Prison

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.

A Glen Burnie man who admitted to building bombs in his home was sentenced in federal court Thursday to nearly four years in prison. Todd Dwight Wheeler Jr., 28, wasn't the "next mad bomber," according to his attorney. Laura Robinson described Wheeler as a man with a troubled history, drug addiction and a fascination with explosives. Police and fire officials began investigating Wheeler after he was taken to Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie on New Year's Day with a burned hand.

The letter "Obama should pardon Pollard" (March 18) could not be more wrong when it urges President Barack Obama to pardon the heinous traitor Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for causing more harm to U.S. intelligence than any spy had in decades. The writer also has her priorities backward when she says that President Obama needs to "...mend some political fences with Israel and to promote warmer relations with Israeli leaders. " The U.S. gives Israel $3 billion and more every year in military aid, our latest military technology and diplomatic cover at the U.N. for its atrocities against the Palestinians.

A federal judge imposed a six-year sentence Friday on Jacob Theodore George IV, who sold heroin on the online drug bazaar Silk Road. George, 33, an Edgewood man with a history of arrests, drug abuse and mental health problems, apologized to the judge. He said he cried as he confessed to the federal agents who caught him. "I made a bad decision helping with Silk Road," George said, reading from prepared notes. George, who was taken into custody in early 2012, was one of the first dealers on the site to be arrested.

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.

For years after he took his last hit, Sammy Stewart dreamed the same dream. He'd climb a set of stairs under a dogwood tree, and at the top, a man would hand him some rocks of crack cocaine. Stewart would take them home and place them by his bedside as he prepared his tinfoil for smoking, a ritual he'd performed thousands of times. Just as he was ready to fire up, the prison loudspeaker would interject, blaring, "Chow time! Chow time!" He'd wake and spend the whole day angry.

Three men who were sexually abused by a church youth-ministry leader years ago experienced a measure of justice Wednesday as they confronted their abuser in court, read emotion-charged statements about how his crimes have damaged their lives, and heard a judge sentence him to 16 years in prison. Jediah Tanguay, 33; Benjamin Tanguay, 31; and Roger Robbins, 30, were minors in the 1990s when Raymond Fernandez, then a longtime youth leader at Greater Grace World Outreach Church in East Baltimore, has admitted he molested them.

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.

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.

Three men who were sexually abused by a church youth-ministry leader years ago experienced a measure of justice Wednesday as they confronted their abuser in court, read emotion-charged statements about how his crimes have damaged their lives, and heard a judge sentence him to 16 years in prison. Jediah Tanguay, 33; Benjamin Tanguay, 31; and Roger Robbins, 30, were minors in the 1990s when Raymond Fernandez, then a longtime youth leader at Greater Grace World Outreach Church in East Baltimore, has admitted he molested them.

Let me see if I understand this: Marquel Gaffney, 15, murdered Albert Smith, 56, in 2007, was charged as an adult, but pleaded guilty of second-degree murder and was sentenced in juvenile court ( "Baltimore man, 21, charged in second murder in five years," Aug. 5). In 2012, he was convicted of drug crimes and last year he was charged with unauthorized removal of property. In March of this year he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison with all but six months suspended.

As a foreigner in the United States, one question I've often been asked by newly-met friends has been "What do you find special about America?" I always have a good answer for that question: "Education. " American children have colorful lives while their Chinese peers are locked up in studies. Surprisingly, many of my American friends are not as optimistic about the American system. In fact, they've told me it's the U.S. education system that's problematic and perhaps should learn from the Chinese system.

A man who, with his fiance, stole $130,000 from a Dundalk bank where she had previously worked as a teller, was sentenced in federal court Friday, authorities said. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett sentenced Darrius Roszario D. Washington, age 20, of Baltimore, to more than 10 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. His accomplice, Janaya B. Person-Robinson, 20, pleaded guilty will be sentenced on October 22. She had worked at the branch, was familiar with the bank's operating procedures and knew the employees, authorities say. The couple waited in the M&T Bank branch bank's parking lot on October 1, as employees were arriving to work when Washington stopped a bank employee walking from her car, authorities said.

Back when Robert Ehrlich was governor of Maryland, I was interviewing men newly committed to state prison and suspected of gang affiliations. After years in denial, Maryland was just beginning to realize that gangs were very active behind the walls. Among them was a "new" incarnation of BGF (Black Guerrilla Family) that had taken its name from, but was not otherwise beholden to, the BGF that dated from the 1960s. I got to know Lt. Santiago Morales, an astute gang investigator at Baltimore City Detention Center, and we shared information.

Your editorial, "Breaking a vicious cycle" (July 14) hits the nail on the head. With U.S. youth incarceration rates the highest in the world - greater than the rates of the other 10 most developed countries combined - something is tragically wrong. It is disturbing that once incarcerated as a youth, even for less serious offenses, these individuals have an increased likelihood of returning to prison and a decreased chance of securing gainful employment later in life. As you point out, the Youth PROMISE Act offers a more effective approach to juvenile crime.

WHAT VICE can't be practiced in Maryland's prisons? That's the question you'd have to ask yourself after reading Sun reporter Greg Garland's account of contraband seized from the state's nine largest prisons. Drugs (heroin, crack and marijuana), tobacco (loose and rolled), alcohol (store-bought and prison-brewed), pornography (DVDs and tapes), condoms and cell phones represent most of the stash seized over a recent 10-month stretch. That doesn't include the shanks and knives inmates craft on their own. The extent of the goods recovered might suggest that prison officials are on top of the smuggling, but their inability to efficiently quantify the results of surprise cell searches and prison sweeps complicates their efforts.

Anthony Mayes was nearing age 50 when he got the first suit he ever owned, a dark gray Armani, and it seemed life, at last, would be better. He'd just been released from his latest time behind bars, making it about 22 years of his life total, for an array of charges including drugs and armed robbery. He said he's determined to make his most recent six-month stint his last, and sees the clothes - suit, shirt, tie, dress shoes - as part of that effort. "They make me feel important, like I can succeed," said Mayes, 49, who believes he's been given "an opportunity to redeem myself.

I have been locked up at Guantanamo Bay for 12 years, held without charge or trial. I've done nothing wrong; in 2009, I was unanimously cleared for release by six different branches of the U.S. government, including the FBI and the CIA. Yet here I am, still detained. I write this 106 years after the birth of Thurgood Marshall, a Baltimore-born civil rights lawyer and later a Supreme Court justice who helped end segregation in America. Marshall understood and respected the humanity and innate equality of all people.

For far too many young people who get caught up in the criminal justice system, an arrest or conviction for even a minor, non-violent offense can become a one-way ticket to a shrunken future that slams the door on opportunities for the rest of their lives. Being arrested as a teen increases a person's chances of being arrested again as an adult, and teenagers sentenced to jail are more likely to be incarcerated later in life as well. Add to that the nation's harsh drug laws and stiff mandatory minimum sentencing policies and it's no wonder America locks up more of its citizens than any other country in the world.