Thoughts? When it comes to
perpetrators of the worst of the worse violent criminal behavior, oftentimes committed with illegal firearms - receiving "kid glove" treatment after arrest makes me shake my head in wonderment. I think most of us grew up having no problem whatsoever with someone convicted of horrific violent criminal acts receiving profoundly long "you're goddam right it is harsh" corrective sentences. Rehabilitation chances slim. Recidivism upon release highly likely. It breaks my heart when the inevitable headlines of "Violent criminal released on (you choose: bail, early, parole) arrested after (you choose: raping, robbing, murdering) again.
Looks like Baltimore is in recovery mode after an extended debacle of plea bargaining madness, obscene bail reform, early release insanity, and magical wishful thinking that the worst of the worst "criminals won't re-criminal".
Voted out:
https://www.mdpolicy.org/research/detai ... ee-to-kill
Perhaps some Maryland posters hereabouts can weigh in on how Ms. Mosby - who was just convicted of perjury by the US Attorney's Office in Maryland - got elected in the first place.
Voted in:
Ivan Bates. Writer Dan Rodricks in The Baltimore Sun a few days ago caught up with Mr. Bates: Monday morning the Baltimore Police Department updated its year-over-year count of homicides and nonfatal shootings, reporting 240 people killed by others, 61 fewer than at the same point last year. In that time, 584 people were wounded by gunfire, 58 fewer than in 2022. That’s still too much death and pain. But, for a city that suffered through eight straight years of 300-plus homicides, ending 2023 with numbers south of that depressing mark must be regarded as a sign of progress in the city’s varied efforts to prevent violence.
Voters elected a new chief prosecutor last year, and Ivan Bates became Baltimore State’s Attorney on Jan. 3, succeeding Marilyn Mosby, whose two terms were marked by the high homicide counts. In Bates’ first year, which still has another month left in it, the State’s Attorney’s Office has recorded 125 guilty verdicts or pleas in homicide cases against 17 acquittals and three dismissals. That’s significantly ahead of the total for 2022, when there were 93 guilty verdicts or pleas in homicide cases. In an interview last week — edited here for length and clarity — I asked Bates about his first year in office.
What was the staff situation like when you took over?
I’d have to say, for a word to describe the office when I got here, they were demoralized. There were people who were beaten down, people who didn’t feel heard, people who didn’t want to be here, people who hated their jobs. They did the jobs, but they didn’t feel appreciated. I had homicide prosecutors carrying almost 30 open murder [cases] and 20 open investigations. They were working almost seven days a week.
You must have lost some people. That happens with every turnover.
We lost some. But we didn’t come in firing people. The senior people we wanted to keep, we were able to keep. … The most important speech that I’ve made wasn’t the speech that any television camera or community group saw. It was a speech I made in January inside Courtroom 400 to the people in the office: Why they needed to stay, why I wanted them to stay. But we lost some people. When I took over, there were about 134 lawyers. We’ve hired almost 60. Realistically, we need 220. We can go to City Hall to ask for additional [prosecutors], but we’re not in a position to do that until we’re able to do our job first.
It looks like you’ve had a good start, with increased convictions. The drop in homicides looks promising.
We’re doing better than last year. We know 125 people were found guilty of murder. In Baltimore, that’s a big number of people who are going to get 30 years to life [in prison]. Those are the individuals that were doing some sort of violence to someone and now are taken off the street.
Besides hiring and training new staff, what were your biggest challenges of the year?
To decrease crime, it’s never a “me,” it’s always a “we.” I had to re-establish the relationship with the Baltimore Police Department.
How did you do that?
It was going over there, sitting down, addressing the [police union]. I went to a roll call in the Central District. I have to have a real relationship with the police commissioner. We go to lunch every month and we have an executive meeting with the BPD, and we talk about the issues that we see and what’s going on. … And truly, to me, the biggest relationship I had to get was with the U.S. Attorney, Erek Barron.
What was the status of that relationship, given that the feds had indicted your predecessor on perjury charges?
Unfortunately, there was no relationship. And, to be honest, I think it is the most important relationship for us because they’re the hammer. … When I was a defense attorney, I knew my clients [in gun cases] were terrified of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The guys who are really doing the shooting and the killings are a select group. They’re the trigger pullers, the people who are inflicting crime on so many of the citizens. If the police are going out and arresting them, we need to figure out a way to hold them accountable. We re-established the relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office so that they look at every single handgun case that the city has. We sit down at least once a month to decide who can potentially be prosecuted over there — that wasn’t happening anymore — and that means, for the most violent trigger pullers, we’re not worried about [prosecuting] you in the state court because it’s not about “me” needing to convict you. It’s about “we,” and the system holding you accountable.
Would you say this is already having some effect?
It’s definitely had a major effect because those individuals aren’t back on the street to pull the triggers to shoot and kill other people. … My homicide unit has 125 [guilty verdicts]. My gun unit has 219 guilty verdicts thus far. Those are the units that had prosecutors in them that were just holding on, but didn’t have the resources over the past two or three years. They were the prosecutors that my speech in Courtroom 400 needed to resonate with because we needed them to be able to hold the office up until reinforcements are [trained] and ready.
END ARTICLE
Sounds like Baltimore, where criminal violence and criminal gun violence are a cancer, is getting some much needed leadership.
Another step in what appears to be a good direction - Community based involvement in criminal justice system accountability:
https://baltimorewitness.org/
I wonder if perhaps the Bloomberg/Everytown Wing at Johns Hopkins can perhaps do MORE research on how criminal gun violence can be mitigated in our most needy communities, and LESS activist "Policy based evidence making" to create new avenues of attack on the rights of law abiding gun owners. Those darn pesky 99.99% of citizens who responsibly own firearms and aren't criminals. Just a thought for a slow Friday.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. John Stuart Mill On Liberty 1859
. See my ode to Shane McGowan today. 
