For anyone interested in dissecting the criminal cases involving the suspects charged in the stabbing of Charles Village resident Stephen Pitcairn, The Sun's Justin Fenton's story today is a must read.
It details how suspects Lavelva Merritt and John Alexander Wagner seems to skate through the criminal justice system, to the point where even Baltimore's mayor questions whether the male suspect should've been out on the street.
In one sense, it's a familiar tale of opportunities lost and thrown away, about a reluctant witness who refused to testify in an earlier robbery and about prosecutors who then ditched the case. Whose fault is that?
Above, in a picture by The Sun's Kenneth K. Lam, Joshua Eicher, part of a street-cleaning crew with the Charles Village Community Benefits District, pauses from his work to look at flowers and birthday cake left at a makeshift memorial in the 2600 block of St. Paul St.
The tragic death of Pitcairn, an aspiring Johns Hopkins research assistant who was working on stem cells and breast cancer, will be felt in Baltimore for years to come. Immediately, it will serve as a reminder of a criminal justice system that if not broken is badly in need of reform. It will provide fodder for what could be a volatile race for state's attorney (see earlier blog to get an idea of the fight ahead).
Here is just a few revelations that Justin's story explores:
•Wagner pleaded guilty to a vicious assault on his then-girlfriend in 2008 and received eight years in prison, but the entire sentence was suspended. He was charged with violating his probation on four occasions, but each time a city judge ordered that the terms of his supervision remain unchanged.
•In April, Wagner was caught on city surveillance cameras robbing a man at a downtown gas station and was arrested at the scene after the victim gave a detailed account and identified his attacker. But the victim later got skittish and refused to cooperate. Prosecutors dropped the case.
•And on July 22, a Baltimore County judge issued an arrest warrant for Wagner for violating his probation in a 2009 car theft conviction. But it was added to a backlog of tens of thousands of unserved warrants.