When Judge Richard S. Bernhardt ran for election to a 15-year term as a nonpartisan Circuit Court judge in Howard County a year after then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. appointed him to the bench in 2005, he talked about his experience as a judge and attorney, not individual cases.
But it's tough decisions like the one Bernhardt made recently to send 16-year-old Darnell Rasheen Furby back to juvenile court that gives voters a chance to consider the quality of their selection.
Furby was one of three youths charged as adults with attacking and robbing a private security guard near the Long Reach Village Center May 13, though Furby is not suspected of firing a gun or of physically hitting the victim. Multiple shots were fired, but they missed the 27-year-old man, whom one youth hit in the mouth with his fist. The guard's car was broken into and rifled for spare change. Furby had been out on bail since the incident, though Bernhardt ordered him taken into custody and detained until a hearing before a juvenile master. The other two youths charged are awaiting trials this fall.
Russell Swatek, elected in April as Long Reach's representative on the Columbia Association Board, said he was nearby that night and heard the shots. Crime at or near the village center was a frequent topic among citizens as he campaigned, he added.
"The No. 1 issue that people brought up all the time was crime and graffiti. Many people won't go to that village center. Obviously, it is a very big issue," Swatek said.
So Bernhardt was faced with a tough choice.
What do you do with a rebellious teenager who with his friends is frightening the public and hurting a community? Do you expose him to adult prison to protect society at the risk that his bad choices could turn him into a life-long criminal? Or do you give him one more chance as a juvenile to straighten himself out?
State juvenile services worker Jennifer Littlejohn testified that Furby completed two state juvenile programs last summer after he got into trouble for drugs and driving without a license, and that they have more ways to try to help him, including placement in a residential school if needed.
"He presented as a respectful young man to me," she said. He has a concerned father and mother and if he stays in the community, he will attend the county's Homewood School for disruptive students, and not return to Long Reach High, where he was cited 14 times last year for cursing at teachers, refusing to listen and being disruptive.
