Juvenile Cases

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge yesterday postponed 13 juvenile cases scheduled for Monday because the city state's attorney's office said it does not have enough prosecutors in its juvenile division to handle its caseload.However, at the end of a special hearing yesterday, Judge David B. Mitchell refused to postpone seven other cases.In the cases he did delay, the judge gave 30-day postponements instead of the six weeks prosecutors had requested."These children's rights will not be abridged by the momentary fiscal difficulties of any government entity," said Judge Mitchell, who is in charge of the juvenile court.

Nicola Denise Paylor, a case manager specialist with the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, died of congestive heart failure Friday at Northwest Hospital Center. The Randallstown resident was 38. Born in Baltimore and raised in the Woodlawn area, she attended St. Cecilia Parochial School and John Paul Regional Catholic School. She was a 1988 graduate of Archbishop Keough High School. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a master's degree in criminal justice at Coppin State University.

One effect of the rise in youth crime in Howard County? More teen-agers are in trouble than local juvenile authorities feel they can effectively handle.So today, the Howard County Sheriff's Office begins to take over management of many teen-agers sentenced to perform community service after being charged with crimes. Overseeing these sentences had been the responsibility of Howard's Department of Juvenile Justice.Though the overall crime rate in this suburban county remains relatively low, the number of teen-agers referred to juvenile authorities has almost doubled in the past four years.

When juvenile offenders under the supervision of the state show up dead in Baltimore or are charged with murder, something's got to give. Somebody has to start asking questions about the teenagers, their daily lives and the system overseeing them. Those questions have been asked and provoked a more comprehensive review of hundreds of Baltimore cases, and the results so far are damning. A lax system of supervision, overwhelmed caseworkers and poor administrative oversight, all of which suggest a system that needs a comprehensive overhaul.

One night in September, Denise Harris found her 12-year-old son, Antonio, who had been missing for three days, on an East Baltimore street corner with six vials of cocaine in his pocket.She called the police."I did it for two reasons -- to scare him, and because I thought I could get help for him that way," Ms. Harris said. "But it didn't work."It didn't work because the case disappeared for eight months into the paperwork black hole of the Baltimore Police Department, where juvenile cases have routinely stalled for months, as witnesses disappear, victims grow frustrated and memories fade.

An article in yesterday's Howard County edition of The Sun incorrectly implied that one Howard County court master handles the majority of juvenile cases. In fact, such cases are shared equally by two court masters.Pub Date: 8/14/97

Juveniles facing criminal charges in Howard County could find themselves tried in public as soon as the end of the month, a change designed to lower the wall of confidentiality that has shielded young offenders.Circuit Court Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr. ruled June 26 that local judges and masters in chancery, who handle the brunt of the juvenile cases, can open all juvenile hearings -- ranging from carjacking to vandalism -- to the public if they want to.In October, a new state law takes effect that requires judges to open all felony cases -- but not misdemeanor cases -- to the public unless they demonstrate good cause to have a case closed.

Juvenile crime in Anne Arundel County has gotten so bad that the state's attorney has formed a team of three prosecutors to focus on young offenders in an effort to get them off the street.Frank R. Weathersbee, the state's attorney, announced the formation of the Juvenile Trial Team yesterday. "By creating a trial team, we are responding to the increased numbers of petitions and [juvenile] arrests," he said.Assistant State's Attorney Thomas J. Pryal will head the team. Joining him will be Gene Whissel and Larry Caporale.

Anne Arundel County State's Attorney Frank Weathersbee seems to be making a greater effort to help county residents feel safe. In the last few weeks, he has publicized the revival of two initiatives -- a team to handle the soaring number of juvenile crime cases and a bad-check unit to go after petty check bouncers. Such programs, though not flashy, are necessary pieces of the criminal justice system.Statistics alone demand a concerted, coordinated method for handling juvenile crime. This year Mr. Weathersbee's office expects 1,400 juvenile cases, up from 1,000 in 1990.

Crime may be on the rise all over the nation, the state and the county, but there has been a sharp drop in juvenile crime in Carroll since 1988."The population of the county has been increasing, the amount of adult crime is increasing, but the number of juvenile cases isstill below that of 1988," said Juvenile Master Peter M. Tabatsko.Last year the number of referrals to the juvenile system dropped 21 percent, and the number of cases referred to the juvenile master dropped 12 percent.Under the juvenile justice system, criminal cases against juveniles are referred to the Department of Juvenile Services.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge has denied a man's request to be tried as a juvenile in two violent robbery cases earlier this year, including an attack that left a Southeast Baltimore man in a coma. Arthur Jeter was less than a month short of his 18th birthday when, police allege, he and three other suspects were involved in the attack and robbery of Zachary Sowers, 28, early June 2, outside the man's home near Patterson Park. Four days after that incident, authorities allege, Jeter and others robbed and assaulted another man. Jeter's public defender, Jennifer Davis, argued yesterday before Judge Roger W. Brown that Jeter was not one of two assailants who police believe beat and stomped Sowers.

Maryland Juvenile Justice Monitor Marlana R. Valdez didn't want to rely solely on her team's ability to describe the awful conditions in state facilities for kids in trouble with the law. So the most recent inspection report includes color photographs. Smart lady. The pictures reinforce the urgency to rebuild - literally - Maryland's rundown and deplorable centers for young offenders as the state pursues reforming a system too long neglected. It's going to be a huge undertaking that will require political will and millions of tax dollars, but state officials must expedite plans to replace these vestiges of an era when kids were warehoused.

When it comes to juvenile justice reforms, Gov. Martin O'Malley isn't just talking the talk. His proposed infusion of $21 million into the beleaguered state Department of Juvenile Services proves that he's serious about trying to improve the agency. He's putting precious dollars where they can make a difference in young people's lives. Supplemental budget appropriations, which this is, have been used in the past to fill budget needs that didn't make the chief executive's A-list or to fund new programs or to dole out pork.

On his last day before his September retirement, Howard County Juvenile Master Bernard A. Raum excoriated the state's Department of Juvenile Services for allowing a troubled youth to be discharged from a substance abuse program after three weeks because an insurance company allegedly wouldn't pay for more treatment. Raum worried that without treatment, the teenager, who had pleaded guilty to first-degree burglary, could get into more serious trouble. Now, it appears that he has. Jeremi Quinton Lewis, 17, of the 9400 block of Granite Hill in Columbia, has been charged with multiple felonies, including kidnapping, robbery and second-degree assault, in connection with robberies at The Mall in Columbia and the Lake Kittamaqundi waterfront.

Two of Howard County's three Circuit Court masters have given notice that they plan to retire or resign within two weeks of each other this fall, and court officials say they are scrambling to start what will likely be a weeks-long process to find replacements. With the departures of Masters in Chancery Bernard A. Raum and Nancy L. Haslinger, who will leave Sept. 30 and Oct. 15 respectively, Howard County will lose the only two masters who hear a host of cases, ranging from juvenile crime to children in need of assistance to custody issues.

FBI agents arrested the police chief of Seat Pleasant in Prince George's County yesterday on federal charges of crossing interstate lines to pick up a juvenile boy for illegal sexual activities that allegedly included taking explicit nude photos with a digital camera. Ronald Cyril Forrest, 39, was arrested after a woman "who knows Forrest well" handed over to Special Agent Matthew J. Vilcek a photo album from the police chief's home in Clinton that the woman said contained pictures of young boys Forrest had mentored through a junior police program, according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt.

The Republican candidate for Howard County state's attorney announced yesterday that she wants to change Maryland laws to give school and court officials access to juveniles' criminal records.Marna McLendon said she wants to alter the state's confidentiality laws as part of an overall plan to get tougher on juvenile offenders.Ms. McLendon criticized the record of the state's attorney's office's on juvenile cases -- citing 1993 statistics that, she said, show that few defendants were firmly punished.

JUDGE DAVID B. Mitchell spent more than 10 years hearing juvenile cases in Baltimore before asking for relief. A lesser person might not have lasted 10 months. It's a thankless job where most decisions leave someone unhappy. On top of that, Judge Mitchell could never get the full support of city government. The Schmoke administration apparently has limited court improvements in order to make a better case in Annapolis that the city can't afford to run its own courts.Juvenile cases are heard in several first-floor rooms of the Clarence B. Mitchell Courthouse.

A 15-year-old Taneytown boy, charged as a juvenile with raping his three preschool-age sisters, was released yesterday to the custody of his grandmother under an electronic-monitoring program to await further court hearings, authorities said. The youngster had been held at the Charles H. Hickey Jr. School after being charged Friday with 19 counts, including second-degree rape and sex offenses, child abuse and one count of attempted sodomy, according to state police at Westminster. The boy is accused of raping his sisters, all of whom are younger than age 10, while he was baby-sitting them in April, last month and this month, according to police.

After discovering possible contamination of tests to determine whether a suspect could have fired a gun, the Baltimore Police Department has changed its test policy and warned prosecutors that some of their cases could contain faulty evidence. The city state's attorney's office said this week that it has known of the problem with gunshot residue tests since late July but has not alerted all defense attorneys - notification the city public defender's office says should have come long ago. Neither the police, prosecutors nor defense attorneys know how many criminal cases have been affected by potential contamination, although they say the number is probably small.