In July of 2006, corrections Officer David McGuinn was murdered at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup. Union officials said that McGuinn was on an inmate hit list and had been assigned duties other than housing units because of death threats, but then was reassigned back into housing units.
McGuinn was doing cell checks - alone - when two inmates managed to escape from their cells and fatally stab him. Lee E. Stephens and Lamarr C. Harris have been charged with murder in McGuinn's death. They are to be tried in Anne Arundel County; prosecutors have asked for the death penalty for both defendants.
For all those who asked questions last year about why McGuinn was first reassigned away from housing units and then sent back in to do cell checks alone, corrections officials said all that stuff was "under investigation."
In response, Richard L. Simmons, a former corrections officer who commented in one of my columns in July of last year, offered this comment: "They'll be investigating the next six months. That way, they don't have to come up with no answers."
It's been 15 months since McGuinn was killed. Do we know yet whether he was reassigned outside the housing units of the House of Correction because of death threats and then sent back in by some clueless supervisor to do cell checks alone.
"I can't answer that," Kristen Riggins, a spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office, told me yesterday. Why?
Those things are still "under investigation."
Let's give Simmons a prize for his piercing perspicacity. It remains to be seen whether the rest of us get a booby prize for letting officials straight up clown us in getting answers to those questions about McGuinn. We can't really fault the Anne Arundel County state's attorney's office. Riggins said there was a motions hearing scheduled for Stephens and Harris in October, but their defense attorneys asked for a postponement.
They got it. Riggins said that there isn't even a trial date for Stephens and Harris yet. The postponement "epitomizes the death penalty in Maryland," Riggins said. "It takes four years for a death penalty case to come to trial."
We may have to wait that long to get answers to those questions. One thing is certain: we've already received two conflicting answers from the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and the Division of Correction.
