Tough gun law, timid enforcement

Courts: Nearly three decades after Maryland set strict penalties for gun crimes, the law has had little impact in Baltimore. Three out of four people charged with handgun violence serve less than the mandatory five years.

Fowlkes, then 18, was soon back on the streets -- and back in trouble.

Late at night on July 26, 1999, prosecutors say, Fowlkes was armed again. On an East Baltimore side street, Fowlkes and another man got into a gunbattle.

Twenty yards away, Carleton Valentine; his brother, Arnell Davis; and their cousin, Wayne Johnson, were sitting on the steps of Valentine's home at 821 N. Bradford St., drinking beer and trying to escape the stifling summer heat.

Hearing the shots, the three scrambled off the steps and lay flat on the sidewalk. "It was like the O.K. Corral," Davis says. "The bullets were flying."

When the shooting momentarily ceased, the men tried to rush indoors. But more bullets whizzed down the street. One hit Valentine in the back.

"He told me, `Brother, I'm shot. I got shot in the back,' " Davis recalls. "Wayne was screaming for help. I said, `Man, we're going to get those guys.' "

Valentine, an auto mechanic and father of four, died at Johns Hopkins Hospital 50 minutes later.

Davis, who identified Fowlkes for police as one of the shooters, was furious when told of Fowlkes' previous conviction. "There shouldn't be no plea bargains," Davis says. "It's bad when you can't sit on your own steps."

In an interview, Judge Gordy says that campaign concerns had nothing to do with his decision in Fowlkes' first case and that the comment "was silliness among very familiar counsel."

He says the 18-month sentence was a "pretty good plea" since the victim did not come to court. Fowlkes had been awaiting trial for about six months, and Gordy says he did not want to delay the case more because of the defendant's right to a trial within 180 days of arraignment. All parties agreed to the sentence, he says.

"It looked like to me the choice of a postponement, which is a nasty word now, and it was then to me, or a dismissal. I obviously wasn't inclined to postpone the case, nor was the state able to proceed," Gordy says. "I feel horrible now, but I didn't have these facts in front of me. Hindsight is always beneficial."

Sometimes there is little that police, prosecutors or judges can do to persuade witnesses to testify. In all the cases cited by The Sun, victims or witnesses identified the assailants to police, but in several cases they stopped cooperating somewhere between the police station and the courtroom.

Some witnesses are afraid of retaliation. Some want to settle the score themselves. Some simply get lost in the empty months after police close a case with an arrest and before prosecutors pick it up to take it to court.

Dontaya Preston, 21, has escaped two attempted-murder charges -- and two potential life sentences -- in the past three years because his alleged victims refused to come to court.

Preston is described in court records as a drug dealer who uses a gun to settle scores, even pointing one, police say, in the face of a neighbor who came to the aid of his girlfriend when the pair were arguing.

On a Wednesday night in October 1996, a man named Pernell Beckette was standing on a dimly lighted corner just south of North Avenue.

Word on the street was that Beckette had stolen a drug dealer's stash. The punishment was swift, severe and bloody.

Bullets ripped through the air. One. Then another. And another. And another, slamming into Beckette's back and neck as he tried to flee. Police found him bleeding on the concrete, left for dead.

After he recovered, Beckette broke the code of silence on the street. He told police who shot him. He picked out the shooter from police mug shots.

Then he vanished.

Police searched for months, even traveling to New York, desperate to make a case against Preston, known on the streets as "Beefcake."

Nearly a year later, with no witness to testify, prosecutor Sylvester Cox had to drop the attempted-murder case.

Preston had also been charged with assault and resisting arrest for fighting with the police officer who picked him up on the Beckette case. So prosecutors forged ahead with that case.

Preston pleaded guilty to assault for trying to wrench the gun away from the officer during a struggle on the floor of an all-night store. He was given a sentence that amounted to the time he had already served.

The Sun recently found Beckette, 38, living with relatives on Long Island, N.Y., still with all six bullets lodged in his flesh. One "floats" around his neck, he said.

He is unrepentant about his decision not to testify. "I didn't follow suit with that," Beckette says matter-of-factly when asked about the case. "I was just hoping that they would prosecute him for [another] murder."

He says he worried there would be retaliation against his family, who still live in the neighborhood. "I know who shot me but, like I said, I didn't want it to backlash."

Preston allegedly went on to shoot another man, Nawann Blandon, records say. Prosecutor Twila Driggins dropped that case after the victim could not be located.