Defense Attorneys

A West Baltimore teenager who says three city police officers kidnapped him and dumped him in a Howard County park with no shoes or cellphone testified that he lied about being beaten up, and denied telling an attorney that he was choked by the officers. The admission came Monday, on the fourth day of testimony in the kidnapping and misconduct trial of Officers Tyrone S. Francis, Gregory Hellen and Milton G. Smith III, who are accused of leaving Michael B. Johnson Jr. in Patapsco Valley State Park on May 4, 2009, after dropping off his friend, Shawnquin Woodland, in East Baltimore earlier the same day. When Johnson called 911 from Howard County, he told the dispatcher he had been beaten up, which he testified on Monday was untrue, except for a tap of a nightstick.

In an effort to target some of Maryland's most violent criminals, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s legislative agenda this year includes a bill that would give prosecutors broader powers to go after anyone who intimidates or harms witnesses, a chronic problem in Baltimore that stymies many of the city's homicide cases. The proposed legislation, among other things, would stiffen penalties for threatening or harming a witness, and allow some out-of-court statements to be used as evidence at trial.

The recent acquittal of a man charged with raping his wife at knifepoint stunned local rape counselors -- but many legal officials say it illustrates the difficulties of proving spousal or acquaintance rape cases."

The woman who was with Kenneth N. Harris the night he was killed said in court Monday that she was "terrified" when a man in a white Halloween mask walked up to the car they were sitting in and fired a shot at the former Baltimore city councilman, showering them both with glass. Monica Foreman-Robinson, whose identity was not publicly known until she took the stand at the start of the trial of three men accused of killing Harris on Sept. 20, 2008, said the car shook as the bullet shattered a driver's-side window.

To rack up arrests and look good for his bosses, Officer Kendell Richburg decided to ensure that his confidential informant could continue dealing drugs and funneling him information. He paid the unnamed informant with city funds, a standard procedure, but also gave him seized drugs to resell, according to court records. Richburg told the informant about the whereabouts of law enforcement in the Pimlico area where he operated, and the informant would tell Richburg about drug activity.

A Baltimore jury found Michael Maurice Johnson guilty of second-degree murder in the 2010 death of 16-year-old Phylicia Barnes, agreeing with prosecutors that the last known person to see the North Carolina teen alive was also her killer. Johnson stood with his eyes closed as jurors read the verdict and did not appear to react. Jurors acquitted him on the initial charge of first-degree murder, but after almost two days of deliberating reached a unanimous verdict on second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

With a full math and science scholarship to the Johns Hopkins University and accolades for his writing, Howard County's Mohammad Hassan Khalid seemed ready to continue the American dream his father embarked on years ago when he brought the family from Pakistan. But instead, on Friday the 18-year-old Khalid became one of the youngest people ever convicted in federal court of conspiracy to aid terrorists. He could receive up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

A judge found Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold guilty Tuesday of two counts of misconduct for using public employees to perform political and personal tasks, and he was suspended from office while the County Council made plans to force him out permanently. Circuit Judge Dennis M. Sweeney said the two-term Republican broke the law when he directed his taxpayer-funded police protection detail to put up campaign signs, collect contributions and compile dossiers on adversaries during his 2010 re-election campaign, and when he required county workers to empty the urinary catheter bag he used after back surgery.

Baltimore's lead detective in the high-profile disappearance of North Carolina teenager Phylicia Barnes was charged Monday with committing assault and burglary during a frantic search last year for his own daughter. Detective Daniel T. Nicholson IV, a veteran homicide investigator, is accused of forcing his way into a Northeast Baltimore apartment, knocking one woman down and pushing a second person to the ground in a search that began after his daughter ran away from home. The charges come more than a year after the allegations surfaced, and a month before the scheduled retrial of Michael Maurice Johnson in the death of Phylicia Barnes, a 16-year-old North Carolina teen who was visiting family in Baltimore when she went missing in 2010.

When he became state's attorney two years ago, Gregg L. Bernstein created the Major Investigations Unit, pulling in elite prosecutors to go after violent repeat offenders using complex techniques. In February, the unit took on a new case: a downtown fistfight among a group of people who work in finance. After police had declined to charge anyone, two 29-year-olds with government clearances and no criminal records were indicted by a grand jury and taken to jail before dawn on a Friday to sit in Central Booking for four days before getting a hearing.