Speedy Trial

A Middle River man who was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday in Harford Circuit Court for armed robbery asked his lawyer to seek to have the state Court of Special Appeals overturn the conviction because he did not receive a speedy trial.Douglas Jerome Moore, 30, of the first block of Ortley Court has spent 463 days in jail since his arrest after the robbery of the Shell Food Mart in Fallston Sept. 4, 1992.Moore was convicted in Circuit Court Oct. 29. Five previously scheduled trials had been postponed for lack of an available judge or jury.

Prosecutors dropped charges Monday against Ryan Marcus Coleman, a former City College administrator accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old student, saying they lacked sufficient evidence to take the case to trial. Coleman, 36, was charged in July 2010 with sex abuse of a minor, fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault. Assistant state's attorneys Michael Leedy and Katherine Smeltzer dropped all of those charges in Baltimore Circuit Court just before jury selection and a trial were slated to begin.

Murder charges against Jason Beau Moody can proceed, a Baltimore judge ruled yesterday, rejecting a defense motion that a nearly three-year delay in the case violated his right to a speedy trial. Moody is charged with first-degree murder in the July 2003 shooting death of Kevin Shields, 26, in front of Shields' 8-year-old son outside a Northwest Baltimore apartment complex. Kenneth W. Ravenell, Moody's attorney, called Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy's ruling "inaccurate" based on speedy-trial law and vowed to appeal the decision if his client is convicted in a jury trial.

A man accused of beating one of his roommates to death at the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center last fall was found mentally competent Thursday to stand trial in Howard County Circuit Court. Vitali Davydov, 24, who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 23-year-old David Rico-Noyola, appeared in court handcuffed, his hands covered with large padded white mittens. Bearded and wearing eyeglasses, Davydov spoke in slow, slightly slurred speech, telling Judge Lenore R. Gelfman that he waived his right to a speedy trial, and naming several medications he is now taking.

The Harford Circuit Court, swamped with about 7,000 cases annually, has a tough time complying with Maryland law regarding speedy trials for some criminal defendants.State law requires that defendants in criminal cases originating in Circuit Court have their cases heard within 180 days of the date they are arraigned or an attorney enters an appearance on their behalf.Civil and juvenile filings are included in the average annual total, but the most recent statistics available from the state Administrative Office of the Courts in Annapolis listed 2,601 active criminal cases in Harford County through August.

Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis has formally requested a hurry-up schedule for his Atlanta murder trial, a step that could have the proceedings get under way by early June. "We have filed a demand for speedy trial," Lewis attorney Don Samuel said yesterday. Under Georgia law, a murder defendant has a right to demand a trial within two, two-month terms of the court. In Lewis' case, that means a trial has to be under way by June 30. Samuel said, however, that prosecutors often ask a judge to begin earlier in case the proceedings end in a mistrial or a hung jury.

Baltimore's CFL franchise heads back to court today in its long-standing fight for a name.Team owner Jim Speros will ask Judge William Nickerson, of the U.S. District Court in Baltimore, to schedule a speedy trial in the pre-emptive suit Speros filed shortly after announcing his choice of a nickname.The team, which wants to call itself the Baltimore CFL Colts, has so far been blocked by the NFL and its Indianapolis Colts, nee Baltimore Colts. The NFL claims the use of the name is likely to confuse fans and siphon away buyers of Colts merchandise.

Attorneys for James H. VanMetre III are expected to begin arguments tomorrow to have murder charges against him dropped, saying prosecutors missed their chance by not bringing the convicted rapist to trial quickly enough.VanMetre, 35, was indicted in December 1991 on first-degree murder charges in the strangulation of Holly Ann Blake, 28, whose burned body remains was found Oct. 6, 1991 on a farm in Harney.He wasn't served with the murder indictments until January of BTC this year because Carroll county prosecutors were waiting until completion of his unrelated first-degree rape trial in Adams County, Pa.He was extradited to Carroll County on Jan. 20 and has remained at the Carroll County Detention Center since.

Ten months ago, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals overturned the child molestation conviction of James T. Brown Jr. because his trial had been delayed many times in Baltimore Circuit Court.The court's action brought to light problems in the city's court system that led to large-scale reforms, including a crackdown on trial delays and construction of courtrooms.Yesterday, the court reinstated Brown's conviction, ruling that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was not violated because any delay did not harm his defense.

Christopher Wills, the man freed by a Baltimore judge because his trial on carjacking and armed robbery charges languished too long, denounced his rearrest on federal charges stemming from the same crime yesterday, calling it a "vengeful prosecution."In a telephone interview from the city jail, Wills said he was cleared of the state charges three months ago because prosecutors and judges violated his right to a "speedy trial" within Maryland's 180-day deadline."When I [win] because you violated my rights, don't try to persecute me unfairly," Wills said.

Anne Arundel County prosecutors will seek life in prison without parole for Perry Roark, a reputed founder and leader of the violent prison gang Dead Man Inc., who was recently charged with first-degree murder in the 1994 death of another prisoner. Roark, 42, a muscular man with a long ponytail, was notified Thursday in Anne Arundel County Circuit court during a hearing to set his trial date, of the possibility that he will never be freed. A trial was scheduled to start March 26, 2012, and is expected to take two weeks.

Murder charges against Jason Beau Moody can proceed, a Baltimore judge ruled yesterday, rejecting a defense motion that a nearly three-year delay in the case violated his right to a speedy trial. Moody is charged with first-degree murder in the July 2003 shooting death of Kevin Shields, 26, in front of Shields' 8-year-old son outside a Northwest Baltimore apartment complex. Kenneth W. Ravenell, Moody's attorney, called Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy's ruling "inaccurate" based on speedy-trial law and vowed to appeal the decision if his client is convicted in a jury trial.

It has been three years since Kevin Shields was shot to death in front of his 8-year-old son in Northwest Baltimore. Today, a city judge is to decide whether so much time has passed that the man accused in the killing, Jason Beau Moody, cannot be prosecuted. "The stakes ... are extremely high," Assistant State's Attorney Lisa Goldberg told the judge at the Baltimore Circuit Court hearing this week. "We're looking at a penalty of having a murder case dismissed." When Shields was shot to death in July 2003, city police quickly identified his ex-wife, Stephanie Madariaga, and her boyfriend, Moody, as suspects.

Tyrone Beane has had his day in court - again and again and again and again. Prosecutors finally got some traction last week in trying the 20-year-old in connection with a 2003 murder. After a dozen postponements, the state's case lurched forward after a judge held a hearing on the latest procedural hangup. The Beane case is a glaring example of a habitual problem in Baltimore's teeming city courts - repeat postponements. It's a problem that can trump the delivery of justice (and has in the past)

A Baltimore circuit judge yesterday dismissed first-degree murder charges against a man accused in the beating death of his girlfriend's 20-month-old son, ruling that prosecutors had failed to give him a speedy trial. On the day his murder trial was scheduled to begin, Timothy Horne was ordered released from jail by Circuit Judge David Mitchell. The judge ruled that prosecutors had acted inappropriately in postponing Horne's trial without giving proper notice to his defense lawyer. The city state's attorney's office plans to appeal the judge's decision, a spokeswoman said.

FAIRFAX, Va. - A Fairfax County judge dismissed capital murder charges against convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad yesterday, saying prosecutors violated his right to a speedy trial in the 2002 killing of an FBI analyst. On the eve of the second anniversary of the Washington area's sniper shootings, Judge M. Langhorne Keith ruled that a detainer placed on Muhammad by Fairfax County in January started the clock ticking on the five-month window in which he should have been brought to trial.

A Severn man convicted of vehicular manslaughter in a 1997 accident will stand trial in another fatal crash that occurred in January, despite the passing of the 180-day speedy trial deadline, a county judge ruled this week. Kirk R. DeCosmo, 39, is charged with vehicular manslaughter in the death of 61-year-old Harry W. Dailey of Ferndale Jan. 11. According to county police, witnesses told officers that DeCosmo's van was speeding on Furnace Branch Road before it swerved across the center line and into the path of Dailey's pickup truck.

More than 2 1/2 years after two Columbia men were killed during a spring break scuffle in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., the case against their accused killers appears to be headed toward a resolution - thanks to one defendant's motion for a speedy trial. A week after Jonathan Trull, 29, filed his latest motion, Judge Shawn Briese set a final motions date for next week and said jury selection in the case against Trull and his two brothers, Joshua, 20, and Christopher, 27, would begin Jan. 22. The trial, in Volusia County's Daytona Beach courthouse, is expected to last from three to six weeks, said prosecutor Noah McKinnon.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad -- who briefly acted as his attorney in his first trial and told jurors he was at the fatal shooting of the man he was accused of killing -- has considered a reprise of the lawyer role for his second capital murder trial. His attorneys informed a judge presiding over the case of that possibility during a bench conference in July, according to a transcript of the discussion that was unsealed yesterday. "I take it what you're telling me is that I need to have my Feretta warning close," Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jonathan C. Thacher said in the bench conference, referring to the warning a judge must give a defendant who wants to act as his own attorney.

The judge who was to preside over the next capital murder trial of John Allen Muhammad has abruptly recused himself, after prosecutors alleged that he wrongly conducted his own investigation into whether the convicted sniper has been denied a speedy trial. In a letter to prosecutors and defense lawyers made public yesterday, Fairfax County Circuit Judge Jonathan C. Thacher wrote that he is stepping aside but denied that he did anything improper. "The focus has recently been diverted away from the legal issues in this case, and needs to be redirected to the prosecution of Mr. Muhammad and the issues therein," Thacher wrote in a short letter dated Monday.