NEWS
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun | May 10, 2012
Keith Russell Judd, better known as the federal inmate who scored 41 percent of the vote against President Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary, wanted to be on the ballot in Maryland, too. Without Judd in his path, Obama cruised to an 88 percent victory. Blame U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett, who last year dismissed Judd's complaint against the Maryland State Board of Elections in which he alleged he was being wrongly kept on the ballot. Bennett referred to Judd, who is serving a 210-month sentence in a Texas federal prison for extortion, as a "prolific and vexatious litigant who has filed more than 748 cases in federal courts since 1997.
NEWS
Dan Rodricks | April 21, 2012
For the first time since taking office five years ago, Gov. Martin O'Malleycommuted the sentence of a Maryland inmate serving life for murder - that of Mark Farley Grant, a Baltimore native who has been incarcerated for 29 years. In commuting Mr. Grant's sentence last month, the governor made no comment about the 44-year-old inmate's credible claim of innocence. A report that made the case for Mr. Grant's wrongful conviction in a 1983 street shooting went from the University of Maryland School of Law to the governor's office four years ago. It was either ignored or discounted.
NEWS
Dan Rodricks | March 29, 2012
When Renee Hutchins, the University of Maryland law professor, got her client on the phone Thursday afternoon and told him the news — that the governor was going to commute his life sentence — Mark Farley Grant was "largely speechless and completely stunned. " Hutchins said she will visit her client at the state prison in Hagerstown on Monday. By then, Grant should have a complete understanding of what's happening: freedom after nearly 30 years in prison, but no exoneration and no pardon.
NEWS
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun | March 29, 2012
Gov. Martin O'Malley is expected to commute the sentence of a Baltimore man serving a life sentence for murder, using that power for the first time during his tenure. Mark Farley Grant's attorney Renee M. Hutchins confirmed Thursday that she had been notified of O'Malley's decision. The O'Malley administration declined to comment, but an announcement was expected this afternoon. "[The governor] had not to this point granted any clemency requests, so I am extremely grateful to him for exercising his ability to do so in Mark's case," Hutchins said.
NEWS
Dan Rodricks | March 7, 2012
It appears that the governor of Maryland, a former prosecutor and Baltimore mayor who built his political career on zero-tolerance crime policies, might finally give birth to a conscience in the matter of Mark Farley Grant - an inmate who went to prison 28 years ago for a crime he most likely didn't commit. It's one thing to be tough on crime, another to be just and fair. In the matter of Farley Grant, the otherwise ambitious governor of Maryland has come late to the latter ... maybe.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel, The Baltimore Sun | February 22, 2012
Anne Arundel County jurors began weighing the possibility of a death sentence Wednesday for the inmate they convicted of murdering a correctional officer at a now-closed state prison in Jessup. "He brutally murdered, stabbing and ending the life of David McGuinn," prosecutor Sandra F. Howell told the jury, as convicted killer Lee Edward "Shy" Stephens, 32, looked on. "For that, ladies and gentlemen, the law provides the ultimate penalty. " If the jury, scheduled to resume deliberations Thursday morning, agrees with her, Stephens would become the first person to receive a death sentence under Maryland's new and more restrictive capital punishment law. The jury's sentencing choices are death, life without parole and life with the possibility of parole.