More than 18 months after Corrections Officer David McGuinn was fatally stabbed, corrupt activities behind the walls of a Jessup prison that led veteran officers to call it the "House of Corruption" are complicating the state's efforts to send two inmates to the death chamber for the crime.
In legal motions, defense lawyers for the inmates portray conditions at the now-closed Maryland House of Correction as approaching "anarchy."
They have raised the claim by an unidentified witness that McGuinn, a by-the-book officer, was set up by fellow guards to keep him from disrupting their contraband smuggling and other corrupt activities at the maximum-security facility.
But in responses filed with the court this week, attorneys for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services said that claim came from an inmate and that he had no first-hand information. He repeated to state police what he allegedly had been told by another inmate, they said. That person "provided no information directly" to investigators, the lawyers said.
In their legal motions, the state's lawyers also questioned the accuracy of defense claims that state police had identified, in their reports, 21 officers as being involved in corrupt activities.
In some instances, they said, the officers named by the defense team were not assigned to the House of Correction when McGuinn was killed. And in others, there is no credible evidence that officers were involved in illegal activity, they wrote.
The state outlined its position in motions that seek to keep personnel records for corrections officers out of the hands of defense lawyers for Lamarr Harris and Lee Stephens, the two inmates accused of killing McGuinn.
The defense wants disciplinary and investigatory files for 21 officers whom they say witnesses identified to state police as being involved in corruption.
Assistant Attorney General Laura Mullally said in legal motions that the documents the defense seeks are not relevant to the murder case.
Even if the state has records of corrupt behavior by officers, she wrote, they are not subject to disclosure because they fall under exceptions to Maryland's Public Information Act.
State corrections officials have acknowledged that some correctional officers smuggle prohibited items, such as cell phones, tobacco and drugs, into the prisons in exchange for cash or because they have a personal relationship with an inmate.
