Defense Lawyers

Prosecutors crafting the cases against the teenagers charged with killing a 14-year-old Crofton boy will have to show a direct connection between the beating of Christopher David Jones and his fall while riding his bicycle shortly afterward, criminal defense lawyers said on Tuesday. Details that could make those links will not be in place for weeks, authorities said. The complete autopsy report probably will not be available for a month, police said. It is expected to shed light on the nature of Jones' injuries, first allegedly at the hands of his attackers, and then as he fell and hit his head when pedaling away.

Defense lawyers for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon reinforced their arguments Monday that the 12 criminal offenses against the mayor should be dropped, with her lawyers insisting that four perjury charges are based on "a fundamental misreading" of the city's ethics code. The arguments contained in court filings offered a preview of what defense lawyers could spend time discussing Thursday, when they are scheduled to make an oral presentation in Baltimore Circuit Court on their motion to dismiss all charges.

A Baltimore man accused of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend before leaping from a window to escape and breaking both legs, committed the stabbing in self-defense, his attorney argued yesterday. Attorneys presented opening arguments yesterday in the case of Kazeem Akinyoade Akinniyi in Howard County Circuit Court. The 26-year-old is charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder, assault and burglary in the stabbing of Jefferson Bolden. Prosecutors plan to argue during the two-day jury trial that Akinniyi broke into the Columbia apartment of his ex-girlfriend, Sharon Johnson, about 5 a.m. Dec. 23, 2007.

A Baltimore defense attorney who took the stand last week to defend himself against allegations of witness tampering has filed assault and witness retaliation charges against a former client. Tony N. Garcia is alleging that Charles Robinson, 31, confronted him and demanded that his colleague, defense attorney Ivan Bates, refund him his $2,500 fee. Garcia had assisted Bates with Robinson's case. When Garcia told Robinson that he wasn't his primary attorney and that Robinson would have to take the matter up with Bates, Robinson replied, "I can walk up on you any time, anywhere.

In two trials this week, Baltimore defense attorneys took the witness stand to defend themselves against allegations of witness tampering - evidence, prosecutors say, of some attorneys' willingness to push the boundaries by playing into the city's "street justice" culture. Yesterday, a judge ruled that a jury can hear testimony from a prosecution witness who said defense attorney Leslie Stein urged him to change his story, telling him that "people don't last long when they snitch." Baltimore Circuit Judge Timothy Doory said he didn't necessarily believe the witness, Christopher Meadows, over the 35-year veteran attorney, who denied the allegations.

The defense attorney in a Baltimore murder trial is accused of visiting the prosecution's main witness in jail over the weekend and trying to convince him to change his story, allegedly by asking him, "How does it feel to be a snitch? You know what happens to people when they snitch? They leave jail in a box." Leslie Stein, 65, a defense attorney for 28 years, spent more than an hour on the witness stand yesterday as prosecutors sought to have him removed from the case - and to introduce evidence of his alleged threats against the witness in the murder trial.

After prosecutor Anne Colt Leitess questioned inmate Bradford Matthews yesterday about the beating he allegedly suffered at the hands of correction officers, the defense attorneys got their chance. And again, and again, and again and again. The second-degree assault trials of five Jessup Correctional Institution officers were heard jointly this week in Anne Arundel Circuit Court, which means there have been five opening statements, five chances to cross-examine witnesses, and, often, a chorus of objections requiring all 10 people seated at the defense table to approach the judge's bench.

Arguing that convicted killer Brandon T. Morris should be spared the death penalty because of his difficult childhood, defense attorneys yesterday presented experts who testified that children who grow up neglected and abused are more prone to violence when they become adults. During the second day of sentencing hearings in Howard County Circuit Court, a social worker described Morris' childhood as marked by sexual abuse by an older male and his mother, a lack of food, episodes of homelessness and continual exposure to drugs and crime.

John Francis King Sr., a retired Baltimore medical malpractice defense lawyer, died Wednesday of Alzheimer's disease at College Manor nursing home in Lutherville. The former Federal Hill and Ruxton resident was 82. Mr. King was born and raised in Waynesboro, Pa., and graduated in 1943 from Mercersburg Academy. He served as a signalman in the Navy in the Atlantic from 1943 until 1945. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree from Dickinson College and his law degree in 1950 from Georgetown University.

Fred Warren Bennett, a criminal defense attorney who developed specialties in capital litigation and the rules of evidence, died Sunday in a car crash in Pasadena. He was 65. Defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges and family members described him yesterday as a tireless attorney and tenacious litigator who was passionately devoted to protecting the rights of the accused and to providing top-quality counsel to the less fortunate. A former top federal public defender for Maryland who opened his own practice, Mr. Bennett worked furiously on the cases of two of the last four inmates executed in Maryland.