MAYOR MARTIN O'Malley's outburst against State's Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy doesn't change the obvious: Baltimore's two main courthouses are ratholes - literally. They disgrace the city and the criminal justice system.
The list of fundamental and inexcusable deficiencies is long. Neither the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse nor its annex, the old post office across the street, has a single emergency escape, for example. Pure and simple, they are fire traps. To make things worse, elevators are rickety and often out of order; gray and red dust oozing through inadequate ventilation has made several employees seriously sick.
That's why a courthouse modernization is urgently needed and must not be allowed to be interpreted as an unnecessary, wasteful bid for glitz by self-seeking law bureaucrats.
After a six-month study, consultants hired by the Circuit Court and the state, recommend that the 102-year-old Mitchell Courthouse be modernized and limited to the handling of civil cases. After a new criminal courts building is erected, the annex would be turned into court-related offices. Estimated pricetag: $293 million.
The consultants do not identify any location for the new criminal courts building. Since it would have to be near the Mitchell landmark, one of the few downtown buildings that survived the Great Fire of 1904, realistic options are few. Also absent from the report is any discussion of how this modernization program could be financed. Answering those thorny questions must be the next step.
Since securing funds and working out the details is going to be a long process, it is important to start now building support in Annapolis for needed state contributions. The sniping between Mr. O'Malley and Ms. Jessamy must end; it only diverts attention from the fact that the deficiencies of the court buildings can no longer be tolerated.
Baltimore's Circuit Courts are Maryland's busiest. Last fiscal year alone, criminal docket filings increased by more than 10 percent. The courts' juvenile, civil and family divisions each registered similar increases.
More modern quarters do not necessarily make the badly overburdened courts work better, but hopelessly obsolete and unsafe conditions certainly don't help increase efficiency. That's why modernization must be kept on the front burner.