Murder Case

Murder case dismissal shows justice system fails victims, citizensA woman waits more than three years for justice in the brutal murder of her 21-year old son, only to be told that the four defendants accused of the crime have had the charges dismissed because of repeated postponements of their trial date ("Murder case against 4 is dropped due to delays," Jan. 6).Baltimore Circuit Judge Roger W. Brown dismissed the cases because of a recent decision by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, which threw out the sex-crime conviction of a man after his case had been postponed nine times for lack of a courtroom.

A Baltimore Circuit judge threw out first-degree murder charges against four men yesterday because their trial had been delayed for so long that it "boggles the imagination."After Judge Roger W. Brown's decision, the defendants, who have been awaiting trial for nearly three years and whose cases have been postponed more than a dozen times, hugged family members and beamed.In her Randallstown home, the victim's mother, a retired Baltimore schoolteacher, was not angry, just despondent.The court system did not care about her only child's death, she said, and that's just the way things are."

LAST WEEK, a federal appellate court, whose jurisdiction includes Maryland, dealt a stunning blow to freedom of the press by ruling that book publishers may be sued for the actions of their readers. If this decision is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, the impact on scholarship, journalism and literature could be incalculable.Just the factsThe facts of the case are wrenching: In 1993, Lawrence Horn hired a ''hit man'' named James Perry to murder Horn's ex-wife, his 8-year-old quadriplegic son and the child's nurse at a house in Wheaton.

J. Gordon Holmes, who as a young detective helped to solve the famous 1950s Grammer murder case and later retired as a Baltimore County Police Department inspector, died of cancer Thursday at Stella Maris Hospice. He was 80.The Kingsville resident began his police career in 1946 as a patrolman assigned to the Towson station. He was promoted to detective in 1951.Anselm Sodaro, who retired 17 years ago as chief judge of the Baltimore Circuit Court, prosecuted the Grammer case for the state.

In two letters to students and staff of the Naval Academy this week, Superintendent Adm. Charles R. Larson defended his handling of a murder case involving a midshipman and criticized The Sun's coverage of his actions.Larson's letters have been the subject of intense discussion at ,, the highest levels of the Navy, as officials considered his explanation of why he chose not to bring the Navy's criminal investigators in on the case of Midshipman Diane M. Zamora, accused in the slaying of a Texas teen-ager.

In a week when justice at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse slowed to a crawl, the case of State vs. Peter A. Muntjan seemed the slowest of all.Behind the doors of Courtroom 215, time has taken on a certain elasticity, and a court of law threatens to transform itself into a theater of the absurd. Baltimore Circuit Judge Paul A. Smith acknowledges as much, shaking his head violently, rubbing his eyes, thundering orders at attorneys and generally looking pained as he confronts the strange fits and lurches of a first-degree murder case.

In March, an informant's tip led to four arrests in the 1978 murder of a Baltimore man who was apparently thrown from a bridge over the waters of the Gunpowder River in Baltimore County to his death.Now, as a January trial date approaches, veteran Baltimore County prosecutor James O'C. Gentry Jr. must find a way to breathe life into that cold case, nearly two decades later.In doing so, he must rely on the dated memories of witnesses, anticipate that evidence could have been lost in the intervening years and wonder if jurors will care about a crime so old.And Gentry, the assistant state's attorney most often called upon to prosecute cold cases, also has the delicate task of letting the victim's relatives know that he is confident of winning, while preparing them for the possibility that he'll lose.

At the last hearing for murder suspect Daniel Scott Harney before his trial starts Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys wrangled yesterday over DNA evidence that may link blood found on his car and gun to his slain wife.If a judge allows them to be used, the DNA test results likely would bolster the prosecution's case against Mr. Harney, charged with first-degree murder in the Dec. 26 slaying of his 41-year-old estranged wife, Shirley Scott Harney, in her Ellicott City home.Mr. Harney -- also charged with attempted murder of his wife's boyfriend William A. Helmbold, 45, of Woodlawn -- could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted of either charge.

Police say a slip of the tongue snares many a suspect, but the murder case city investigators have against Saladin Ishmael Taylor -- charged with killing a woman this month -- involves a bit more than the cliche.A state parolee, Mr. Taylor, 34, has been charged with first-degree murder in the Sept. 5 death of Mona Johnson, 26, after the discovery of what detectives say may be part of Mr. Taylor's tongue at the crime scene.Detectives said they found the quarter-sized piece of tongue -- which they suspect was bitten off during a struggle with the victim -- in a rowhouse in the 500 block of Laurens St. where police discovered Ms. Johnson's body Sept.

O. J. Simpson Notebook:You might think that Judge Lance Ito is a little busy these days.You might think that with a double-murder trial on his hands, he might not have time to -- off angry letters.But you would be wrong.On the day of opening statements, I sat in the courtroom directly behind Ito's parents, James and Toshiko Ito.They are very small and were sitting on cushions that they had brought with them to court.During the dull parts of the trial, Mrs. Ito began reading the December 1994 issue of Reader's Digest.

John P. Dowery Jr. knew better than to go back home to Bartlett Avenue. It's where he was shot six times in 2005 after agreeing to testify as a witness in a murder case, or, in street terms, to "snitch." But it was Thanksgiving, and he wanted to see his family. So the 38-year-old father of nine went back to East Baltimore once more in 2006. He feasted at his aunt's house and spent time with his kids. Then he went down the street to the Kozy Korner bar, where he was shot to death. On Wednesday, a trial is set to begin against two men accused in Dowery's killing and a third man charged in his earlier shooting and in the killing of another federal witness.

Barbara E. Halsey, a 35-year-old hospital secretary, was bound with electrical tape and plastic ties, then stabbed and shot in her third-floor apartment on North Calvert Street. The vicious crime mobilized frightened Charles Village residents to start neighborhood crime walks, the first of their kind in the city. That was March 30, 1991. Police arrested the victim's downstairs neighbor on Feb. 2, 1992, after a manhunt that led them to a Towson church he had been attending under an assumed name.

Baltimore lawyers representing two men charged in the murder of former City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. have asked a judge to prohibit people involved in the case from talking about it publicly. But their written request didn't keep defense attorney Jan Bledsoe from telling reporters after a hearing that her client, Gary Collins, 20, was innocent. It seems the lawyers want to have it their way and then some. Attorneys for Mr. Collins and Charles Y. McGaney, 19, are seeking the gag order because they fear their clients won't get a fair trial.

A judge released actress Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, known for her role as a hitwoman on HBO's The Wire, from jail yesterday after she was picked up this week on a warrant alleging her refusal to cooperate with prosecutors handling a murder case in which she is a witness. At a Circuit Court hearing yesterday, an attorney for Pearson, who had planned to be in New York for the filming of a movie, told Judge John Addison Howard that she had not received court notices and was willing to "honor her obligations" as a witness to a 2005 killing.

For those who had any doubts about the need to shut down the Maryland House of Correction last year, a hearing this week in an Anne Arundel County Circuit Court should convince them it was the right decision. Lawyers for two inmates charged in the murder of Correctional Officer David McGuinn are trying to show that a culture of corruption inside the Jessup prison contributed to the guard's death. And prison investigative reports they have received so far allege misconduct that went beyond a few insiders.

For the second time in a week, Anne Arundel County prosecutors have thrown out a murder case, this time because one of two men accused in a fatal Annapolis shooting could not have been at the scene. Prosecutors dismissed first-degree-murder charges yesterday against Keith Brown, 27, and Ryan B. Wheeler, 26, both of Annapolis after Wheeler's attorney, F. Spencer Gordon, produced several witnesses who corroborated his client's alibi, that he was drinking with friends in downtown Annapolis bars on Oct. 12, 2006, the night that Jamore Van Johnson, 39, was killed.

A Baltimore Circuit Court judge yesterday declared a mistrial in an attempted murder and witness intimidation case after a juror said two men who were watching the proceedings saw her later at a bus stop and scared her, according to the city prosecutors. The news came in the form of a handwritten note from the jury forewoman to Judge Robert Kershaw during the second day of deliberations in the trial of Yusef Winston-Bey, 27, and Victor Shuron, 30. They are charged in the Nov. 27, 2006, shooting of a witness in a Baltimore County homicide.

It has been three years since Kevin Shields was shot to death in front of his 8-year-old son in Northwest Baltimore. Today, a city judge is to decide whether so much time has passed that the man accused in the killing, Jason Beau Moody, cannot be prosecuted. "The stakes ... are extremely high," Assistant State's Attorney Lisa Goldberg told the judge at the Baltimore Circuit Court hearing this week. "We're looking at a penalty of having a murder case dismissed." When Shields was shot to death in July 2003, city police quickly identified his ex-wife, Stephanie Madariaga, and her boyfriend, Moody, as suspects.

After more than four years and countless legal twists and turns, Tyrone Beane's latest murder case ended yesterday with a verdict by a Baltimore jury: Not guilty. Beane, 21, once called the city's "most-wanted fugitive" because he was suspected in two killings, has developed a reputation for ducking serious criminal charges. The other murder case was dropped by prosecutors years ago because of witness problems. City prosecutors were devastated by yesterday's verdict, reached unanimously after about five hours of deliberation.

It seems as if everything has gone wrong in the 2002 murder case against Tyrone Beane, a young man who, by the age of 17, had been identified by police as the city's "most wanted fugitive." Beane's prosecution was tripped up three years ago when a star witness went missing for so long that the case was dismissed. Prosecutors found the witness and revived the case, but the murder trial has been postponed a dozen times since then - for reasons ranging from lack of courtrooms to absent attorneys and detectives.