Jason Aaron DeLong, sentenced last month to life in prison for conspiring to kill his mother, has already served a life sentence of tragedy and deserves compassion and a chance to be free, his lawyers say.
"His whole life has been a sequence of tragic events and forever escalating sadness," Baltimore lawyers Luther C. West and Catherine Flynn wrote in a petition seeking a shorter sentence and a new trial that was filed this week in Carroll Circuit Court.
"His parents failed him, society failed him, civilization failed him. It is hoped that somehow, his most recent cry of rage, and pain, be dealt with on an informed and moral basis."
On Nov. 23, Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold sentenced DeLong to life in prison because he wasn't convinced that the 19-year-old Westminster man wouldn't kill again.
DeLong admitted to stabbing his mother, Cathryn Brace Farrar, in a rage on July 29, 1993. A Carroll jury in September found him guilty but not criminally responsible for her death and the death of her boyfriend, George William Wahl.
After the jury verdict, Judge Arnold confined DeLong to the Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, where he is being treated. The life sentence he imposed on Nov. 23 was ordered to begin in August 1993, when DeLong was arrested. It is being served concurrently with his time in Perkins, court documents show.
Throughout DeLong's monthlong trial, his attorneys portrayed him as an abused, neglected and troubled young man who suffered a lifetime of physical, sexual and emotional abuse at Ms. Farrar's hands. They said her torment drove him insane, and that on July 29, he snapped while making his mother a cup of coffee in her Westminster apartment.
"It should also be considered that the present crimes involving his mother and her boyfriend were performed by a severely mentally ill young man who was egged on by a young woman who was also of very questionable sanity," the lawyers wrote.
DeLong and his girlfriend of one week, Sara Elizabeth Citroni, stabbed Ms. Farrar, 39, and Mr. Wahl, 35, more than 100 times before fleeing to Florida. They were arrested days later in South Florida by Westminster police.
Citroni, 18, of Reisterstown pleaded guilty in the slayings and is serving two consecutive life sentences. She will ask for a lower sentence before a panel of three Carroll judges on Feb. 13.
In their filing this week, DeLong's attorneys implored Judge Arnold to consider a sentence that would allow their client to be free after doctors at Perkins deem him to no longer be a threat to himself or others.
They also asked that Judge Arnold hold his decision for up to five years, "to have an opportunity to see how Jason's treatment is progressing," Ms. Flynn said yesterday. "We want him to see that a life sentence in this situation is inappropriate."
The lawyers contend that it was Ms. Farrar who set DeLong's rage in motion.
"A mother who sexually and physically abuses her son most of his life, and who herself is legally insane, does not deserve the death that was inflicted upon her by her son," the lawyers said. "It could be said, however, with some assurance that such a retribution is not totally unexpected. . . . Jason, it is submitted, has been punished all of his life."
In addition to asking for a shortened sentence, the lawyers also formally appealed DeLong's conviction and sentence and have requested a new trial.
fTC Baltimore Assistant State's Attorney Ara Crowe, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment.
No date was set for a ruling.