Work Release

Former NBA player Oliver J. Miller was sentenced Friday to a year in the Anne Arundel County jail for pistol-whipping his girlfriend's brother in Arnold. Miller, 41, who was living with his girlfriend in Edgewater, pleaded guilty last fall to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun. "I apologize for the wrong I've done," Miller told Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner. He said he is "just a man protecting the people I love. " The allegations stemmed from a family argument at a cookout April 17 at a friend's home.

The man shot at the Lutherville Light Rail Station Friday night is in an inmate work release program, serving a 24-year sentence for attempted murder, a Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesman confirmed Monday. Harold J. Blandon, Jr., 35, was shot by an unknown assailant at the platform after completing his day job and was returning to the re-entry facility, said DPSCS spokesman Mark A. Vernarelli in an email. Baltimore County police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said detectives are still working to determine whether Blandon was targeted.

Hard line is drawn Sam Farmer Los Angeles Times Plaxico Burress should not be permitted to play in the NFL this season. Even if his request for work release is granted, and he somehow clears all the hurdles to come back to football (can he play in out-of-state games, for instance?), Burress needs to complete his entire sentence to return. That's what Roger Goodell ruled, and it's not unreasonable. Goodell's hard-line approach to players who run afoul of the law has been the most successful initiative of his tenure as commissioner.

Former NBA player Oliver J. Miller was sentenced Friday to a year in the Anne Arundel County jail for pistol-whipping his girlfriend's brother in Arnold. Miller, 41, who was living with his girlfriend in Edgewater, pleaded guilty last fall to first-degree assault and carrying a handgun. "I apologize for the wrong I've done," Miller told Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Paul A. Hackner. He said he is "just a man protecting the people I love. " The allegations stemmed from a family argument at a cookout April 17 at a friend's home.

A Catonsville man who is serving an eight year sentence for violating the terms of his probation did not return from his work release assignment in Towson on Wednesday, according to state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Mark Randolph, 35, was working at a Towson business as part program that employees offenders nearing the end of their sentence. He was at an unsupervised location, and officials said he did not return to the Baltimore Pre-Release Unit on Greenmount Avenue by 4:30 p.m. Randolph has faced numerous drug-related and assault charges over the past few years but most were dropped until he pleaded guilty in 2006 to drug distribution charge, according to court records.

The man shot at the Lutherville Light Rail Station Friday night is in an inmate work release program, serving a 24-year sentence for attempted murder, a Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesman confirmed Monday. Harold J. Blandon, Jr., 35, was shot by an unknown assailant at the platform after completing his day job and was returning to the re-entry facility, said DPSCS spokesman Mark A. Vernarelli in an email. Baltimore County police spokeswoman Elise Armacost said detectives are still working to determine whether Blandon was targeted.

An Edgewood man convicted of killing two people while driving drunk received a sentence of 14 months on work release yesterday, bringing cries of disbelief from the victims' family in a Baltimore County courtroom."

State public safety officials have suspended the work release program at the Patuxent Institution, after an inmate who failed to return from a weekend pass wounded a sheriff's deputy in a shootout Friday afternoon in Montana.The inmate, Charles Elmer Carpenter, 32, of Clear Spring, was killed in the shootout near Landusky, Mont., a small mining town in the north-central area of the state. The shootout began after the deputy pulled over Carpenter's car while investigating a complaint of suspicious people in the area, according to Arlyn Greydanus, chief of the Montana Criminal Investigations Bureau.

The driver of a car involved in a fatal drunken-driving accident had his probation revoked in Baltimore County Circuit Court and was sent to prison yesterday because he had been found drunk while on work-release.Michael Brian Dobihal, now 20, was convicted in March 1992 of auto manslaughter, drunken driving and reckless driving in the Nov. 13, 1991, accident. Kimberly Jo Spacek, 15, died about an hour after the accident. Dobihal was not hurt.In June last year, Judge Thomas J. Bollinger sentenced Dobihal to five years in prison with all but 18 months suspended.

With her husband locked away serving a three-year sentence for rape, Mary Ruth Marsh was able to find the courage to start a new life, free of abuse.But an icy patch on a fogged-in Carroll County road quickly detoured her new journey.When Mrs. Marsh lost control of her car and slammed into a telephone pole near Winfield last week, her two children were thrown from their seats.Her 2-year-old son was injured; her 4-year-old daughter was killed.Though she didn't realize it until yesterday, Mrs. Marsh's desire to give Guy Gordon Marsh Jr. one last chance to see their daughter, Sonia, provided him a ticket out of prison.

A Catonsville man who is serving an eight year sentence for violating the terms of his probation did not return from his work release assignment in Towson on Wednesday, according to state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. Mark Randolph, 35, was working at a Towson business as part program that employees offenders nearing the end of their sentence. He was at an unsupervised location, and officials said he did not return to the Baltimore Pre-Release Unit on Greenmount Avenue by 4:30 p.m. Randolph has faced numerous drug-related and assault charges over the past few years but most were dropped until he pleaded guilty in 2006 to drug distribution charge, according to court records.

Hard line is drawn Sam Farmer Los Angeles Times Plaxico Burress should not be permitted to play in the NFL this season. Even if his request for work release is granted, and he somehow clears all the hurdles to come back to football (can he play in out-of-state games, for instance?), Burress needs to complete his entire sentence to return. That's what Roger Goodell ruled, and it's not unreasonable. Goodell's hard-line approach to players who run afoul of the law has been the most successful initiative of his tenure as commissioner.

State officials describe Paula Jordan as a nonviolent inmate at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women in Jessup. That made her a perfect candidate to work at a Howard County horse farm as part of a rehabilitation program. Here is what the 41-year-old from Baltimore did to get locked up: In January 2005, she chased after her boyfriend swinging a butcher's knife, stabbed him in the leg, mopped up the blood, cleaned the blade and put it back into its holder before police arrived.

Typically, prisoners who are on work release get to leave the inside of the jail to work outside the fence, and then must return. David Newton, on home detention awaiting trial on drug and burglary charges, had an opposite course. He would leave his home to go to work inside the jail, and would then return to his house at the end of the day, as a condition of his pre-trial release. So prison officials were perplexed Wednesday afternoon when they said the 19-year-old Newton, who was not cuffed or shackled, ran from correctional officers who were escorting him to the laundry room at the Baltimore City Detention Center.

A Howard County jury took an hour Tuesday to find a 38-year-old Carroll County man guilty of using a high school friend's identity to obtain a Florida driver's license so he could avoid prosecution for driving after his own Maryland license had been revoked. Gerald Titus Jr. of the 2200 block of Gillis Road in Woodbine will be sentenced by Judge Louis A. Becker III in October. Titus, who seemed on the verge of accepting a plea that would have carried an 18-month sentence in county jail, faces up to 3 1/2 years in a state facility.

A Westminster man who held police at bay in January while he repeatedly stabbed his girlfriend outside a Hess gas station was sentenced yesterday to two concurrent 30-year prison terms, with all but 20 years suspended. With his hands cuffed behind his back, Jason Michael Woodward, 20, of the first block of Middle Grove Court East waved to his family before being led away after Carroll Circuit Judge Michael M. Galloway found him guilty of attempted second-degree murder and kidnapping. "The facts of this case are horrific," Galloway said.

Taking orders at the drive-through window or flipping burgers at the grill, the 44-year-old Baltimore grandmother does whatever needs to be done on the night shift at a McDonald's in Jessup.When she finishes her shift, she waves goodbye to fellow employees heading home. Then she returns to jail.The woman is one of 38 inmates in the Howard County Detention Center serving their sentences in the jail's work-release program. Inmates work at such local businesses as diners, hotels, fast-food restaurants, construction companies, dry cleaners, car-towing companies and auto body shops.

Taking orders at the drive-through window or flipping burgers at the grill, the 44-year-old Baltimore grandmother does whatever needs to be done on the night shift at a Jessup McDonald's.When she finishes her work, she waves goodbye to fellow employees heading home. Then she returns to jail.The woman is one of 38 work-release inmates in the Howard County Detention Center who work at such local diners, hotels, fast-food restaurants, construction companies, dry cleaners, car-towing companies and auto body shops.

With walls of cream-colored concrete and banks of opaque windows, the Baltimore County Detention Center addition rising from the dust on a Towson street corner looks more like a sprawling office building than a typical jail. Its design is intended to mollify neighbors who bitterly opposed the project from the start. Good luck. "It peeves me every time I see it," said Mike Ertel, who lives about a quarter-mile from the site. "This giant building sticks out like a sore thumb." Nearly five years after Ertel and his neighbors waged a fierce but ultimately futile battle against the project, the $74 million jail expansion is nearing completion, albeit a bit behind schedule.

Howard County's legislators voted yesterday to give school board members health insurance and to allow more prisoners on work release. But the debate over bills to raise taxes for school construction funding was delayed until next week. "I think it would be a good idea to have a work session, to get a clearer understanding of what each [bill] does," suggested Del. Elizabeth Bobo, a Democrat. Bobo said she expects any proposal to raise more money for school construction to be a combination of elements included in the six tax bills under consideration -- including an idea Bobo offered yesterday to raise $500,000 a year by increasing taxes on undeveloped land in Columbia.