Deal gets Stokes home detention on gun charges in priest shooting

As jurors left the courtroom yesterday, several hugged Stokes' mother and aunts. Some spoke a phrase often repeated by Stokes' family during the trial: "God is good." The jury consisted of 11 women and one man.

Jurors said they thought prosecutors did a poor job preparing the case. Some also said they felt Stokes had endured enough pain because of the alleged sexual abuse, and because authorities doubted his claims during the initial investigation nine years ago.

"This man [Stokes] has been suffering since 1993," said Catherine Robinson, 39, who participated in the deliberations. "The state's attorney knew about it and did nothing since '93. Cardinal [William H.] Keeler knew and did nothing. And that's been detrimental for this man's life."

The state's attorney's office investigated Blackwell in 1993 but never charged him. The same year, the church briefly sent Blackwell away for an evaluation, then reinstated him.

Keeler testified during the trial that he regretted returning Blackwell to his parish, St. Edward Roman Catholic Church in West Baltimore. The cardinal, in two of the more dramatic moments of the weeklong trial, warmly shook Stokes' hand before and after his testimony.

Keeler's testimony and apology did little to sway the jury either way, Robinson said.

"A lot of us were unmoved by the cardinal," she said.

Robinson was the jury's secretary, keeping track of votes while the members deliberated for more than eight hours Monday.

She said that at first, one or two jurors wanted to convict Stokes on the attempted-murder charge, but they were eventually swayed to acquit. After that, the initial votes on the other eight counts were nearly unanimous.

Another juror, a 41-year-old woman who declined to give her name, said she felt Stokes had endured enough pain.

"I think he's a very nice man and he's been through enough," the woman said. "We believed it was an out-of-body experience, of course. I don't think his intention was to hurt [Blackwell] at all."

Stokes testified during the trial that he shot Blackwell, the priest who baptized him, three times in the hand and hip with a .357 Magnum handgun. He said Blackwell repeatedly molested him when he was a teen-ager and that, at the time of the shooting, he was confronting the priest on a West Baltimore street to find "reconciliation."

He said in a police report that he became angry when the priest pretended to ignore him that day.

Blackwell couldn't be reached for comment yesterday. He refused to answer questions when called to the witness stand last week, invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent on the grounds he might incriminate himself.

The defense brought in a psychiatrist, Michael K. Spodak, to testify that Stokes was suffering from "depersonalization" and "disassociation" at the time of the attack. Spodak said Stokes did not know what he was doing when he shot Blackwell.

A state doctor also examined Stokes, but found that he was criminally responsible for the crime. The prosecution did not submit that report to the jury. The defense did not submit its doctor's mental examination for the jury's review.

The three minor handgun charges Stokes was convicted of could have carried a total maximum penalty of seven years in prison. With the verdict, jurors sent a handwritten note to the judge, asking him to be lenient in his sentencing.

Brown, Stokes' lawyer, said before the trial that he wanted an all-female jury because he believed women would be more sympathetic to Stokes.

Jurors said that while the mostly female composition of the jury may have favored Stokes, they did not base their decision on pity.

"We strictly relied on the facts," Robinson said.

The prosecution and the defense agreed yesterday to not proceed with the second phase of the trial, which would have determined whether Stokes was criminally responsible for the handgun charges he was convicted of Monday.

They also agreed on a "miscellaneous agreement" that set the 18-month sentencing guidelines for Stokes.

Cox, the prosecutor, asked the judge to send Stokes to prison for 18 months. Brown asked if Stokes could serve the sentence at home while he appeals the verdict, to which the judge agreed. Stokes was also given credit for seven months he has served under house arrest awaiting trial.

Brown is appealing the verdict because, he said, the manner in which the jury deliberated was improper. The 12 members of the jury deliberated along with four alternates, something that is almost unheard of in a criminal case.

The four alternates deliberated only for the first few hours with the core 12 members. After that, Prevas instructed them to remain silent and only observe.

The reason behind it, Prevas said, is that he wanted to retain the four alternates in case they were needed if the trial continued on to its second phase to determine Stokes' criminal responsibility.

Brown said that was "illegal."

"Some people might say, 'You got good results,'" Brown said. "If the extra jurors hadn't been in there, I might not have gotten any guilty counts."

Brown also dismissed accusations that the verdict would encourage people to settle disputes with handguns.

"This verdict doesn't make a broad statement about vigilante justice or taking the law into your own hands," Brown said. "It deals with a guy who briefly lost his mind."

Sun staff writers Jamie Stiehm and Reginald Fields contributed to this article.