Sex offender law was flawed
The General Assembly passed legislation in 2006 that requires the Maryland Parole Commission to enter into and sign extended sexual offender parole supervision agreements with sex offenders sentenced on or after Aug. 1 of that year. The statute specifically states that this supervision starts once the term of confinement, parole supervision or mandatory supervision, whichever is latest, is completed.
When an offender is determined to have violated the terms of their parole or mandatory release, the Parole Commission may revoke the supervision and require that person to serve the remaining portion of the sentence originally imposed by the court. But the commission does not have the legal authority to increase or impose an additional incarceration on an offender beyond his original sentence as set by the court.
For the commission, the issue with the legislation as currently written is that the extended supervision does not start until the full sentence has been satisfied and is expired. Therefore, practically speaking, there is no time left on the original sentence for the commission to take back - there is no prison time to give, nor are there any additional criminal penalties it can impose, should the offender violate the terms of the extended supervision.
Besides these practical issues with regard to any criminal recourse, no judge has referred an offender to the Maryland Parole Commission for this level of supervision. Repeated attempts to fix these flaws were unsuccessful in the past several legislative sessions. In order to accomplish the intent of this legislation, the Parole Commission must have viable tools at its disposal.
David R. Blumberg, BaltimoreThe writer is chairman of the Maryland Parole Commission.
State Department facility would ruin Queen Anne's
The proposed site in Ruthsburg for the Foreign Affairs Security Training Center will damage irreparably our rural Colonial heritage ("Battle is joined in Queen Anne's," Jan. 17).
The heavy weapons center would be close to three premier examples of mid-18th Century architecture. Our home, Old Pratt, is a plantation built by contemporaries of Washington and Jefferson. It is an early American masterpiece. There are three ancient burial grounds: one for whites, one for blacks and one for Native Americans. It seems a desecration of their memory to shatter their rest with high explosives and helicopters - particularly when the government already owns millions of empty acres.
The plans are alarmingly murky. The General Services Administration has not fully disclosed its intentions. Due process has been denied. What is clear is that the government is cramming 19 facilities into just one site. The environmental overload will be a disaster.
This training center will ruin a precious historical area, and the decision to put it in Queen Anne's County should be reversed.
John Root, Queen Anne
County needs jobs
John Root, and those of his ilk, who are opposing the proposed State Department training facility in Ruthsburg, are erecting one straw man after another to attempt to justify what is, at its heart, NIMBYism at its worst.
Does Mr. Root bemoan the Glen Burnie-ization of the Kent Island/Grasonville corridor? I think not. He probably welcomes it because it keeps his taxes lower. There are plenty of historical places in this area that have been affected by development.
The facts are these: We need good-paying, stable, long-term jobs in Queen Anne's County that don't require our residents to cross an already overcrowded Bay Bridge. This facility will bring good-paying construction and maintainance jobs as well as high-paying federal jobs to the county. This facility will bring an economic boost to the county and state at a time when they are sorely needed.
It's time for upper county residents to do their share for the good of Queen Anne's County as a whole.
Ed Weglein, Grasonville
Corporations are entitled to free speech rights, too
The article attacking the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. FEC ("In our system, the tie goes to the conservatives," Jan. 26) suggests that we rewrite the Constitution's preamble to read, "We the corporations ..."
The author fails to recognize that corporations are comprised of individuals who have the constitutionally protected right to speak in whatever form they choose. Any prohibition permitting the suppression of core political speech, corporate or otherwise, violates our rights as Americans to speak freely and engage in political discourse. This decision should be trumpeted as a victory for organizations like The Baltimore Sun, whose success depends solely on the continued protection of First Amendment rights.
Further, the author's characterization of Americans as "supplicants" suggests that voters are not sophisticated enough to evaluate speech and make informed decisions. An increase in speech will not take away our ability to analyze information - it will only add to the diversity of available information.
Sarah Eisenhandler, Arlington, Va.The writer is a Constitutional Fellow at the Institute for Justice, which filed a friend of the court brief in Citizens United vs. FEC.