Prison

One day last summer at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup, a prisoner named Dennis Wise took a seat at the back of the tiny cubicle where I hold forth each week as a volunteer writing instructor. It's a loosely structured class and it isn't unusual that prisoners wander in for a session or two and then drift away. While always a possibility that such drifting is a commentary on the quality of the instruction, it is also true that writing is a painful business. The core of regulars who turn out every week come not because they want to, or because someone else wants them to, but because, in the true writer's motivation, they simply have to. Buried inside is something terrible, something wonderful, something that absolutely must come out. All their lives they have tried either to unlock long-imprisoned feelings or to escape them; that they have failed is as evident as their bleak existence in this ancient, decaying prison, far removed from the commerce of the normal world.

The prospect of spending years behind bars in a tiny cell is sufficiently chilling to deter most people from ever committing a crime. Those who willfully break the law anyway and get caught have no one to blame but themselves when a judge sentences them to prison. But even convicted felons shouldn't have to suffer the extralegal indignity and physical trauma of being raped by fellow inmates and prison staff while they're serving their time. Sexual assaults in the nation's prisons are alarmingly common.

When Merle W. Unger Jr. was younger, one of his dreams was to be jailed in all 50 states so he could escape from all 50."I think he probably could do it," said Blake E. Martin, the public defender who befriended Unger after he represented him at age 17 in his hometown of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.Unger, 41, hasn't escaped in all 50 states, but he has done so in three: Pennsylvania, Maryland and most recently in Florida. Today, he back in custody, in Virginia, after wrecking his car near Strasburg.

A 21-year-old Baltimore man was arrested and charged Thursday with possessing and distributing child pornography, according to Maryland State Police. Jason Barron, of the 300 block of South Baylis Street, now faces 30 years in prison and $55,000 in fines, police said. Barron was identified after a state trooper on the Maryland Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force identified a computer offering pornographic videos of children to others on the Internet, and then linked the computer to him, police said.

In the annals of Maryland prison escapes, "Tunnel Joe" Holmes ranks right up there with Houdini.He still holds the distinction of being the only resident of the Maryland Penitentiary to ever dig his way to freedom.On July 8, 1949, when Holmes was in the eighth year of a 20-year sentence for burglary, he decided to dig for his freedom, as he feared that his long imprisonment would cause him to "blow up -- as he'd seen others do in nearby cells," said The Sun.He started hacking away at the slate floor of his cell under his cot.After 20 months of steady labor, he completed a narrow, muddy tube 70 feet long that carried him 26 feet down and under the prison's walls to a grassy plot near East Eager and Forrest streets, from which he made his escape.

Two city drug dealers have been sentenced to prison in separate cases, including one who police said dealt cocaine in a small neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore called the 4X4, according to federal prosecutors. In that case, the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office said that 30-year-old Tony Robinson, known by "Peterman" and "Pete," was part of a drug group from June 2009 through August 2010 in the area between Edison Highway and Belair Road. Prosecutors said that Robinson pleaded guilty in the case in which he sold 280 grams of cocaine and 5 kilograms of powder cocaine.

John Merzbacher was sentenced to four life sentences for the horrific rape of a young girl ("Supreme Court decisions renew interest in petition fighting convicted child rapist's release," March 22). The recent Supreme Court ruling does not offer an automatic end to his sentence because of insufficient legal counsel about a plea agreement. State and local officials must consider the seriousness of his crimes and keep him in prison. Beyond the rapes of which he was found guilty, there are many untold stories about the vast extent of his abuse of young people.

Two men and a woman have been convicted of being part of a violent drug gang that was run out of a Western Maryland prison. A federal jury convicted 23-year-old Tavon Mouzone and 24-year-old Anthony Fleming of racketeering conspiracy on Thursday. Their co-defendant, 25-year-old Michelle Hebron, pleaded guilty to the same charge on the second day of their trial. Among the acts Hebron admitted to was the 2007 shooting death of David Moore in Hagerstown. Prosecutors described Hebron as a high-ranking female member of the Tree Top Piru Bloods gang.

The recent rulings by theU.S. Supreme Courtregarding habeas corpus relief for certain inmates have caused grave concerns and anxiety for the courageous survivors of John Merzbacher, as indicated by the many victims who have contacted us over the past several days. During my four-plus years as archbishop of Baltimore, I had the privilege of meeting with several of John Merzbacher's victims and their families, who recounted for me their tragic and painful abuse. It is clear to me that the abuse they suffered has had an enormous impact on their lives and the lives of their families, and I fear that they will suffer anew if Mr. Merzbacher's request to be released is granted.

A federal judge in Baltimore has dismissed a lawsuit filed by eight state prison workers who claimed a strip search for drugs violated their constitutional rights. The plaintiffs' lawyer said he expects to appeal the opinion entered Thursday by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz. The employees were searched after a drug-sniffing machine falsely signaled they were carrying drugs at the medium-security Maryland Correctional Training Center near Hagerstown in August 2008. The court found that there is no clearly established law regarding the level of suspicion raised by such alerts.

Alan Gross, the Maryland man who is serving 15 years in a Cuban prison after taking communications equipment into the communist nation, is asking authorities there to let him return to the United States to visit his ailing mother before she dies. Gross, who grew up in the Baltimore area and lived in Potomac, told CNN that he and his lawyer had written to the Cuban government "on more than one occasion" to request permission to see Evelyn Gross. "I have a 90-year-old mother who has inoperable lung cancer.

A 10th Baltimore police officer was sentenced to federal prison Friday for taking kickbacks from an auto repair company, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office announced. Leonel Rodriguez, 32, of Essex, was sentenced to 30 months for extortion and conspiracy and ordered to pay restitution of more than $16,000. Rodriguez admitted illegally referring car crash participants to Majestic Auto Repair in Rosedale in exchanges for a $300 fee from the shop owners, who've also pleaded guilty in the scheme.

A 32-year-old Crofton man was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison Thursday for armed bank robbery, after holding up the same two M&T banks a total of five times and making off with more than $30,000, sometimes wishing the tellers a “nice day” on his way out, according to the Maryland U.S. Attorney's Office. Wearing a hoodie and a neoprene face mask, William Alexander Norbeck burst into an M&T Bank on the 500 block of Solomons Island Road in Prince Frederick in March of last year, racking a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun and telling everyone to “get down,” according to his plea agreement.

A Baltimore County man was found guilty by a Circuit Court jury Friday of fatally shooting a man found in an Owings Mills home in 2009, a state prosecutor said. Gerald E. Sears, 31, who was living in Owings Mills at the time of the killing, was convicted of first-degree murder, dealing cocaine and a handgun charge in the death of Scott M. Greenberg, 51, a father of two who ran a snowball stand on Reisterstown Road. He could be sentenced to life in prison without parole, said, Assistant State's Attorney Adam Lippe.

With a full math and science scholarship to the Johns Hopkins University and accolades for his writing, Howard County's Mohammad Hassan Khalid seemed ready to continue the American dream his father embarked on years ago when he brought the family from Pakistan. But instead, on Friday the 18-year-old Khalid became one of the youngest people ever convicted in federal court of conspiracy to aid terrorists. He could receive up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine at his sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

Penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana in Maryland — less than 10 grams — will drop in October, when a new law goes into effect reducing the maximum prison term to 90 days from one year and cutting the potential fine in half, to $500 from $1000. Baltimore State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein backed the bill, which was signed into law Wednesday, as a way to reduce the number of cases clogging the city's circuit courts. "To continue making Baltimore safer, we must focus our limited resources on the strategic investigation and aggressive prosecution of violent offenders," Bernstein said in a statement.

A Baltimore County Circuit Court judge sentenced a 41-year-old man to life in prison Tuesday for the first-degree murder of a Rosedale woman whom he struck with a pickup truck. Jose Manuel Claros, who was convicted in October, did not admit to the crime at his sentencing. Instead, he blamed his victim and all but called her a liar. Gloria Elsy Torres-Restrepo, 39, died Jan. 5 after Claros struck her with her own pickup truck after she had expressed her intent to end their business and personal relationship, take back the truck from him and evict him from a house she owned in Rosedale.

- Nearly 40 years have come and gone since Calvin Ash, a hospital kitchen worker, committed his one and only crime: At the age of 21, he shot to death his estranged wife's boyfriend. A Baltimore judge found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison in 1972. Under the conditions of his sentence, Mr. Ash would one distant day be eligible for parole. Thirty-two years later, in 2004, the Maryland Parole Commission considered and approved Mr. Ash for release. But there was a catch: In Maryland, the governor can reject the commission's recommendations and, unfortunately for Mr. Ash, his case did not reach the governor's desk until after Martin O'Malley had been elected, in 2006.

A civilian employee of the U.S. Navy who for years sold government scrap metal from Naval installations for a personal profit was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 30 months in prison for the scheme, according to U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein. Christopher M. Hill, 47, of Lusby, who handled recycling and scraps for the Patuxent River Naval Air Station and other military installations, was also ordered by Chief U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow to pay more than $630,000 in restitution to the Navy and almost $135,000 in restitution to the IRS. According to a plea agreement in the case, a private contractor collected scrap metal owned by the government — but Hill had the firm submit payments for those scraps directly to him. Between 2004 and 2010, Hill deposited 124 checks from the company into his personal bank accounts, and did not report the earnings to the IRS. In a statement, Robert Craig, special agent in charge for the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, one of the agencies involved in the investigation, said Hill's arrest shows those agencies and Rosenstein's office "will doggedly investigate and prosecute those that decide to break the rules — or make-up their own rules — to steal and cheat from the Department of Defense.

Standing under a stormy sky, Bill Stankiewicz got chills as he looked toward the old brick building that once housed the Catholic Community middle school in South Baltimore. "It's kind of creepy," he said, rubbing goose bumps along his forearms. He hadn't been back since graduation in the 1970s, purposely avoiding the school — and the memories of what happened in it. "Thirty-six years is a long time to bury something. It's time to exorcise the demons. " Roughly two dozen of his surviving classmates gathered at the site last weekend, all bound by a shared childhood tragedy detailed in multiple court filings: repeated sexual and mental abuse by English teacher John J. Merzbacher, now 71. They've come together in middle age to fight for his continued imprisonment, as a federal judge's court ruling threatens to release the convicted child rapist from four life terms.