A Baltimore grand jury indicted Dontee D. Stokes yesterday on nine criminal counts in the shooting last month of the Rev. Maurice J. Blackwell, who was accused of fondling Stokes in 1993.

"We do not condone vigilante justice," State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy said in announcing the indictment.

She also made it clear that public anger swirling around the case because of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church would not earn Stokes special treatment. "We indict people for crimes every day, even when there are mitigating factors, some of which are as horrendous as these," she said.

Stokes is accused of shooting Blackwell, 56, three times in the hand and hip as he stood in front of his Reservoir Hill rowhouse May 13. Stokes' relatives said the incident occurred when Stokes demanded and failed to get an apology from the priest, who had been his mentor at St. Edward Catholic Church in West Baltimore.

Assistant State's Attorney Sylvester Cox said Blackwell, who is undergoing rehabilitation for his injuries, has been cooperating in Stokes' prosecution.

After hearing the testimony of a city detective, grand jurors found enough "probable cause" to indict Stokes, 26, for attempted first- and second-degree murder; first- and second-degree assault; reckless endangerment; and four counts related to carrying and firing a Smith & Wesson .357-caliber handgun.

One of the handgun counts carries a five-year mandatory sentence, meaning prosecutors would have to drop that charge for Stokes to avoid prison time under a plea agreement.

If convicted of the attempted first-degree murder charge, Stokes could face life imprisonment.

Stokes, who is confined to his aunt and uncle's home in Randallstown while free on bail, said yesterday that he did not want to comment on the indictment. His relatives also declined to discuss it.

But his defense attorney, Warren A. Brown, had plenty to say - especially about Jessamy's refusal to allow Stokes to appear before the grand jury. Jessamy said yesterday that testimony from a defendant is used only when the facts of the crime are unclear. In this case, she said, Stokes had nothing to add.

Brown called that argument "malarkey," noting that two previous clients had testified before city grand juries. In a 1997 case in which a church deacon fatally shot a man in the coffeehouse at Union Baptist Church in West Baltimore, the deacon was not indicted after telling his version of events to a grand jury. And about a month ago, charges against another client were reduced from first- and second-degree murder to manslaughter after a grand jury appearance.

Brown said he is confident the grand jurors would not have indicted Stokes if he had been able to talk to them. "If she had allowed my client in there, the grand jurors would have had a panoramic understanding of what had went on, instead of bits and pieces from a police officer," he said. "They would have been able to ask him questions about what was in his mind. ... This is more than just a kid shooting somebody who has harmed him in the past."

Jessamy said evidence of prior sexual abuse - Stokes' presumed motive for the shooting - would become relevant in sentencing but was unlikely to come up during the trial because it does not directly explain why Stokes would shoot Blackwell nine years later.

But Brown said if the case gets to trial, he plans to subpoena Blackwell and Cardinal William H. Keeler to establish that the abuse occurred. He said he would then put psychiatrists on the witness stand to explain the effects of such abuse on a teen-ager.

"This was not a vigilante act. This was not a premeditated act," Brown said, noting the police report, which says, "Mr. Stokes states that he doesn't know what came over him."

Since the incident, public sympathy has appeared to rest with Stokes, whom police and prosecutors agreed was a victim in 1993. Stokes, then 17, said Blackwell had been "touching" him for the past three years. But prosecutors, while making it clear they believed Stokes, never charged Blackwell because detectives were unable to come up with any witnesses or other evidence to bolster the teen's story.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore sent Blackwell to a Hartford, Conn., treatment center for three months and allowed him to return to the St. Edward parish on condition that he stay away from youths.

But in 1998, another man accused Blackwell of sexual abuse, which he said began while he was a teen-ager in the late 1960s and lasted for several years. Blackwell admitted having had a relationship with the man and was stripped of his church authority. City police and prosecutors are investigating those sexual abuse claims anew, along with those of another man who came forward after the Blackwell shooting.

Yesterday, archdiocese spokesman Raymond P. Kempisty refrained from commenting on the indictment, saying only, "The authority and responsibility for these matters rest with civil authority."

Stokes will be arraigned July 12.

Sun staff writer Scott Shane contributed to this article.