It was the health department's responsibility to monitor him and about 600 other people on "conditional release" from psychiatric institutions.
Panteleakis said his client never should have been released. Dyson "says he was only taking his medications once a day, instead of three, and he was spending $120 a day on crack and drinking two to three 40s of beer," he said. "He was living shelter to shelter. They lost track of him; they claim they didn't. But if they didn't, then how was he using crack and never got caught?"
In an interview, Fitch described the caseworker's efforts to locate Dyson after he failed to show up as "aggressive" and the daily visits required of him as "unusual."
Fitch said Dyson moved often. He had lived in three assisted-living facilities - in Baltimore, Pikesville and Randallstown - and was living independently at the time of the attack on Harris. But he said he was not homeless.
Fitch said he could not find any results from a drug test in Dyson's state file, but that did not necessarily mean that none had been performed. He said the state's monitoring of mentally ill people released from psychiatric facilities by the courts is "tight."
"Of the 600 people on conditional release, their rearrest rate is lower than Marylanders in general," he said. " ... Here's someone who has reoffended, and that's extraordinarily rare. Now 20 percent, or more than 100, are rehospitalized during the year. Their illnesses do wax and wane, and that shows that we're watching them."
Olin had asked for a 30-year sentence for Dyson. "This is his third robbery with a deadly weapon, and he does pose a great, great danger," Olin told Kershaw. "He can receive medication, and he chose not to take it. I asked for 30 years straight in an attempt to protect society."
melissa.harris@baltsun.com
