Sister Muriel Curran faced the man who shoved her to the ground and ripped away her purse three years ago. She quoted Scripture. She thanked him for the guilty plea that spared her a trial. And she asked a Baltimore County judge not to send him to prison.
"There is possibility and hope - I believe in it, it's what I'm about - in rehabilitation and a future," the 78-year-old nun said yesterday, explaining that she has difficulty believing in a penal system that sometimes leaves criminals worse off than before they went to prison. "I've taught too many boys in my life not to believe that growth and change can take place."
Police officers waiting for other cases listened in astonishment.
The defendant's aunt and grandmother wept openly. Even strangers sitting in the courtroom sat spellbound and dabbed at their eyes. The veteran prosecutor handling the case fought back tears and later characterized the scene as "the single most profound thing I have ever heard in a courtroom."
And the convicted robber, Charles R. Dodson, 22, hung his bald and tattooed head as he tearfully offered apologies and begged for the forgiveness that the nun had already granted.
Asked after the hearing what had inspired her unusual approach to the man who left her with broken bones and deep bruises, unable to fully raise one arm and incapable of living on her own any longer, Sister Curran answered simply.
"The Gospel," she said. "You hear that cliche - `What would Jesus do?' - but if you live it, you've got to believe it."
The prosecutor and even the defendant's lawyer had asked for a sentence of three to eight years in the robbery.
On April 27, 2005, Sister Curran and another nun were returning to their apartment on Nunley Drive in Parkville about 10:30 p.m. As they searched for a parking spot, they saw two young men talking on the sidewalk near their building, according to charging documents.
Minutes later, after one of the men had asked for directions and as Sister Curran held the door for her friend, who was carrying luggage, someone shoved the nun and snatched her purse. The robbers made off with the handbag, which contained $70 in a birthday card.
Sister Curran broke five ribs and tore her rotator cuff in the fall. Her face and arm were badly bruised. A gash above her eye required stitches.
"My right arm is permanently disabled. The doctors can do nothing," Sister Curran said yesterday, explaining that the injuries have effectively made the defendant a permanent part of her life.
