Ragione

A former Annapolis man has received a suspended sentence as part of a plea bargain that obligated him to testify against three co-defendants in a murder trial -- and, his lawyer said, made him a target in ashooting.Christopher Deon Jones, 22, received a five-year suspended sentence Friday in county Circuit Court for being an accessory after the fact in the January 1991 murder of 22-year-old Sylvester Wayne "Tink" Johnson.Lawyer Paul Kirby told the court that Jones fulfilled his end of the bargain at personal risk.

A 16-year-old boy rushed to defend his girlfriend in October armed with a knife, used it to kill a neighborhood teen-ager and then calmly and silently walked away, a prosecutor told an Anne Arundel County jury yesterday.Steven C. Barrett Jr. of the 8300 block of Brookwood Road, Millersville, is charged with murder in the death of Charles H. Cross, 16, of the 8300 block of Oakwood Road, Millersville.The Barrett youth has been charged as an adult.The Cross youth died Oct. 6 at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center about four hours after he was stabbed in an argument over who flattened his bicycle tire.

A 24-year-old Annapolis man yesterday became the third person to plead guilty in the January murder of a city police informant.Prosecutors said Howard Eugene "Howdy" Stevens Jr. fired the shots that killed 22-year-old Sylvester Wayne "Tink" Johnson as he sat in his car in a back alley near an Eastport housing project.Stevens, who had been charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree murder. In return, prosecutor Frank Ragione dropped the conspiracy chargeand agreed to recommend a sentence within guidelines that show Stevens should be imprisoned for 15 to 25 years.

In a gray shirt with a collar low enough to show the word "murder" tattooed on his neck, Shane E. Pardoe stood before Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North yesterday and begged for a second chance. "I'm sorry a thousand times," the 20-year-old convicted murderer from Glen Burnie told the judge. "I know I need to be punished for the wrongful things I did do, but I beg you to have mercy on me." Calling Pardoe a "very, very dangerous person," North sentenced him to 55 years in prison for the killing of his neighbor, Robert E. Hightower, in February 2000.

WHEN DAWN Jones discovered that her 14-year-old son had been caught shoplifting, she did what more than a few parents would do: She lost her composure, and then she took a swipe at him. When Anne Arundel County prosecutors discovered this, they did what some parents might find unsettling: They indicted her on a charge of child abuse. And, last week, a Circuit Court jury took all of 15 minutes to say: Can we please get some sense of distinction between child abuse and parental discipline?

Six lawyers, two of them career criminal prosecutors and one a former judge who lost a previous election, will be considered to replace a judge who retired last summer from the Anne Arundel County Circuit Court bench. Sixteen people applied, and the Judicial Nominating Commission for the county winnowed the applicants down last week. Gov. Martin O'Malley must appoint someone from the panel's list, though he can also reopen the process to generate a new list. Whoever is appointed will have a short time on the job before needing to win election next year to keep it, provided the appointment is made before the filing deadline in July for November's election.

Defense lawyers for a Glen Burnie man charged with slaying his landlady and her daughter-in-law asked an Anne Arundel County judge yesterday to find Maryland's death penalty unconstitutional and eliminate the threat of execution hanging over their client. The challenge follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in June that struck down Arizona's capital punishment law. Attorneys for Kenneth E. Abend contend that the high court's ruling applies to Maryland's law. Prosecutors disagree, saying Maryland's and Arizona's laws have key differences.

A Glen Burnie man waived his right to a trial on murder charges that could bring the death penalty and agreed yesterday to a prosecution statement that DNA evidence linked him to the slaying of his landlady and her daughter-in-law in 2002. Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Pamela L. North said she would review that statement and additional materials from prosecutors and lawyers for Kenneth E. Abend, 42. She will decide Oct. 28 whether Abend is guilty and, if so, of what crimes and whether he is eligible for the death penalty.

A 20-year-old Annapolis man was sentenced to life without parole yesterday for stabbing a woman to death and showing off her severed thumb to friends.Mickeen Holland was sentenced by an Anne Arundel Circuit Court judge, who said that she was horrified by the brutality of the slaying and by Holland's use of the victim's thumb as a trophy."You commit this crime, and you remove this woman's thumb, and then you go around the neighborhood and brag about this crime," Judge Pamela L. North told Holland.

An Annapolis man who sexually molested a neighbor's granddaughter for seven years during the 1980s was sentenced yesterday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court to 18 months of home detention.Ronald Eugene Simmons, 44, of the 1000 block of Jackson St., pleaded guilty March 14 to a second-degree sex offense.In exchange for the plea, prosecutors dropped charges of child abuse, battery, perverted practice, assault with intent to commit a sex offense and two other sex offenses.The girl was 7 when Simmons started molesting her in 1980.