And so, a new bill proposing fewer good behavior credits for violent criminals in Maryland has been introduced in the 2011 Maryland General Assembly.
Sort of.
Actually, what has been drafted and will be introduced to the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow is a bill is Senate Bill 173, which would limit to 5 days per month the number of good behavior credits that can be attained by those convicted of violent offenses involving firearms (all violent offenders in Maryland can earn anywhere from 10 to 20 days per month off their sentences through these credits).
Ten Maryland senators, including Nancy King and some members of the Judiciary Committee, are sponsoring the bill, only this time King is not the lead sponsor. It is for this reason that I only learned about the hearing today -- and it is taking place tomorrow. Nancy King herself apparently wasn’t even given notice of tomorrow's hearing until today.
A hearing date for House version of this bill has not yet been announced.
One potential bit of good news about this bill is that it has the backing of Gov. Martin O'Malley. This is important, I'm told, because bills that are on the Governor's agenda generally have a better chance of passing than those that do not. So that's one thing working in our favor this time.
Of course, the obvious caveat with this bill is that it only affects those violent criminals who use firearms to commit their crimes. Which means that it would not have affected Shawn Henderson. Henderson used .40-caliber pistol to kill Lindsay Harvey in 2008, but in the earlier crimes for which he had previously been convicted, Henderson used a knife to injure his victims.
So no, this proposed new law, had it been in place years ago, would not have saved Lindsay Harvey's life. And that’s not quite good enough in terms of providing the next measure of justice for her death.
Still, we need to look at the bigger picture here. This new law, assuming it is implemented correctly, would keep at least some violent felons in prison longer. And that will help save innocent lives. And that's really the whole point of this endeavor. And just because this particular bill doesn't give us everything we want, that doesn't mean we can't pursue even stronger legislation down the road.
Unfortunately, with this General Assembly, you cannot just go in there swinging for the fences. Sometimes in politics you have to lay down a bunt to get the ball rolling.
And, in the grander scheme of things, given the hasty manner in which I was finally obtain all the information about this bill, this does nothing to change the culture in Annapolis, where the scheduling practices continue to make it difficult -- if not next to impossible -- for average citizens to have their voices heard, or at least give their voices more weight.
But this new bill is progress nonetheless. I knew going into this movement very early on that the goal of keeping Marylanders safer from violent criminals was probably going to take years to achieve. Any victory we can achieve, however small, is an achievement we can be proud of.
