Applying Maryland's trial-scheduling rule to defendants incarcerated out of state could result in hardened criminals being set free because of procedural problems, three former Carroll County prosecutors told the House Judiciary Committee on Friday.
The scheduling rule requires trials to be scheduled within 180 days of an attorney's or the defendant's first appearance in court.
A bill submitted by Carroll Republican Del. Nancy R. Stocksdale, inspired by the 1993 James Howard VanMetre III murder case, would set aside the rule until a defendant is brought to Maryland. No one spoke in opposition to the bill at the hearing.
"This rule is obviously intended to speed a case along so defendants don't have to sit in local jails indefinitely," said Edward Ulsch, a former Carroll County assistant state's attorney who prosecuted the VanMetre case. "But this was a unique thing. He [VanMetre] was located in a Pennsylvania jail and we could not get him."
Supporters of the bill said VanMetre, who is serving time in a Pennsylvania prison on an unrelated rape conviction, lured Holly Ann Blake of Gettysburg, Pa., into a Maryland field during their first date in September 1991. He strangled her, burned her body and threw the ashes into the Monocacy River, they said. He later confessed to the crime to Pennsylvania police.
The police contacted Carroll County investigators but refused to surrender VanMetre to Maryland officials until they were finished prosecuting him for crimes in Pennsylvania, the bill's supporters said Friday.
VanMetre was released to Maryland officials in 1993 after the governors of both states signed a special agreement, the prosecutors said.
VanMetre was convicted in April 1993 and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. But the Court of Special Appeals over turned his conviction in June 1994 because the Maryland trial-scheduling rule, known as the Hicks rule, had not been observed.
"Mr. VanMetre was able to use this protection as a sword rather than a shield," said co-prosecutor Christy McFaul. Citing the decision that created the trial scheduling rule, she said the rule was intended to take into account "cases that go beyond the usual or commonplace."
"The defendant was out of state, and the Interstate Detention Act does not allow us to get him," Ms. McFaul said. "A murderer should not be able to escape on a technicality with a two-second Hicks hearing."
In their decision, the Court of Special Appeals judges said prosecutors could have avoided violating the trial-scheduling rule by simply asking for a waiver of it. The appellate judges rejected arguments by the Carroll County state's attorney's office and Carroll Circuit Judge Francis M. Arnold that the Hicks rule did not apply to defendants incarcerated out-of-state.
"This argument is simply without merit," the court wrote. The prosecution's "theory would reduce the Maryland Rules to the status of mere guideposts for each locality. This we simply cannot do."
At Friday's hearing, Democratic Del. Dana L. Dembrow of Montgomery County said Ms. Stocksdale should amend the bill to specifically say the trial-scheduling rule would take effect when a defendant is brought to Maryland.
The bill's supporters replied that was their intent with the bill.
"I have a real problem with no deadline for out-of-state people," Delegate Dembrow said. "What you are describing is different than what is here."