A witness told state police investigating the stabbing death of a corrections officer at a Jessup prison that corrupt guards involved in contraband smuggling "ordered the hit" on Officer David McGuinn, according to papers filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court.
The allegation - the first public suggestion that McGuinn might have been set up by other officers - is contained in a motion filed by defense attorneys for Lamarr Harris, one of two inmates charged with killing McGuinn on July 25, 2006.
The legal motion to produce evidence does not say whether the unidentified witness was a corrections officer, an inmate or someone else. State police homicide investigators interviewed the witness in the weeks after McGuinn was killed.
His death and the chaotic circumstances at the House of Correction - where dozens of weapons, cell phones and other prohibited items were seized in the aftermath of the stabbing - were factors in the state's closing of the institution last year.
"The witness alleged that the hit on Officer McGuinn was ordered because Officer McGuinn interfered with the conspiracy between officers and inmates to distribute contraband into the House of Correction," the legal filing states.
Defense lawyers signaled in the document that they intend to make the corrupt environment at the prison a centerpiece in their defense of Harris. He and Lee Stephens, the other inmate accused of killing McGuinn, face the death penalty if convicted.
No trial date has been set.
"The information that a correctional officer may have ordered the hit on Officer McGuinn is exculpatory to [Harris] ... and may exculpate either his guilt or mitigate his sentence," Harris' lawyers, William M. Davis, Mary Jo Livingston and Elizabeth W. Palan, said in the legal brief.
The witness provided the information during interviews with state police in August and September 2006. It was later made part of a written report by state police, which defense lawyers obtained through the discovery process.
The motion seeks personnel and disciplinary records of several corrections officers and similar documents.
State prison officials and state police declined to comment on the motion or the allegations by the witness.
"We're not able to discuss any aspects of this," said Greg Shipley, a state police spokesman. "That was a directive from the state's attorney's office. Our concern is that we need to maintain the integrity of the investigation and of the prosecution as this moves to trial."
