Frosh Responds

A response to my column that ran in last Sunday's Washington Post has appeared in this morning's paper, and it's from none other than the Maryland Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman himself, Brian Frosh.

Sen. Frosh (as well as the rest of you who read this blog) might want to look closely at some recent articles posted on diminution credits, such as this one and its sidebar (also, a newsworthy item I stumbled upon -- a child killer who had served 3.5 years of a 10-year sentence for assault and then committed that murder five days later recently died in a Hagerstown prison).

Several responses to Frosh's letter are running through my head as I write this post, but for now I am going to address the committee chairman's most blatant falsehood regarding the case of Shawn Henderson.

The column claimed erroneously that Shawn Henderson, the man convicted of murdering [Lindsay] Harvey, was on the street after an earlier conviction for violent crimes because of the state's policy on diminution credits, which reduce prison sentences in return for good behavior.

In reality, Mr. Henderson was free because the judge in the case suspended all but 10 years of an initial 60-year sentence (three consecutive 20-year terms). The judge would have been fully aware of how much time the defendant was facing in prison and when he would first be eligible for release.

Correction, Mr. Frosh: Henderson had all but 12 years -- not 10 -- of his sentence suspended when Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Durke Thompson issued that sentence back in 2000 for the robberies he committed when he was 17 years old. Thompson later reduced Henderson's sentence from 12 years to 10 at his reconsideration hearing.

But all issues regarding the controversial process of sentence reconsiderations aside, even that's beside the point. The suspension of Henderson's sentence by itself did not lead to Lindsay Harvey's murder. Henderson was sentenced in 2000. Had he been made to serve all 12 years -- or even 10 years -- of the nonsuspended portion of his sentence, he would not have been free to murder Lindsay Harvey on April 13, 2008. He would have been sitting in a prison cell that night. And Lindsay would have made it home alive.

Again, Henderson was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2000. He got out of prison on April 14, 2006, with good time credit having taken the majority of the time off his sentence. He murdered Lindsay Harvey on April 13, 2008. You do the math.

For Frosh to insinuate that Henderson was free that night because of the sentence suspension alone is ignorant at best and intellectually dishonest at worst.

Incidentally, to which piece of legislation is Frosh referring when he mentions the passing of a bill that "makes it more difficult for prisoners convicted of violent crimes to obtain early release through good-conduct credits"? That would have been helpful.

Nice try, Senator.