Conyers

The gunshots started only minutes after Clarence Conyers Jr. and Lawrence Bradshaw left a female friend's home in Lansdowne nearly 10 years ago and walked into the dark early morning. Before a quarter-hour had passed, Conyers was back at the woman's doorstep and Bradshaw was bleeding in the street from six gunshot wounds. Now, almost a decade later, prosecutors and defense attorneys say Conyers shot Bradshaw Oct. 23, 1994. But the reason he did so is hotly contested -- and likely will prove key when a Baltimore County jury decides next week whether Conyers, 35, murdered two people and whether he should be sentenced to death.

Jennifer N. Conyers, a Baltimore City Health Department research analyst who enjoyed making jewelry and photography, was found slain Friday in her Northwest Baltimore home. She was 32. Ms. Conyers' body was discovered in the basement of her home in the 5700 block of Highgate Drive by city firefighters. Jennifer Nicole Conyers, the daughter of Harry Anthony Conyers, a Baltimore Detention Center case manager, and Alverta Elzine Moore Conyers, a retired Baltimore Sun copy editor, was born in Baltimore and raised on Key Avenue in Mount Washington.

A Baltimore County Circuit Court judge sentenced convicted killer Clarence Conyers to two life terms without parole yesterday, marking the second time in less than five months he has declined to impose a death sentence, in part because of its possible effects on the victims' families. "The devastating effect that this unending litigation has on the innocent families of the victims is incalculable. By imposing a death sentence, I ensure that the victim's families will be subjected to many more years of appeals," Judge Dana M. Levitz said in court yesterday.

Mr. Howard Bruce Boyce An informal "Gathering of friends" will be held at the Bernhardt Funeral Home, 163 River Street, Ellijay, GA on Saturday, February 6th at 2:00 P.M. where friends and family can come together and share memories and celebrate his life. A memorial service will be held on Sunday, February 7th at 2:00 P.M. at Conyers First United Methodist Church, 921 Main Street, Conyers, GA. In lieu of flowers the family has requested donations be made to renal cell research at the following address: Dean R. O'Neill Renal Cell Cancer Research Fund c/o Foundation for the National Institute of Health (NIH)

A Baltimore County Circuit Court jury convicted Clarence Conyers of two counts of first-degree murder yesterday, forcing him to face the possibility of a death sentence for the third time in nearly a decade. Conyers, 35, was convicted for the second time in the October 1994 slayings of Wanda Johnson, 44, and Lawrence Bradshaw, 22, both of northwest Baltimore County. He will be sentenced today. Conyers has already been sentenced to death twice for killing Johnson and Bradshaw, but the first two sentences and his original conviction were overturned on appeal.

A Roman Catholic priest who is accused of filing a false carjacking report to cover up a night with a male prostitute has been relieved of his priestly faculties and is missing from his Lansdowne parish. The Rev. Steven P. Girard, 54, pastor of St. Clement I Catholic Church, has been missing since last week, when Baltimore County police charged him with making a false statement to a police officer after his story about a carjacking unraveled under police questioning. Girard has been placed on leave and his priestly faculties suspended, said Raymond P. Kempisty, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

While awaiting trial in Baltimore County nearly a decade ago on charges of committing two murders, Clarence Conyers Jr. is alleged to have discussed the killings with his cellmate, telling him exactly where the slayings occurred, how many times each victim had been shot and whose car had been used as the getaway. But how Conyers learned the specifics he disclosed that day was hotly debated in Baltimore County Circuit Court yesterday as the defense and prosecution made their closing arguments at Conyers' trial - his third in the 1994 deaths of 44-year-old Wanda Johnson and Lawrence Markell Bradshaw, 22. At issue is whether Conyers killed Wanda Johnson during a burglary Oct. 21 and killed Bradshaw days later, then confessed to his cellmate, Charles Johnson, of no relation to Wanda Johnson.

With his lawyers by his side, a smartly dressed Clarence Conyers Jr. came into a Baltimore County courtroom yesterday for his third life-or-death trial. The 35-year-old, accused of killing his former girlfriend's mother during a burglary and of then shooting to death the man prosecutors say was his accomplice, has been convicted of the murders once and sentenced to death twice. Yesterday, jury selection started for Conyers' second death-penalty trial and, if he is found guilty, his third death-penalty sentencing hearing.

A Woodlawn man sentenced to death in the killing of a Baltimore County woman during a break-in at her home won a new trial yesterday from the state's highest court. The Maryland Court of Appeals reversed two first-degree murder convictions against Clarence Conyers Jr. in the killing of the woman and his alleged accomplice. The court ruled that county prosecutors did not turn over evidence that might have helped the defense, as required by state law. Conyers was sentenced to death by a Wicomico County jury in 1998 in the killing of Wanda Johnson, the mother of his former girlfriend.

A Woodlawn man received the death penalty this week for the second time, after a Wicomico County jury deliberated for three hours on his sentence for the 1994 murder of his former girlfriend's mother in Baltimore County.The 1996 death sentence for Clarence Conyers Jr. was overturned last year when the Court of Appeals ruled that the jury sentencing him was given inadmissible evidence of his juvenile arrest record.Conyers was convicted in 1996 of murdering Wanda Johnson of the 7100 block of Bexhill Road in southeastern Baltimore County on Oct. 21, 1994, while he was burglarizing her home.

Ann Conyers Semans, a community volunteer who was active in her church, died of pneumonia Sunday at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. She was 82. Born Ann Rosemary Conyers in Hamilton, Bermuda, she married a Baltimorean, William Ritchie Semans, in 1944 while he was serving in the Army. They lived in Bolton Hill and Roland Park. Mrs. Semans was a volunteer with Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland for many years. She enjoyed gardening and played tennis. She was an Elkridge Club member.

CHICAGO -- Back in the late 1960s, in the heyday of the civil rights movement, I remember a black activist complaining that movies and TV programs treated blacks too respectfully, as if they all resembled Sidney Poitier and Diahann Carroll - soft-spoken, noble, almost angelic. We would know things had really changed for the better, he said, when we saw blacks in deodorant commercials, an admission that they could smell bad just like anyone else. In the political world, that day arrived some time ago. African-American and Latino politicians are subject to the same vicious, slimy, partisan mauling as other candidates, and they generally accept that as part of the fun. But lately, we keep hearing that such attacks stem not from normal political competition but from lingering bigotry.

WASHINGTON // The constituents are swarming through the Rayburn House Office Building. At the House Judiciary Committee offices, an elderly couple hopes Chairman John Conyers Jr. can address a friend's immigration problem, but an aide explains that the committee can only change laws, not intervene for individuals. While this drama unfolds quietly in the reception area, a political-action comedy takes screwball form in the rear quarters. Movieland publicity and political pep-rallying fuse with the appearance of a citizen who casts a bigger shadow.

WASHINGTON -- It was barely 20 minutes into yesterday's House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, but already the chairman, Michigan Democrat John Conyers Jr., was exasperated. The Michigan Democrat had posed the simple question at the heart of the federal prosecutors' firing investigation: Who put the eight prosecutors on the list to be dismissed and why? Gonzales offered a rambling 119-word response about accepting responsibility and assigning an aide to review prosecutors' performance before Conyers cut him off and tried again.

WASHINGTON -- The House Judiciary Committee issued a broad subpoena yesterday for additional documents concerning the abrupt firing of eight U.S. attorneys, and Chairman John Conyers Jr. warned Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that time has run out for disagreements over how much material will be handed over. "We have been patient," said Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, but the Department of Justice has not shown "any meaningful willingness" to cooperate with the widening investigation by congressional Democrats.

On August 28, 2006 WILDER; devoted mother of 3 daughters, 2 sons, 5 grandchildren, 5 great grandchildren, 1 sister, nieces, nephews and a host of other relatives and friends. Friends may call at the Carlton C. Douglass Funeral Service, P.A., 1701 McCulloh St., on Tuesday 2 to 9 P.M. Family will receive friends Wednesday 10 to 10:30 A.M. at the Gwynn Oak U.M. Church, 5020 Gwynn Oak Ave., with services following. Interment Woodlawn Cemetery.

A man sentenced to death last year for murdering a Baltimore County woman in a break-in at her home won a chance yesterday from the state's highest court to plead for his life a second time.Clarence Conyers Jr. 29, was wrongfully sentenced for the murder of Wanda Johnson because prosecutors used inadmissible evidence about his juvenile record to persuade jurors to impose the death penalty last year, the Court of Appeals ruled.Conyers was sentenced by a Wicomico County jury for fatally shooting Johnson, the mother of his former girlfriend, when she interrupted a burglary attempt at her home in the 7100 block of Bexhill Road in Hebbville on Oct. 21, 1994.

A Baltimore County Detention Center inmate being held on another homicide charge was charged yesterday in the Oct. 21 slaying of a Hebbville woman who was shot when she interrupted a burglary at her home, county police said.Clarence Conyers Jr., 27, of the first block of Castleford Court in Woodlawn was charged with first-degree murder and burglary in the death of Wanda Johnson, 44, of the 7100 block of Bexhill Road, police said.Mr. Conyers already was being held without bail in the center awaiting trial in the slaying of a Gwynn Oak man who was found fatally shot in Baltimore Highlands two days after the Johnson slaying.

EVERY GENERATION BLAMES THE ONE BEFORE. - MIKE + THE MECHANICS "THE LIVING YEARS" WASHINGTON -- Late last year, John Conyers Jr., Democratic congressman from Michigan, proposed impeaching the president of the United States. The proposal received scant attention in the media mainstream, though it was picked up with glee by liberal bloggers and provided a rallying point for the president's supporters. The lack of notice can be attributed to the fact that the proposal's chances of passage were roughly akin to those of an ice cube's surviving a steam bath.

MARYLAND Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele are both wrong about the Democratic Party being racist when it comes to blacks, but let's be clear about why. The Democratic leadership doesn't have the guts to be racist. But it does let selected hatchet men and hit men do its racist dirty work for it. More on that in a bit, but first a recap of the charges Ehrlich and Steele made in an article by Sun reporter David Nitkin yesterday. "I saw a message coming from the Democratic convention," Ehrlich said in the article.