With his election to top prosecutor this month, Timothy J. McCrone inherited what may be Howard County's first death-penalty prosecution in nearly a decade and an office that has, of late, weathered criticism from the county police chief who saw it as being too soft on criminals.
McCrone said in interviews last week that he has not decided whether to endorse or reverse a decision by Howard's departing state's attorney, Marna L. McLendon, to pursue the death penalty against Columbia banker Robert Emmett Filippi, who has been charged with the murder of his two young daughters.
He said he needs to take time to fully review the case.
The criticism of the prosecutor's office from Chief Wayne Livesay is expected to recede when McCrone, 49, takes the oath of office Jan. 7.
While Livesay's communications with the departing prosecutor have often been strained, McCrone and Livesay describe their relationship as solid and friendly.
"I think we both want what's best for the citizens of Howard County and that's a safe environment to raise our kids in," Livesay said this week. " ... We're both mature enough to realize we won't agree on everything and agree to disagree."
Beyond relations with the police, McCrone plans to resurrect a drug prosecution team and said he is rethinking the logistics of the office's community prosecution efforts.
McCrone also expects to spend more time in the courtroom, he said, trying cases "both big and little." McLendon tried only a couple of cases during her eight years in office.
"I think it helps you to be keenly aware of the difficulties and problems the prosecutors are dealing with on a daily basis," he said. " ... I'm not going to tell you I'm going to be in there every day or every week."
In his neat-as-a-pin office recently, with pictures of President Harry S. Truman and President John F. Kennedy and his brothers on the wall, McCrone was the picture of calm - smile on his face, soft-spoken tone - even as the whirlwind of a job change, from private-sector law practice to Howard County state's attorney, loomed.
It was classic Tim McCrone, a man who was only briefly a Boy Scout but might as well have made a career of it, given the plaudits colleagues throw his way - honest, prepared, good-natured.
"He's an all-around decent guy," said Robert N. Keehner, one of his two law partners. "In many ways, he's a picture of all the things that are good and decent."
But don't let his mild-mannered ways fool you: "He didn't shy away from the hard cases," said Keehner, who also worked with McCrone in the 1980s when both were local prosecutors.
For McCrone, the election was a sweet turnabout after the disappointment of 1998. Then, McCrone nearly unseated McLendon, losing by 94 votes.
His decision to run again was almost a given - a well-known certainty in court circles months before he made it official.
It is a job, he says, that was tailor-made for him. A Buffalo native and 1981 graduate of the University of Baltimore law school, McCrone spent his entire legal career in Howard County - clerking for Howard judges, working in the county's law office, heading the drug prosecution team in the state's attorney's office, representing the county police union while in private practice.
"I've always had an affinity for working on public safety issues. They're important to the community as a whole and bigger than myself," he said. "I think there's a tremendous satisfaction you get in being a part of keeping Howard County safe."
After a six-year stint in the Howard state's attorney's office, McCrone left in 1991 to join three former prosecutors who had set up a private law practice in Ellicott City. The move allowed him to stay involved in the public sector; McCrone has represented police officers for the union since 1991.
"He's almost a peacemaker," said James F. Fitzgerald, the police union president. "When there's a problem, he can come in and negotiate very well."
Colleagues say McCrone, an Ellicott City resident who is married to his high school sweetheart and has three children aged 20 to 15, is a "family man" and a "professional."