Murder Conviction

Maryland's highest court threw out Wednesday the murder conviction of a man accused of shooting his fiancee in the head more than a dozen years ago, the second time appellate judges have vacated a guilty verdict in the case, citing errors by prosecutors and the judge. At Tony Williams' first trial in 1999, the state's attorney's office failed to disclose that a witness to whom the suspect confessed was a police informant, and the Court of Appeals ordered a new trial. At the suspect's second trial in 2007, the appeals court has now ruled that the judge mistakenly allowed videotaped testimony from another witness who died before the second trial, after a detective disclosed that the woman was legally blind and might not have been able to see the shooting, as she had claimed in court.

Authorities in Delaware are convinced that Franklin C. Foraker strangled Margaret Essick and threw her body off a bridge and into the Conowingo Creek back in 1975. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. Foraker, however, insists he did not kill the woman. Despite several confessions, he now says Essick ran from his car in a Delaware shopping center after she and his girlfriend argued, and he has no idea how her body ended up in the creek. And he now says there's hidden evidence to prove he's innocent.

Four Baltimore jury members will be called back into court — this time to testify — next month during a hearing that will decide whether a mistrial is required in the state's first successful gang prosecution. Jurors convicted Dajuan Marshall, 28, on Monday of killing a rival gang member in 2008. But Juror No. 8 told the judge after the verdict that another jury member — identified as either Juror No. 10 or No. 11 — had Googled the case during testimony.

A Baltimore jury gave out the city's first gang conviction Monday, finding Dajuan Marshall guilty of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and participating in a gang — known as the Spyda Bloods — resulting in death. Marshall, 28, is said to have killed rival gang member Kenneth "Cash" Jones, who belonged to a different Baltimore set of the Bloods. Prosecutors said Marshall "wanted to run the Bloods' gang in Baltimore and saw Jones as an obstacle," according to the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office.

A Maryland appeals court has overturned three first-degree murder convictions. The Court of Special Appeals ruled Thursday that Baltimore County police violated Lee Coleman-Fuller's right to counsel while investigating the 2006 slaying of Travis Taylor in Woodlawn. The court also overturned Jeffrey Allen's Charles County conviction in the 2001 stabbing of John Butler in La Plata. The court said jurors were improperly told of Allen's prior armed-robbery conviction. On Wednesday, the court ruled that a Washington County judge improperly allowed testimony about statements Marshall Adams made to police without his attorney present.

State prison officials said a 26-year-old New York man serving a triple life sentence for attempted murder was accidentally released from a downtown Baltimore prison Thursday. Officials said Raymond Taylor, who was sentenced to life in prison on an attempted first-degree murder charge in 2005, was erroneously released at 2 p.m. from the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center. The Baltimore Sun reported at the time that Taylor tried to kill his ex-girlfriend and her two daughters at their Pentland Drive home in Northeast Baltimore.

The state's second-highest court on Monday overturned first-degree murder convictions in a 2007 double homicide after finding that the trial judge violated key court rules. Prosecutors say they will seek to retry Larry Livingston Joseph, who has been serving two life sentences plus 40 years for the broad-daylight killings of two city men Sept. 16, 2007, in the Belair-Edison neighborhood of Baltimore. "It will be set in for a trial," said Margaret T. Burns, spokeswoman for Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy.

The state's second-highest court on Monday overturned first-degree murder convictions in a 2007 double homicide after finding that the trial judge violated key court rules. Prosecutors say they will seek to retry Larry Livingston Joseph, who has been serving two life sentences plus 40 years for the broad-daylight killings of two city men Sept. 16, 2007, in the Belair-Edison neighborhood of Baltimore. "It will be set in for a trial," said Margaret T. Burns, spokeswoman for Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia Jessamy.

Telephone records and eyewitness testimony outweighed physical evidence in the murder conviction of an Owings Mills man late Tuesday by a Howard County jury. Lamont Johnson, 24, was found guilty of first-degree felony murder as well as first-degree attempted robbery and two related gun charges in the shooting death of Jason Batts in the parking lot of a Columbia apartment complex in May 2008. Though Johnson's fingerprints were not found on what was left of a sawed-off shotgun, cell phone records linked Johnson to a cell tower near the murder scene before and immediately after Batts was killed.