Those who believe juveniles get away with murder - or that the criminal justice system generally takes too soft an approach toward young men who commit violent crimes - will be pleased to know that Mark Farley Grant has been in prison for 25 1/2 years. He was arrested for murder when he was 14, tried and convicted when he was about to turn 15. A Baltimore judge sentenced Mr. Grant to life in prison. He's 41 years old now, a resident of the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services since 1984.
Yes, Maryland, we really do this. We have put teenagers (in this case, one who stood 5-feet-4 at the time of his crime) into our adult prisons and kept them there for many years.
Some believe this is just. Others find it appalling. But however you feel about the practice of putting juveniles in prison, the matter of Mark Farley Grant demands attention because it is likely he did not commit the crime for which he has been so profoundly penalized.
In fact, students at the University of Maryland Law School and their professors are convinced of it. They believe Gov. Martin O'Malley should commute Mr. Grant's sentence and release him from prison. What's more, they say they know who the real killer of Michael Gough is.
Michael Gough, a teenager from West Baltimore, was shot to death on a winter evening in 1983 a few blocks north of Edmondson Avenue, apparently because he refused to give up the leather jacket he was wearing at the time. There were several robberies of jackets and athletic shoes in the early 1980s - envious boys with guns taking down their peers who flashed new leather on some of the city's toughest streets.
Baltimore police charged Mark Grant, who was part of a group of boys in the area where Mr. Gough was shot, with his murder.
During his trial and in the years since his sentencing, Mr. Grant claimed innocence. From prison, he wrote letters and filed petitions and motions, asking courts to review his case or modify his sentence. He did this, by and large, without the help of an attorney. All of his requests were denied.
In 2004, he took his case to the Innocence Project at the University of Maryland Law School. The students of two professors, Renee Hutchins and Michael Millemann, took two years to research Mr. Grant's case before deciding to take it on. Their detailed report contains the following findings:
