t a good system with a few cracks. It’s been a giant mud hole in which the wheels of justice spin without going anywhere. It’s had no direction, no goals, and no ability to evaluate itself.

I was also astonished by the editor’s refusal to name names. What kind of accountability can citizens expect when officials operate in the dark?

So I withdrew the article and began this blog. And I was quickly struck by how illiberal certain liberal advocates can be. They seem to have a hard time listening to other points of view, or even to perceive what someone else is really saying. Those who pressured Marc Steiner to take me off his website because they don’t like my viewpoint ought to feel ashamed. I want to thank Marc for supporting free speech and diversity of thought.

Contrary to the belief of those who think I want to lock up every criminal up and throw away the key, I have never advocated such a thing. I want the system to focus on the right people, the ones who pose a violent threat and cannot be safely supervised on the street.

How are we doing with that? Here are a few thoughts as 2009 winds down.

Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office. As a former career prosecutor, I wish I could say the office was the bright light it could and ought to be. But it is led by Patricia Jessamy, who has surrounded herself with sycophants who won’t tell the emperor she has no clothes. In fact, her closest advisors wear the same invisible clothes. Jessamy suffers from a debilitating insecurity that has made her ego more important than her results. She’s done little to change prosecutorial practices, undermines the police department, and rides the coattails of other agencies that have shown initiative and innovation. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with her.

The Judiciary. At December’s Baltimore Criminal Justice Coordinating Council the outgoing chair, Judge John Miller, was presented with several citations for his service to the council. Too bad I couldn’t tell from two years of attending his council meetings exactly what Judge Miller did to change the judicial culture and its enormous impact on the criminal justice system.

U.S. Attorney’s Office. I have given a lot of credit for Baltimore’s reduced murder/shooting rate to U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, and I still feel that way. He has blazed the way in focusing resources and creative techniques on catching the bad guys. But the departure of his point man, Jason Weinstein, has hurt the inter-agency efforts that Weinstein was so good at leading. We will see how 2010 unfolds.

Mayor’s Office on Criminal Justice. This office, headed by Sheryl Goldstein, has tried to show innovation through programs such as Gunstat, which tracks gun cases and tries to hold police and prosecutors more accountable for results. If only Goldstein and the police department had a true partner in the prosecutor’s office…

Department of Public Safety. Here the left and right hands are working at cross-purposes. On the one hand there is the Violence Prevention Initiative, Governor O’Malley’s attempt to stamp his imprint on crime efforts. Unlike prior bad O’Malley ideas this one has merit. Parole and probation agents are supposed to get violent parolees and probationers off the street when they don’t obey even minor conditions of their freedom.

But prison officials and parole commissioners continue to march to their own tune, failing to take good-time credits from misbehaving prisoners or revoking parole when they fail to follow the rules. A recent case in point is Charles Owens, on parole for felony drug and handgun convictions. (These are the deadly duo, drugs and guns, but many in the criminal justice system still don’t get it.) Despite prison infractions for drug possession, rioting, and assault on prison staff Owens got to keep all of his good-time credits and was released after serving less than two years on a three year sentence.

It didn’t take long for parole agents to request a warrant for his arrest. But a month after it was issued the chair of the Parole Commission, David Blumberg, changed the warrant to a subpoena, leaving Owens on the street. Two months later, Owens was arrested for attempted murder and using a handgun in a violent crime, and was convicted this past November.

Owens didn’t slip through any cracks. He represents how our system still works.

All agencies have to be on the same page. It isn’t good enough if only one agency, or part of one agency, gets it.

But at least some are trying. And that’s a good thing to bring to a new year.