Early Release

New mothers kicked out of hospitalsRobert N. Sheff, president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maryland HMOs, writes (Jan. 23, "Congratulations, Mom! Here'sthe door") that a 24-hour maternity hospital stay is ''the best choice given the alternatives." Best for whom? Certainly not for mothers and infants.Most life-threatening complications to mother and infant do not occur until 24 hours after birth -- postpartum hemorrhage and infections in the mother, jaundice, dehydration and deadly infections in the newborn.

When Christopher Cheswick learned that the drunken driver who killed his son Matthew might be paroled after little more than a year in prison, he turned to Facebook to post his outrage and heartbreak. Carl Braun had a different reaction: He launched an online petition to fight the early release of the man who took his friend's life. "I thought, 'This is not right,'" said Braun, 24. "The punishment does not fit the crime. Matthew's life was worth so much more than that. " Cheswick - friends called him "Cheese," for his camera-ready smile - was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver in Ocean City last May as he was crossing the Coastal Highway.

Advertisements praising Maryland's new gun control law will appear on Baltimore-area televisions soon after the measure is signed Thursday - the first volley in a two-pronged effort to defend the legislation and the politicians who voted for it. The gun control advocates behind the ads want to bolster support among Maryland voters in case there's a referendum next year. But they also want to counter a campaign to oust lawmakers who backed the bill in the General Assembly. "We know that the other side will be attacking the legislators who voted for it, and we want people to know those legislators were doing the right thing to save lives in Maryland," said Vincent DeMarco, president of Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence.

We have a great capacity for placing people into categories and minimizing their humanity. One such category is "felons" and another is "drug addicts. " We can easily forget that men and women who have been convicted of crimes or are suffering from substance abuse issues are the same as the rest of us at the core - fallible but resolutely hopeful. Here in Baltimore, a celebration of that capacity for hope and a reminder that redemption comes in many forms took place earlier this year in a small chapel within a church on Cathedral Street.

The State Board of Education last week granted Anne Arundel County Public Schools' request for a waiver of the 180-day school calendar requirement for Southern Middle School, allowing the last day of class for students to occur on Thursday, June 13. School officials said the early closing is necessary to help facilitate the move of Lothian Elementary School into space at Southern Middle while the new Lothian Elementary is built over the next two...

An Anne Arundel County judge refused Wednesday to give the killer of a woman who had befriended him a second chance to serve part of his sentence out of prison, saying that Christopher Perkins O'Brien was behind bars because he did not heed conditions of his previous release. O'Brien asked to be let out early because he has been assaulted and threatened behind bars, and has finished counseling programs. But leaving prison this week would have had him out just six months ahead of his expected mandatory release in May; a parole hearing this month also could lead to early freedom.

Over the next few months, 200 of the state's oldest and least violent inmates will be considered for early release to ease crowding in Maryland's 24 prisons.The state's commissioner of correction has ordered his staff to review the files of selected inmates 46 and older who have served from 30 percent to 70 percent of their sentences. None on the list has been convicted of a violent crime, child abuse or a sex offense against a child, said Leonard A. Sipes Jr., a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

Responding to legislative criticism, state prison officials have curtailed a program that granted early releases to prison inmates because they served time in overcrowded prisons.About a fourth of about 3,700 people who have left state prisons since April were awarded early releases under the special credit program.But last month the state Division of Correction began awarding the special credits more conservatively after legislatorscomplained that inmates not actually living in the overcrowded conditions were receiving the credits.

An Anne Arundel County judge refused Wednesday to give the killer of a woman who had befriended him a second chance to serve part of his sentence out of prison, saying that Christopher Perkins O'Brien was behind bars because he did not heed conditions of his previous release. O'Brien asked to be let out early because he has been assaulted and threatened behind bars, and has finished counseling programs. But leaving prison this week would have had him out just six months ahead of his expected mandatory release in May; a parole hearing this month also could lead to early freedom.