NEWS
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun | February 22, 2012
A Baltimore prosecutor offered jurors in a murder trial a painful and troubling portrait Wednesday of the victim's final moments, describing how a killer "suffocated and butchered" the boy , whose screams for help she said went unheard by a relative who had passed out from heroin, The Sun's Peter Hermann reports: Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer Hastings held up two oversized pictures of 15-year-old Jason Mattison Jr., pointed...
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel, The Baltimore Sun | February 22, 2012
Anne Arundel County jurors began weighing the possibility of a death sentence Wednesday for the inmate they convicted of murdering a correctional officer at a now-closed state prison in Jessup. "He brutally murdered, stabbing and ending the life of David McGuinn," prosecutor Sandra F. Howell told the jury, as convicted killer Lee Edward "Shy" Stephens, 32, looked on. "For that, ladies and gentlemen, the law provides the ultimate penalty. " If the jury, scheduled to resume deliberations Thursday morning, agrees with her, Stephens would become the first person to receive a death sentence under Maryland's new and more restrictive capital punishment law. The jury's sentencing choices are death, life without parole and life with the possibility of parole.
HEALTH
By Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun | February 15, 2012
Workers at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup held a rally Wednesday to urge state lawmakers to add more jobs at the troubled mental facility where three patients were killed in a 14-month span. Gov. Martin O'Malley has included 93 additional jobs in his budget proposal, but workers and hospital leaders worry that that number might get pared down by nearly 30 as the state faces fiscal pressure. The workers, members of the American Federation of State and County Municipal Employees, rallied in front of the hospital waving green signs that said "Budget for Safety.
NEWS
By John E. McIntyre and The Baltimore Sun | February 8, 2012
Indulge me for a moment while I repeat something I have been trying to get journalists to hear for twenty years. One reason that newspaper journalism has been faltering is the stubborn adherence of journalists to a language no one else uses. The readers who are comfortable with journalese, who formed the newspaper habit early, are climbing the golden staircase,* and the succeeding generations are not developing the habit. Why? One reason might well be that journalese sounds odd and unappealing to them.** This meditation was sparked by a tweet from the admirable Jim Romenesko directing me to an article by Bob Ingrassia, "Words Journalists Use That People Never Say. " You will recognize them: altercation , police report language caught by reporter echolalia; blaze for fire ; probe for investigation , a piece of headlinese cropping up in text.
NEWS
By Andrea F. Siegel, The Baltimore Sun | February 1, 2012
Jury deliberations began Wednesday in the death-penalty trial of a convicted murderer charged with killing a correctional officer at the now-closed House of Correction. If the Anne Arundel County jury convicts Lee Edward "Shy" Stephens in the July 2006 stabbing of Cpl. David McGuinn, he could become the first person sentenced to death under Maryland's new capital punishment law. The three-week trial featured 10 prisoners testifying as eyewitnesses for both the prosecution and defense, giving jurors a peek into life at a troubled maximum-security prison where investigators found hundreds of homemade weapons in the aftermath of the slaying — but no murder weapon.
NEWS
By Justin Fenton, The Baltimore Sun | January 20, 2012
For years, Baltimore County police were convinced that 24-year-old Heidi Bernadzikowski was killed in 2000 by her boyfriend. Stephen M. Cooke Jr. had taken out a lucrative life-insurance policy on Bernadzikowski just a month before her death. The family sued four years later, alleging he was the killer and shouldn't profit from the death, and called a county homicide detective to testify that Cooke was the sole suspect. They were able to reclaim about $575,000 of the insurance policy through a settlement.