Prosecution

Mayor Martin O'Malley sharply criticized the state's top federal prosecutor yesterday for what he termed a "cowardly" policy of scaling back the number of gun cases the office pursues. The mayor shifted the blame to federal prosecutors in responding to statistics showing a significant decrease in the conviction rate in city courts for suspects charged in shootings and other felony gun crimes over the past two years. "It's appalling in this state ... we could at the same time have the worst incidence of violence among young people and also have the only U.S. attorney's office that's doing less rather than more," the mayor said -- reviving an attack he launched in January, when U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio said he would not prosecute as many relatively minor gun violations.

MIAMI - People across the nation are consumed with the fates of Alex and Derek King. A born-again Christian in Tennessee says he prays for them three times a day. A woman in Arkansas has held parties in her home to get signatures on petitions that urge leniency for the boys. A waitress in Illinois has circulated a similar petition at her bank and grocery store and has posted messages about their case on the Internet. They are among the dozens of parents, child-welfare advocates and ministers throughout the nation who are urging the courts to go easy on Alex, 13, and Derek, 14, when they are sentenced in December for beating their father to death and burning their house to cover up the crime.

From how we live to where we can live, Marylanders have been expected to make an increasing number of personal sacrifices for the cause of cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay over the last two decades or more. Many have been small (whether laundry detergent contains phosphates or not now seems inconsequential), while others, including the cost to homeowners and businesses of greener, more advanced sewage treatment or storm water control systems, have been substantial. But are the state's most egregious polluters - those who truly thumb their noses at laws protecting the nation's largest estuary and knowingly spill noxious materials into the bay and its tributaries - held as accountable?

If the senseless and brutal murder of 23-year-old Stephen Pitcairn does not lead to a prosecution by Patricia Jessamy that seeks a death sentence penalty, then something is terribly wrong with the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office. Morty Marcus

Has anything ever fit you like a glove?If it has, don't tell O. J. Simpson prosecutor Christopher Darden about it.He now knows that nothing fits like a glove. Not even a glove.Last Thursday, Darden asked Simpson to get up in front of the jury and try on a pair of gloves.The prosecution says Simpson used those gloves when he was killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, on June 12, 1994.The prosecution also argues that at some time during the brutal slayings, the left glove must have fit Simpson loosely enough to come off.Why?

Transcript, Trial of the Century, Day 257Bailiff: Hear ye, hear ye, the court is now in sess . . .Defense: Objection, your honor.Judge: To what?Defense: Nothing, your honor. We're just warming up.Prosecution: Your honor, the people would like to state that we also have no objections at this time.Defense: Objection, your honor. Every time the defense says something, the prosecution always feels it has to say something.Prosecution: The people do not.Defense: Do too.Prosecution: Do not.Defense: Do too.Defendant: OK, stop, I confess!

Sentencing of Robert L. Beeman, the central figure in the first prosecution of property flipping in Baltimore, and two co-defendants was postponed yesterday until Monday by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz. The delay came after a hearing on several sentencing issues, including a prosecution request to toughen the penalties, ran into the late afternoon. Michael M. Fishman and Scott R. Shinskie, two principals in Macallan Funding Inc., a defunct mortgage brokerage firm that handled many Beeman transactions, also will be sentenced Monday.

Perhaps it is fitting that a few days after the Carroll County Narcotics Task Force disintegrated, Maryland's second highest court reversed the drug convictions of Pamela Snowhite Davis.Carroll State's Attorney Jerry F. Barnes should use the Maryland Court of Special Appeals' decision as an opportunity to drop this misguided prosecution that epitomized all that has been wrong with the county's drug-fighting efforts.Former State Attorney's Thomas E. Hickman and his assistant Barton F. Walker decided to make Ms. Davis an example because she stood up for her constitutional rights.

Prosecution of criminals is supposed to be swift and fair, but the handling of the case against Jonathan T. Jarboe in Carroll County was anything but.Not only did the prosecution -- with the acquiescence of Circuit Court Judges Francis Arnold and Raymond Beck -- keep Mr. Jarboe jailed for 179 days before dropping the charges, but county Assistant State's Attorney Barton F. Walker III's mishandling of a young, frightened witness apparently drove her into...