The agreement allowed prosecutors to seek a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole and stripped Miller of all but a few extremely limited rights to appeal the new murder conviction.
But afterward, Miller filed one motion after another to undo the agreement. He accused his attorneys of trying to "trick" him and other wrongdoing. Concerned that the defendant was using them to continually delay sentencing, the judge removed those lawyers from the case and appointed new counsel.
That attorney, Brian J. Murphy, argued yesterday that Miller should get a new trial because he did not know until after he pleaded guilty last year that the lead prosecutor originally assigned to his case - who is now a judge - had spoken at a sentencing on behalf of the state witness whose testimony concerned the three Court of Appeals judges.
But after hearing testimony yesterday from one of Miller's former attorneys, the Baltimore County prosecutor who remains on the case and Miller himself, the judge denied the request.
As the lawyers proceeded to sentencing and Chuck Poehlman began to speak, the relatives seated behind him dissolved into tears. Dullea wrapped her arms around her son as his shoulders shook with sobs. And reflecting the 10 long years that the family has been entangled with the criminal justice system, Peggy Basham, the director of the state's attorney's victim witness unit, wrapped her arms around Dullea as she wept.
"It's been a long process," said Coffin, the prosecutor who has had the case since Miller was arrested in 1998. "When we started, Jeremiah was 16 years old and full of rage and hate - and now he's an amazing police officer. Chuck was full of rage and hate - and now he's a man at peace, although still wanting justice for his daughter. And both Janice and Heather [Shen's older sister] still embrace the best of Shen in their lives."
Chuck Poehlman has long been the most outspoken member of his family when it came to the murder case. During the trial, he calculated the distance to Miller's courtroom seat and imagined killing the defendant himself, he said. For years, he was the lone holdout in his family against any plea deal that would spare Miller from execution.
As he told the judge yesterday of unzipping the bag in which Shen's body was transported to the funeral home, the memory remained vivid and raw.
