Jury Report

ARROGANT. Obstructionist." Yeah, we already knew that. So C. Scott Stone, school board president and principal defender of its misbehavior, had it half-right when he said of the county grand jury report: "I didn't read any new information for us to discuss."

Jurors in Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's theft and embezzlement trial are heading into a fourth day of deliberations today but reported Monday that they were making "progress." A note delivered about 4:30 p.m. Monday from the jury forewoman asked Judge Dennis M. Sweeney to dismiss jurors for the day but also said, "We are making progress." "My suggestion is that we follow the jury's lead," Sweeney said, and instructed the nine women and three men to return at 9 a.m. today.

THE STRAW that broke the camel's back or making political hay? That's a lingering question about the 19-month county grand jury investigation of the Carroll school system. The grand jury's interim report in October was replete with proposals for changes in the construction and accounting system -- proposals that had already been publicly raised and discussed at length. Two internal reports, by lawyers and management consultants, preceded the grand jury's interim report. Candidates campaigning for the school board were actively debating the subject.

Having gratefully escaped being seated on a Baltimore City jury despite multiple summonses for duty, I would have to agree with what Groucho Marx said in a different context: He wouldn't want to belong to any club that would have him as a member. City juries have a less than enviable reputation. You've heard the complaints no doubt, or grumbled a few yourself: Oh, they won't convict anyone. They're made up largely of blacks, and they don't want to send another brother to prison. It's jury nullification, doncha know?

To understand Kenneth Lavon Johnson, the Baltimore judge who commissioned last week's controversial grand jury report blasting the local drug enforcement effort, you have to leave the big East Coast city and go back to the segregated South of lunch-counter sit-ins.From there, you'd go halfway around the world to the Far East, where a black man who now notes that he "couldn't buy a hamburger in Mississippi" served his country during wartime as an Army lawyer. Your next stop would be in Washington, D.C., where this lawyer quit his job in the U.S. Justice Department because he refused to work for a "crook" like then-Attorney General John Mitchell.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A cigar box filled with crime scene photos and tapes of John Zile's statement to police were among the evidence presented yesterday to the grand jury reviewing Christina Holt's death.The investigation wrapped up late yesterday after all evidence in the death of the 7-year-old girl had been presented to the 18-member panel, said Mike Edmondson, spokesman for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office. The grand jury report is expected to be released tomorrow.Medical Examiner James Benz and investigators from the Riviera Beach Police Department and State Attorney's Office appeared before the panel yesterday.

The state special prosecutor will broaden the investigation of a Baltimore grand jury's findings that the city Police Department's drug enforcement effort is badly managed and the city state's attorney's office thwarted investigations involving prominent drug suspects.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms have assailed the report, calling it shallow and amateurish. But State Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli decided yesterday that the allegations are serious enough to warrant further investigation.

Sparked by a grand jury report that's highly critical of Baltimore's Police Department, the state special prosecutor has requested the department's files on a number of cases, including a 1990 murder investigation in which state Sen. Larry Young was interviewed by detectives.State Special Prosecutor Stephen Montanarelli is investigating a city grand jury's finding that the city Police Department's drug enforcement effort is badly managed and the city state's attorney's office thwarted investigations involving prominent drug suspects.

A week after the release of an interim report from the grand jury investigating possible mismanagement in the county school system, Carroll State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes gave the school board a verbal lashing and urged it to make "drastic changes" to restore public confidence and get the system back on track. "This is not necessarily a doomsday report, though I do think it should be seen as a distinct wake-up call for this board and the administration of this school system," Barnes said at last night's standing-room-only board meeting.

In a strongly worded report, a Worcester County special grand jury is calling on the state to change the way it handles child-abuse cases to help prevent tragedies like the beating death of a county boy in March.The proposals include relaxing state laws that impose a tight veil of secrecy over reports of suspected child abuse; hiring more child protective workers and training them better; and enacting a law that would impose criminal penalties for failure to report suspected child abuse.The grand jury report was prompted by the case of 8-year-old Shamir Hudson, whose bloody, beaten body was discovered in a mobile home outside Berlin.

The state did a poor job of providing medical care to prisoners at Baltimore's downtown prison over much of the past five years because of a flawed and underfunded contract with a private company that took effect in 2000, according to a grand jury report released yesterday. But the report, which supports findings of a Sun investigation published this year, credits the Ehrlich administration for its efforts to come up with an innovative solution to the problems through a new set of medical care contracts that state officials signed in June.

The Anne Arundel County chapter of the NAACP is demanding an investigation into reports that jurors improperly discussed the case of a white Pasadena teenager who was later acquitted of charges in the death of a black teenager in a melee. Gerald Stansbury, president of the Anne Arundel branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, expressed his concerns in a letter to Judge Joseph P. Manck, who presided over the manslaughter trial of Jacob Tyler Fortney, 19. Fortney was acquitted of all charges May 12. Stansbury released his letter to news outlets yesterday - a day before the victim's mother is scheduled to meet with prosecutors to discuss the case.

FDA allows for use of home defibrillators without prescription WASHINGTON - People worried about sudden cardiac arrest no longer need a doctor's prescription to buy devices that jump-start the heart. The Food and Drug Administration for the first time agreed yesterday to let consumers go online and purchase the $2,000 devices for home use. Some 80 percent of the instances of sudden cardiac arrest, which is best treated by a shock from a defibrillator, happen at home. The FDA endorsed a July recommendation from its advisory panel to remove the prescription requirement after federal advisers were satisfied that people could use the machines safely at home.

THE STRAW that broke the camel's back or making political hay? That's a lingering question about the 19-month county grand jury investigation of the Carroll school system. The grand jury's interim report in October was replete with proposals for changes in the construction and accounting system -- proposals that had already been publicly raised and discussed at length. Two internal reports, by lawyers and management consultants, preceded the grand jury's interim report. Candidates campaigning for the school board were actively debating the subject.

Carroll State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes disclosed yesterday that the county school system was fined $10,000 for building a wastewater treatment plant without state permits, and he implored the county commissioners to keep a close tab on school system spending, warning that failing to do so could lead to a tax increase. Barnes' meeting with the board included a rare show of disagreement between Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Robin Bartlett Frazier, political allies who frequently override board President Julia Walsh Gouge's vote in setting county policy.

A week after the release of an interim report from the grand jury investigating possible mismanagement in the county school system, Carroll State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes gave the school board a verbal lashing and urged it to make "drastic changes" to restore public confidence and get the system back on track. "This is not necessarily a doomsday report, though I do think it should be seen as a distinct wake-up call for this board and the administration of this school system," Barnes said at last night's standing-room-only board meeting.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Marshall A. Levin says it was pTC with "profound reluctance" that he dismissed all 51 prospective jurors in the nation's largest-ever consolidated trial.The giant trial of 9,032 asbestos cases was derailed May 22 when a defense law firm faxed psychological profiles of prospective jurors to the opposition.Calling the incident "bizarre," Levin decided yesterday to strike the potential jurors and start over again."I do that [strike the jurors] with profound reluctance," he said.

Beautiful. The cops keep telling us we're losing control of our kids, and now a grand jury tells us we're losing the kids even when they're allegedly under control.The cops keep arresting these children who've moved directly from Mother Goose to Lady Cocaine. The playgrounds are now finishing schools for tomorrow's parasites. For this, the community keeps places like the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School, where the most troubling kids are taken for incarceration and, you should pardon the expression, correction.

ARROGANT. Obstructionist." Yeah, we already knew that. So C. Scott Stone, school board president and principal defender of its misbehavior, had it half-right when he said of the county grand jury report: "I didn't read any new information for us to discuss."