Baltimore has had four mayors and six police commissioners but just one chief prosecutor in the past 15 years — Patricia C. Jessamy, who having survived any number of legal and political battles seemed poised for another election win this fall.
She still may be, but on Tuesday, Gregg Bernstein, a well-connected former federal prosecutor, is expected to enter the race against her and run a serious if uphill challenge.
Bernstein is "the most credible candidate she has faced," says Page Croyder, a former prosecutor under Jessamy who now blogs about criminal justice issues and frequently criticizes her former boss. "He's from a large firm; he has an excellent reputation. He could mount a campaign."
Croyder and others in the legal community are expecting a pitched fight, with the campaign tapping into the always deep emotions that accompany the issue of crime and how it is prosecuted in Baltimore. Jessamy has come under fire over the years for the handling of high-profile cases, from agreeing to a plea deal in the case of the beating death of Zach Sowers, a finance employee at the Johns Hopkins University, near his Patterson Park home several years ago to initially opposing the release of Michael Austin in 2002 after 27 years in prison on a faulty murder conviction.
Additionally, the campaign will pit Jessamy against someone who has ties, both real and rumored, to officials with whom she's butted heads over the years, making it something of a proxy battle.
Jessamy says Bernstein was put up to the race by her longtime antagonist, Gov. Martin O'Malley, something his campaign spokesman has denied. Bernstein is married to Sheryl Goldstein, the so-called crime czar at City Hall and someone with strong alliances in the Police Department, which has had its own battles with Jessamy over the years.
But rather than hurt her, the sense of Jessamy as a strong woman standing up to heavyweights only helps, supporters say.
"She has always been independent," defense attorney A. Dwight Pettit said. "I like her for that, and I like her as a prosecutor as well. She has always been independent from O'Malley, and that continues, unlike everything else in the city that O'Malley tries to control."
Pettit says he has to chuckle over the "very slick" way that Jessamy drew O'Malley into the race, saying it will drive support for Jessamy in the same way that his attack on her did back in 2001. Then, angered that Jessamy had dropped corruption charges against a police officer, O'Malley denounced her for not having "the goddamn guts to get off her ass" and try the case. The spectacle of a white man publicly demeaning an African-American woman in such profane language outraged many.
Race could factor into this campaign as well, with Bernstein, who is white, taking on a woman with a strong political base in the black community. Assessing Bernstein's chances against Jessamy, another defense attorney, Anton Keating, who ran unsuccessfully against her in 2002, was doubtful.
"Not unless Gregg can join Bethel … and Delta," he said, referring to a church and sorority that are pillars in Baltimore's African-American establishment.
That Jessamy, 61, rose to her position of power from an upbringing in a segregated Southern town is something that resonates strongly in the black community. Additionally, her conflicts with the Police Department have helped her in a city where some blacks feel unduly harassed by officers.
"The community has its suspicions about the police. She wants to be seen on the side of the community," Croyder said.
The prospect of a Bernstein candidacy has excited Jessamy detractors like Croyder. They see in him someone who could turn what Croyder calls the current "abysmal" relationship between prosecutors and police into a more cooperative one. "They should be working together productively," Croyder said. "The public finger-pointing has been very destructive."
The skirmishes range from subtle to more overt, with police angered when the state's attorney's office declines to bring cases to trial, and prosecutors complaining that police provide tainted or improperly obtained evidence or fail to show up to testify in court. There have been years of turf battles between local and federal offices over who should prosecute gun crimes; recently the U.S. attorney's office has increased its prosecution, saying it has greater mandatory sentences at its disposal that can be used to either pressure defendants to plead guilty on the state level or put those convicted away for a longer time.
On Thursday, Jessamy was notably absent at an event in which Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III touted declining homicides and shootings and increased gun arrests and confiscations.
"Oh, there was an event?" Jessamy said later, perhaps in mock innocence, when asked why she wasn't part of the news conference to display all the guns that were taken off the street.
Joining the city officials instead were two federal officials, including U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, whom the city officials repeatedly praised for his prosecutions of gun offenses. "He's certainly not someone you see on TV," Rawlings-Blake said. "But gun criminals and violent gangs know who he is. They hope and pray their case doesn't go federal."
Jessamy said many of the current successes in targeting guns and gangs had their origins in her office's initiatives. She says that during the campaign, she will be promoting the programs she has created, and she dismissed concerns over her relationship with O'Malley — which she says hasn't really improved over the years — and the Police Department.
"The public knows we work well with the police, but we don't rubber-stamp everything from them," she said.
Jessamy makes $229,500 a year; she received a nearly $83,000 raise in 2006 courtesy of then-Mayor O'Malley, whose generosity was interpreted in some quarters as a way of attracting someone to run against her.
Bernstein, 54, is declining interviews until his expected announcement Tuesday. Since leaving the U.S. attorney's office, he has often represented white-collar criminals, such as Ira C. Cooke, a lobbyist and lawyer charged with bilking a mental health center, and Stephen Amos, a state official accused of misusing federal money but ultimately cleared of the charges.
Whether the state's attorney's race generates much interest outside criminal justice circles remains to be seen. It is the most visible citywide office up for election this year, which might lessen turnout, particularly in the September primary in which Bernstein is the only candidate expected to challenge Jessamy. Without a Republican or independent entering the race, the contest could be decided then rather than in November's general election.
Observers wonder how many voters will be motivated enough to go to the polls, particularly to unseat an incumbent in an office whose impact on daily life is not as immediately evident as that of a mayor or City Council member. Last time around, in the 2006 primary, Jessamy won 72 percent of the vote against a little-known challenger, Stephan Fogleman.
"I guess I'm programmed to vote for her unless someone gives me a reason not to," said Donna Beth Joy Shapiro, a Bolton Hill resident who recently received a telephone call from a pollster asking about Bernstein and Jessamy. "I think her job is difficult."
Bernstein would enter the race, on the last day to file for candidacy, with less name recognition. But, says one lawyer who admires him and believes that Jessamy's tenure in office has not produced adequate results, that might not be such a detriment.
"It's as much a race about Pat Jessamy as it is about Gregg Bernstein," said Steve Levin, a former federal prosecutor. "The question is, has she been a successful state's attorney? Is there anyone in Baltimore City saying, 'Wow, she has done a great job'? Is the state's attorney's office a credible deterrent to crime? It's not."
Perhaps the most conflicted person in town on the race is Larry Young, host of a WOLB radio talk show and a former state senator. He has supported Jessamy in every campaign, but he also, when charged in 1998 with bribery and tax evasion, turned to Bernstein to defend him. He was found not guilty.
"Gregg Bernstein is one of my best friends in life," Young said. "Gregg Bernstein is an exceptional lawyer. Gregg Bernstein, obviously, was there for me in one of the darkest hours of my life.
"It is a tough position, and I've battered about what I'm going to do," Young said. "I've reached a position, I obviously will vote."
But for whom? He's not saying.
"I will make no comment regarding the election because of my close association with Gregg," he said, "and my political association with Jessamy."
This article was modified from an earlier version to correctly note that the state's attorney's election is not the only Baltimore political race this year.
Patricia C. Jessamy
Age: 61
Education: B.A., Jackson State University (Miss.), 1970; J.D., University of Mississippi School of Law, 1974
Career: private practice attorney, 1974-1977; assistant state's attorney in Baltimore, 1985-85; deputy state's attorney, 1987-95; state's attorney since February 1995
Gregg L. Bernstein
Age: 54
Education: B.A., University of Maryland, 1977; J.D., University of Maryland Law School, 1981
Career: assistant U.S. Attorney in Maryland, 1987-1991; white-collar defense attorney in private practice, 1991-present (Miles & Stockbridge; Martin, Junghans, Snyder & Bernstein; Zuckerman Spaeder