An Anne Arundel County Circuit Court judge erased yesterday the death sentence of former National Security Agency cryptologist Darris A. Ware and ordered him sentenced again for the 1993 killings of his former fiancee and her friend in Severn.
The ruling by Judge Robert H. Heller Jr. faults Ware's two trial lawyers -- one of whom became a Circuit Court judge Thursday -- for their acknowledged lack of preparation for sentencing by a jury instead of by a judge.
Prosecutors have not decided whether to pursue an appeal.
"We will go through another sentencing and ask for the death penalty again," Arundel State's Attorney Frank R. Weathersbee said yesterday.
Arcangelo M. Tuminelli, one of Ware's two lawyers in this challenge, welcomed the ruling.
"It appeared that the judge was satisfied that Darris Ware did not receive an adequate sentencing hearing," Tuminelli said.
Yesterday's ruling is the latest twist in a case that has resulted in two trials for Ware and numerous appeals.
Ware was convicted by a Howard County jury of the fatal shootings of his former fiancee, Betina "Kristi" Gentry, 18, and Cynthia V. Allen, 23, on Dec. 30, 1993, in the Gentry home in Severn. Jurors sentenced him to die.
But the Maryland Court of Appeals wiped out the conviction in 1997, chastising prosecutors for failing to reveal that a key prosecution witness had a pending bid to cut his prison term, and that a prosecutor had supported him.
At the retrial, an Anne Arundel County jury gave the 28-year-old the same result as the first jury. Since then, Ware's convictions and sentence were affirmed by the Maryland Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.
In his latest appeal, Ware claimed poor preparation by his public defenders -- John F. Gunning and Rodney C. Warren, who became an Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge Thursday.
During a year and half of preparing for his second trial, Ware told his lawyers that if convicted he would agree to be sentenced by a judge instead of a jury, an option only in death penalty cases. But within minutes of the jury's verdict in 1999, Ware told the two assistant public defenders that he wanted the jury to sentence him.
His lawyers said in court that they were caught off guard, without witnesses and data that might help persuade a jury to spare Ware's life.
"We just didn't have the other family members there, we didn't call them," said Gunning. "The most important thing we had to do in that situation was at least call the commissioner of parole to explain to the jury that life without parole means life without parole."
A judge would know that. But the only way to convince many ordinary citizens of that would be for a public official to tell them, Gunning said.
"I don't think in our wildest dreams did we think he might say, `I want a jury now,'" he said.
Ware was convicted on a Monday, and the sentencing hearing began the next day. Gunning and Warren sought more time to prepare. But Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Raymond G. Thieme Jr. said no, and the lawyers were left to present their case with little beyond Ware's aunt's testimony and a videotape of a social worker.
Warren, the lead defense counsel, declined to comment.
Yesterday's ruling, which comes during a statewide moratorium on executions and a study on the fairness of the death penalty, heartened opponents. Ware was the only black man on death row convicted of killing an African-American.
"I'm glad to see the court is taking close scrutiny," said Jane Henderson, co-director of the Quixote Center in Prince George's County, a group that opposes the death penalty.
No date for what will be Ware's third sentencing for the killings has been set. He once again could choose sentencing by judge or jury.
