Murder Conviction

Attorneys for George W. Huguely V are appealing his second-degree murder conviction for beating his ex-girlfriend to death in May 2010. Huguely, a former University of Virginia lacrosse player from Chevy Chase, was convicted in February and sentenced in August to 23 years in prison for the death of Yeardley Love, 22, of Cockeysville. A notice of appeal was filed Tuesday in the Charlottesville Circuit Court, but it does not lay out the grounds for the challenge. Before the sentencing, Huguely's legal team had asked the judge to overturn the verdict, arguing that the trial had been unfair and that the jury received improper instructions.

Robert Jarrett Jr. was convicted Tuesday of murdering his wife, following a trial in which prosecutors described him as a "cold-blooded killer" who allowed his sons to walk over her body buried beneath their backyard shed for two decades. Howard County jurors handed down a guilty verdict on one count of second-degree murder after deliberating into the night, bringing an end to a years-long investigation. Prosecutors, who had pushed for a first-degree murder conviction, said they would seek the maximum penalty of 30 years in prison at Jarrett's sentencing, scheduled in August.

When a police detective tells a suspect that their conversation "is between you and me, bud," it needs to stay that way, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Monday, overturning a murder conviction in Baltimore County. The judges ruled unanimously that Christian Darrell Lee's admission that he shot and killed a man during a home invasion in North Point in 2006 should not have been used at his trial, at which he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life plus 110 years in prison.

With his fiancee seven months pregnant and his bail bonds business struggling to get the insurance it needed, Ralph Hall received a voice mail from someone offering to help him out. On a midsummer evening, Hall drove to the KIPP Ujima Village Academy on Greenspring Avenue to try to make a deal. He met his contact and they talked inside Hall's car for just over five minutes, video of the scene shows, before the other man pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and shot Hall twice, killing him, according to prosecutors.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld a Baltimore County man's conviction in the death of his wife who went missing the night she was supposed to go to a Motley Crue concert in Washington and whose body was never found. Dennis J. Tetso, 47, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in the presumed death of Tracey Leigh Gardner, lost his appeal that argued a lack of insufficient evidence to support conviction for second-degree murder. Although Gardner's body was never recovered, the court's opinion agreed with the state's arguments that Gardner's disappearance and lack of contact with family and friends and use of credit cards was enough to show that Gardner was dead.

The state's highest court erased Friday the first-degree murder conviction and life sentence of a Baltimore woman accused in the 2007 fatal shooting of her boyfriend, ruling that city police violated her constitutional rights. Investigators should have advised Juanita Marie Robinson, now 31, of her Miranda rights — the well-known warnings that begin with, "You have the right to remain silent" — before her second and third statements about the killing of Andre McBride, the justices decided.

The state's highest court reinstated yesterday the murder conviction of a Harford County woman whose guilty verdict was reversed last year by the Court of Special Appeals.The unanimous opinion of the Maryland Court of Appeals overruled a May 7, 1991, decision by the state's second-highest court, which had ordered a new trial for Dana Ashley Hawkins.Hawkins was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the 1989 murder of Dell Noble in a Harford County motel and 10 years for being an accessory to the crime after the fact.

On March 6, 2008, William Nibblett was stabbed to death in his own home in Pokomoke City. A Worcester County Circuit Court jury convicted Charles Robert Phillips of first-degree murder and armed robbery and sentenced him to life in prison. But on Friday, the state's highest court sent the case back to trial with a blistering rebuke of local police and sheriff's deputies who the justices said ignored the suspect's request for an attorney and wrongfully kept him talking into a confession.

The state's second-highest court vacated the attempted second-degree murder conviction of a Taneytown carpenter serving 20 years in prison for trying to kill his former girlfriend when he sneaked into her house with a loaded gun.The Court of Special Appeals, in an opinion released yesterday, left intact the conviction for assault with intent to murder against William Richard Bollinger. The decision leaves Bollinger's sentence unchanged because he was serving simultaneous 20-year sentences, one for each crime.

The state's second-highest court has overturned a murder conviction for a man who police say participated in a drug deal that ended in gunfire, which killed a Baltimore County grandmother hit by a stray bullet. Donald S. Kohler did not shoot Shirley Worcester, 58, outside her Middle River home in January 2009. Police said Kohler had cheated a dealer out of four pounds of marijuana by handing over fake money and was running away when the dealer shooting at him hit the victim instead.

UPDATE: A Baltimore jury has found Michael Maurice Johnson guilty of second-degree murder in the killing Phylicia Barnes, a North Carolina teenager whose body was found in the Susquehanna River in 2011, months after a mysterious disappearance that drew national attention.   Lawyers on both sides   had acknowledged in closing arguments  that the evidence against Johnson was circumstantial. But while defense attorneys described flaws and inconsistencies, prosecutors said the facts pointed to Johnson as the only reasonable suspect.

The state's highest court has overturned the second-degree murder conviction of Thomas B. Harris, convicted of fatally stabbing Karim Cross in a Randallstown bar in 2006, and ordered a new trial. The Court of Appeals agreed with a decision by the lower appeals court. Harris was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger said prosecutors would make a decision on "whether we can go forward" with retrying Harris, as they would have to find witnesses from six years ago. The court agreed with the lower appeals court ruling that the trial judge should have declared a mistrial.

Attorneys for George W. Huguely V are appealing his second-degree murder conviction for beating his ex-girlfriend to death in May 2010. Huguely, a former University of Virginia lacrosse player from Chevy Chase, was convicted in February and sentenced in August to 23 years in prison for the death of Yeardley Love, 22, of Cockeysville. A notice of appeal was filed Tuesday in the Charlottesville Circuit Court, but it does not lay out the grounds for the challenge. Before the sentencing, Huguely's legal team had asked the judge to overturn the verdict, arguing that the trial had been unfair and that the jury received improper instructions.

Pamela Prowant was shot multiple times in her apartment in Laurel in 1985, lived with paralysis and used a wheelchair for another 27 years, and died in January of what appeared to be natural causes. In April, the office of the chief medical examiner ruled her death a homicide, essentially declaring that the injuries she sustained almost three decades ago caused her death this year while Prowant, in her early 50s, was still relatively young. Prowant's death is the 28th homicide of 2012 in Prince George's, a negative mark on the county's crime books that won't - and legally can't - be erased with a murder conviction.

Prosecutors fought claims Friday that George Huguely V — convicted of second-degree murder in the beating death of Yeardley Love, his University of Virginia girlfriend — received an unfair trial, filing a pointed response to a recent request for a new proceeding that said the defense "misses the mark. " The 37-page document, filed in the Charlottesville, Va., Circuit Court by Commonwealth Attorney Warner "Dave" Chapman, also addressed new allegations made by Huguely's attorneys earlier this week, claiming that Love's Cockeysville-based family considers her murder two years ago an accident.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals upheld a Baltimore County man's conviction in the death of his wife who went missing the night she was supposed to go to a Motley Crue concert in Washington and whose body was never found. Dennis J. Tetso, 47, who was found guilty of second-degree murder in the presumed death of Tracey Leigh Gardner, lost his appeal that argued a lack of insufficient evidence to support conviction for second-degree murder. Although Gardner's body was never recovered, the court's opinion agreed with the state's arguments that Gardner's disappearance and lack of contact with family and friends and use of credit cards was enough to show that Gardner was dead.

A 19-year-old Owings Mills gang member escaped a murder conviction for a shooting in Columbia last year but still could receive up to 55 years in prison after a Howard County jury found him guilty on five counts of armed robbery and weapons charges. Daymar Wimbish appeared pleased in the heavily guarded Ellicott City courtroom Wednesday as Judge Lenore Gelfman read the jury's verdicts on eight charges, reached after one day of deliberations. He was found not guilty of murder in the May 17, 2008, death of Jason P. Batts, 23, who was shot during a robbery attempt of Elijah Jackson, a passenger in Batts' SUV. Prosecutors Lisa Breton and Colleen McGuinn declined comment until after sentencing, which is scheduled for Sept.