Criminals

In June, the Maryland State Advisory Committee (SAC) to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights held a daylong briefing in Annapolis to gather information about racial disparities in Maryland's criminal justice system. As advocates for reform, we were initially pleased that this important issue would be addressed by the SAC and hoped this would be a major step forward in terms of creating a fairer justice system in Maryland. Unfortunately, our optimism was misplaced. The SAC heard eight hours of testimony from national and state experts, community representatives, scholars, government officials, advocacy group representatives and the public.

Will Rogers once observed that a newspaper ad was worth about 40 editorials, which many of us in the opinion writing side of that equation suspect would be quite the bargain. Little else could explain the public's indifference to a topic that has launched countless editorials in recent years - the prosecution of political corruption in this state and the need for reform. So it provides some relief to hear someone in the public eye "gets it" and, like those ink-stained wretches banging out opinions from here to Salisbury, Rockville or Cumberland, recognizes that Maryland's reputation in the political arena is something less than sterling.

The Justice Department has entered into the largest criminal settlement in U.S. history with the giant oil company BP, in connection with the 2010 disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history. BP pleaded guilty to 14 criminal counts, including manslaughter, and agreed to pay $4 billion over the next five years. This is nonsensical. BP isn't a criminal. Corporations aren't people. They can't know right from wrong. They're incapable of criminal intent.

Any business that gets lucrative financial help from City Hall would be required to hire 51 percent of its workers from within the city limits or it could face a criminal sanction. Those are the terms of a new bill proposed by City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, who believes such legislation is needed to reduce what he calls Baltimore's "stubbornly high unemployment rate. " Young's "local hiring mandate" legislation will be introduced Monday before the City Council, he said.

Dunbar Armored has been in the armored-car business for nearly 90 years. But the Hunt Valley-based company now is branching into a new way to protect banks' and businesses' money and valuables: cybersecurity. The company is launching a subsidiary, Dunbar Digital Armored, early next year to tap into the growing need to protect online transactions for its thousands of bank and retail customers. Dunbar will focus its cybersecurity products on small and mid-size companies that are looking for tech-savvy solutions but don't have the deep pockets or cybersecurity expertise of the big banks.

City officials urged patience Wednesday as Baltimore police investigate an officer's conduct after the shooting death of a 13-year-old girl, and the new police commissioner said he hoped the probe would conclude soon. Officer John A. Ward will not face criminal charges in the March death of Monae Turnage, prosecutors said this week, a decision rendered two months ago but not announced to the public. As that investigation began following the shooting, a law enforcement source said police had found the rifle used to kill Turnage in Ward's personal car. State's Attorney Gregg L. Bernstein declined Wednesday to go beyond remarks that his office lacked information to move ahead with a criminal case against Ward, who was engaged to a half sister of one of the teenage suspects.

A former crime victim advocate in the Anne Arundel County prosecutors' office for more than a decade has been charged with lying to police. Daniel F. Weikert III, 39, a former victim-witness specialist in the State's Attorney's Office, was charged with lying to police about a Labor Day car accident, according to court documents. Much of the job involves working alongside prosecutors with crime victims and the witnesses, who may be called on to testify if a case goes to trial.

From how we live to where we can live, Marylanders have been expected to make an increasing number of personal sacrifices for the cause of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay over the last two decades or more. Many have been small (whether laundry detergent contains phosphates or not now seems inconsequential), while others, including the cost to homeowners and businesses of greener, more advanced sewage treatment or storm water control systems, have been substantial. But are the state's most egregious polluters - those who truly thumb their noses at laws protecting the nation's largest estuary and knowingly spill noxious materials into the bay and its tributaries - held as accountable?

A 28-year-old Columbia man sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering two people in Howard County in 2007 was found dead and bloodied in his Allegany County prison cell early Thursday morning, according to Maryland State Police. Charles David Richardson IV, who was known as "Face" when he was arrested in May 2007 in the murders of an acquaintance and a 7-Eleven clerk, was found about 5 a.m. under a blanket in his cell bed with trauma to his head, police said. Guards at the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cresaptown rushed into his cell after observing his cellmate "in possession of clothing that appeared to be bloodstained" outside the cell on an upper-level tier, police said.

One of the Baltimore Police Department's top commanders has reversed his decision to retire after meeting with the new commissioner-designate Anthony Batts, officials say.  Col. Jesse Oden, a 33-year veteran who oversees criminal investigations, filed paperwork to retire last week. Along with the absence of Acting Commissioner Anthony Barksdale, who is out "indefinitely" on medical leave, Batts was facing a transition without two of the agency's top four commanders.  Officials now say Oden has rescinded his retirement.