When Baltimore State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy went before a powerful judicial panel in Annapolis last week, she tried to persuade the legislators that her office strictly follows the law requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence to criminal defendants.
Any problems, she suggested, including a wrongful first-degree murder conviction and the dismissals of serious criminal cases, are isolated episodes, not part of a pattern at the state's attorney's office.
The wrongful conviction and the dismissals amounted to a "tiny problem," she said.
Still, she told the lawmakers, one mistake is too many. "When people's lives, reputations and freedom are at stake, there is no margin for error," Jessamy said. "And yet, errors do occur."
Over the next hour, three witnesses testified that Jessamy was mistaken, if not flat-out wrong.
They said there was a serious problem with the disclosure of evidence, known as "discovery," and one of the witnesses offered fresh examples to illustrate the point.
The only question remaining was who is to blame -- prosecutors, police officers or judges, who for decades have tolerated what one witness called a deception game of "hide the ball" from defendants and their attorneys.
According to the testimony by the head of a justice council and two senior public defenders:
Evidence problems have troubled the city courthouse for years, and judges have not held prosecutors' "feet to the fire," one of the public defenders said, to ensure they comply with the law, which requires that prosecutors disclose evidence within 25 days of a suspect's arraignment.
Evidence is not disclosed, in part, because the state's attorney's office is understaffed, crippling the ability of prosecutors to meet tight deadlines.
Police officers are failing to provide evidence to prosecutors.
No system exists to notify prosecutors when they are about to miss deadlines, and there is no way to determine how many cases run afoul of the law because evidence was not turned over on time.
An analysis of Baltimore's courts paid for by the U.S. Justice Department found that discovery violations are a serious issue facing court administrators, and they have not taken meaningful steps to address the problem.
At the hearing, the chairman of the House public safety subcommittee that controls the finances of the state's criminal justice agencies asked Jessamy to address discovery problems in Baltimore.
"Is there a systemwide problem?" asked Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat.
She paused.
A committee is "dealing with issues of discovery," she said.
Lawmakers seek reforms
Jessamy had been summoned to appear before the panel after The Sun published a two-part series July 11 and 12 that reported that a man was wrongfully convicted of murder after evidence showing others may have committed the crime was kept secret from his defense lawyer. The paper also reported that charges against at least seven other defendants have been dismissed in the past two years because prosecutors failed to disclose evidence.
State lawmakers are threatening to withhold $17.8 million from criminal justice agencies unless reforms are made to Baltimore's antiquated system. The calls for reforms came in response to articles in The Sun that examined breakdowns at the courthouse that resulted in trial delays, overcrowded jails and dismissals of criminal cases.
After Jessamy, the next witness was John H. Lewin Jr., executive director of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. The council was formed to study problems at the courthouse and develop solutions by an October deadline set by state lawmakers.
Lewin testified that "there has been a culture that has not taken discovery obligations seriously" in Baltimore, and the failure to provide evidence under state and federal law contributes to delays at the courthouse.
"Up until now, there has not been a mechanism designed to focus on discovery issues," Lewin told the lawmakers. "In too many instances, discovery disputes are still festering when cases are called to trial."
He said council members have examined three months' worth of cases and found that evidence delays are responsible for at least 10 percent of trial postponements. Franchot wondered whether the violations might be causing more problems at the courthouse.
"It may be an underlying irritant to the whole system," the lawmaker noted.
"I agree," Lewin said.
'Clearly understaffed'
Another problem contributing to discovery violations, Lewin said, is the size of the state's attorney's office. Jessamy testified that she had 170 prosecutors and nine investigators to handle 86,000 cases last year.
By comparison, Philadelphia had 275 prosecutors and 100 investigators to handle 72,000 cases, she said.
"I do think the state's attorney's office is clearly understaffed, and that accounts for part of this problem," Lewin said.
The lawmakers then called Elizabeth L. Julian to testify. The acting district director of the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore said discovery violations are "happening daily" in the city. A courtroom dedicated to resolving evidence disputes, she said, could create a "level playing field" between prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Julian also said judges should punish prosecutors who fail to meet the deadlines. She testified that prosecutors typically reveal evidence months later, sometimes as jurors are being selected, and judges rarely hold the prosecutors accountable.
"Perhaps the culture, which has existed for a very long time, will begin to change," she said.
Julian also told the legislators that discovery problems might be responsible for far more than 10 percent of the postponements. Frequently, she said, defendants are reluctant to take early plea deals because prosecutors haven't provided their attorneys with the evidence.
Those evidence delays are rarely reflected in official court documents.
"You cannot get your client to make a move without getting the information that he needs," Julian explained.
The next to testify was Bridget Shepherd, chief of the felony trial division for the public defender's office. Armed with a folder full of records, Shepherd outlined six fresh examples of cases she said contained serious discovery problems.
Among them:
Antonio Lambirth, who was charged with murder in September 1997. Despite requests from defense attorneys, prosecutors never revealed that a key witness could not identify him from a photo lineup. When that fact was revealed during trial testimony in May 1998, Circuit Judge Ellen M. Heller admonished the prosecutor and told jurors that the case would be delayed because of the violation. "That information should have been disclosed by the state to the defense and was not," Heller told them. The jurors later acquitted Lambirth.
Terrance Santangelo, who was arrested in October 1998 on murder charges. Shepherd, who represented Santangelo, asked prosecutors to tell her who owned the knife found at the crime scene. On the morning of the trial, four months after his arraignment, she said prosecutors gave her a report produced the month of Santangelo's arrest revealing that the mother of the victim said the knife belonged to her son -- a disclosure that Shepherd said was critical to her self-defense argument. Santangelo pleaded guilty to assault, received a suspended sentence and was released that day.
Donnell and Tony Ratchford, who were indicted in December 1997 on charges that they killed three people. During the trial, the detective testified that no tests had been done of certain samples taken from parts of the house, said Joan Fraser, a defense attorney. After the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict, prosecutor Sharon Holback gave Fraser a report showing that the tests had been performed inside the house -- and none of them implicated her client. The documents also showed that police had received a tip that someone else committed the crime.
"The more often that it happens, the more frustrated you get," Fraser said.
The Ratchfords are awaiting another trial.
Accused not on video
The most egregious case Shepherd cited last week was the case against Aubrey Lang. In June 1998, he was charged with two crimes: an attempted murder, and the armed robbery of the Village Economy Store in the 2200 block of Reisterstown Road.
Unable to post bail, Lang sat in jail, pleading innocence to both crimes. While one lawyer worked on the attempted murder case, attorney Mario Santos defended Lang on the armed robbery charge.
Santos said he sent prosecutor Twila Dwiggins three letters requesting a copy of the store surveillance tape. Each time, he said, Dwiggins told him that the police had not provided it to her.
In early May, Lang was acquitted of the attempted murder charge. Two weeks later, after a jury had been selected to hear the robbery case, the surveillance tape was provided to Santos.
Santos was stunned by what he saw. The tape showed a different man committing the crime.
"I was outraged," Santos said.
Four days later, Dwiggins dropped the case, and Lang was freed.
Santos said there is no excuse for what happened. Evidence has to be turned over faster. "I know that they have a million cases down there," Santos said, "but somebody has got to be doing this stuff."
Deputy State's Attorney Haven H. Kodeck said problems with those cases stemmed from insufficient staff. In the Santangelo case, the knife report was overlooked, and in the Lang case, the prosecutor was in back-to-back trials and did not have enough time to handle the case well. He said he did not know what happened in the Lambirth case because the prosecutor is no longer in the office. He would not comment on the Ratchford case because it is pending.
"If we could have [more] staff, we could do a much better job in preparation," Kodeck said.
By the end of the hearing, Jessamy acknowledged that there was a problem with discovery. She has directed her prosecutors to note when they disclose evidence to defense attorneys. She also noted that police do not always provide prosecutors with evidence quickly, causing more delays.
"So, yes, there are things that are going on. There is evidence and there are results that have not come back at the point that an arrest is made," she said. "We are trying to resolve that issue, but it continues to be problematic."