Introducing: No Good Time For Gun Crimes

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.

2011: Now What?

Note: This is the first entry in what I hope will be a weekly column on the Justice For Safety Movement for the Justice For Safety blog. I will continue to post updates and links as I find them on the Justice For Safety Facebook page and on this blog, the latter on which I have not published anything recently. I am looking to get back to making this a regular thing so that the issue of violent crime in Maryland remains fresh.

Hello, and Happy New Year, everyone.

It's been a while since I've written or posted anything related to the Justice For Safety movement. But, if for no other reason than it's a new year and the new legislative session in Annapolis is beginning this week, I have decided to get the ball rolling again. Only now, for the first time, I am going to try and use this blog at least once a week to issue a no-holds-barred and (to steal a phrase from a good friend of mine) "balls-out" commentary on violent crime policy in Maryland and the politics behind it, as well as post any news and/or information that comes my way.

Of course, to start, I would love to be able to tell you something new here. Even better would be the ability to tell you that exciting things are happening with the Justice For Safety cause. Unfortunately, I cannot say that this is the case. As of this writing, I do not know whether any legislation that seeks to keep violent offenders in prison longer is forthcoming in the 2011 legislative session. And even if legislation is introduced, I'm not exactly optimistic that it will go anywhere.

Just to review: On April 13, 2008, Lindsay Marie Harvey, a 25-year-old Gaithersburg resident who worked with my wife at the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, was murdered in the parking lot of her apartment complex by Shawn Henderson, a convicted felon who served just six years in prison for slashing people's throats, even though he had originally been sentenced to a total of 60 years. It was through a series of mechanisms in the criminal justice system (a consolidation of his sentence, a suspension of the sentence, reconsideration, and good behavior credits) that Henderson served a fraction of his prison sentence. And it was upon learning all this information that I got involved in a grass-roots movement to try and change the laws in Maryland that led to Henderson's early release.

To date, the efforts of this movement have not gone very far. True, I was able to get Sen. Nancy King (D-Montgomery Village), my state senator, to introduce legislation that would have reduced good behavior credits after writing to her about Lindsay Harvey (she's done this for two legislative sessions in a row now), and we were able to bring some media attention to this issue in the form of a two-part series in the Gazette in December 2008, an editorial and then an article in the Washington Post, and a column I had published in the Post. But the two gentlemen who chair the House and Senate Judicial Proceedings Committees in Maryland, Del. Joseph Vallario (D-Upper Marlbaro) and Sen. Brian Frosh (D-Bethesda), have refused to move the legislation out of committee. And with these two men having been re-elected to the General Assembly by landslide margins last November, there is no reason to expect that they will have a change of heart and move it to a vote this year either.

Given the recent election results, which firmly established the Democratic Party's dominance in Maryland, it looks like it is going to be business as usual in Annapolis. Frosh himself basically acknowledged as much after winning 70 percent of the vote in the general election over his Republican opponent Jerry Cave. The issue of keeping violent offenders in prison is just not a politically expedient one at the moment, and it's certainly not at the top of Brian Frosh's or Joseph Vallario's to-do list. And with the state facing major budget issues right now, the possibility of any legislation getting through that is perceived to cost the state prison system more money becomes even more remote.

The reality here is that nothing is likely to change unless something dramatic happens. I can't imagine right now what that might be, and I'm not sure I want to.

Vallario has taken a beating in the press over the past year over his reputation for squelching common-sense legislation that could save lives, not to mention his perceived rude treatment of victims' advocates during House Judiciary Committee hearings. Inexplicably, Frosh seems to be immune to such criticism despite being equally callous towards those who testify in support of legislation he is not interested in passing. During the 2010 election campaign, Frosh was actually lauded by both the Post and Gazette for serving his constituents well, being an ardent environmentalist, and being, of all things, honest -- really. Some blogs and this Facebook page tried to make the case (correctly, I might add) that Frosh is nothing like his supporters say he is, but to no avail.

In the end, it doesn’t matter all that much. Frosh and Vallario remain in power because they basically have no competition for their jobs; they are part of a system that is far more favorable to power brokers in Annapolis than it is to average Maryland citizens. They set the tone for judiciary policy in Maryland. Therefore, they can get away with rejecting even the most sensible legislation, because no one else really has the resources to challenge them for their jobs.

I know this probably all sounds very cynical on my part. But I've spent almost three years fighting now, all the while researching as much as I can and educating myself about Maryland politics. In theory, in a representative democracy, the government is supposed to be responsive to the will of the people. Every so often, in practice, it can work that way. But more often than not it doesn’t, especially in a state like Maryland where the top lawmakers are more beholden to special interests than they are to the general population.

Not that I'm giving up. I will continue this fight because I made a commitment to the friends and family of Lindsay Harvey, and I know in my heart that this is the right thing to do. As such, I will continue to educate all of you. But it's going to take a lot more than me merely informing you to get real change done in Annapolis. To quote Thomas Jefferson, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

So find out who your representatives are in Annapolis. And then write to them or call them and tell them about this issue and any other issues in the state of Maryland that you care about. And who knows? If enough of you do this, they may actually listen and try and do something for you, just like Nancy King has done for me. But if you don’t do anything, they won't either.

Once again, Happy New Year, and stay tuned.

"No Confidence" in the Justice System

This article appeared in last week's Gazette. The paragraphs at the end where Debra Harvey is quoted are worth repeating here.

Debra Harvey of Oneonta, N.Y., whose daughter Lindsay, a Gaithersburg woman, was killed in April 2008 by a repeat violent offender whose early release from prison came in part through diminution credits, wrote a three-page letter to legislators.

She said that after more than one year of meetings, hearings and trials, she watched her daughter's murderer sentenced to life without parole plus 20 years in prison.

"I don't know whether this means he will die in prison or whether he will get out of prison again somehow," Harvey said. "I don't know what to believe and I have no confidence in the Maryland judicial system."

We are now on Facebook

It took me a while, but I finally created a Justice For Safety Facebook page. Check it out and join, and tell your friends about it, too.

House Bil 790

Del. Ben Kramer has filed House Bill 790, which would limit early release credit accumulations for violent offenders to 10 days per month -- and no more than that. No more exceptions, like, for instance, if a violent inmate shares a cell.

The House Judiciary Committee hearing for HB 790 will take place in Annapolis on Feb. 23, beginning at 1 PM. Sen. Nancy King is expected to cross-file the Senate version of this bill.

I will post more information as it becomes available.

We are making progress, however slow it might be.

Coping With Unspeakable Loss (Part II)

The second in the Post's two-part series on the Erika Smith murder.

Coping With Unspeakable Loss

Kudos to the Washington Post for this: the first in a series of stories about a mother whose 9-year-old daughter was shot to death by a repeat offender at her father's house in Silver Spring (the girl's father was also killed in the attack).

The Post should be commended for focusing its reporting on a victim's mother, as opposed to a perpetrator that got one too many second chances and used his newfound freedom to break the law yet again.

Maybe if more stories like this get published then people will be motivated to seriously re-examine the criminal justice system in Maryland and in the nation and put pressure on their elected representatives to make serious changes.