Strange Bedfellows

Members of a newly-minted “Court House Ticket” for Baltimore County are slated to meet outside the Old Courthouse in Towson around 11 a.m. Tuesday to pose for campaign photos before going together to Catonsville to register as candidates for their respective offices.

R. Jay Fisher, a Democrat running for his third term as sheriff, said the ticket will consist of other Democratic incumbent candidates including State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger, Register of Wills Grace Connolly and the three incumbent Orphans Court judges — William Evans, Colleen Cavanaugh and Theresa Lawler.

“We want people to know we’re coming back and we want constituents to know we want to serve another four years,” Fisher said Monday afternoon, adding that he believes such a ticket in the primary is unprecedented.

Fisher said the group is doing it as “a symbol of unity.”

The group is not a formal slate — a designation that would allow the candidates to pool money that could be spent to benefit all of them.

And one long-time Democratic court house denizen is missing from the list. (more…)

County Executive Jim Smith is out of the comptroller’s race, and the conventional wisdom is that he’s going to use his war chest of more than $1 million to set himself up as a king maker.

If he does, Steve Bailey, a Republican state’s attorney candidate in 2006, thinks influencing the 2010 election and Smith anointing his own successor would violate the rules of fair play.

“It’s not a Republican or Democratic issue,” said Bailey, who acknowledged that if Republicans were in power they would use the laws to their advantage. “It’s a good government issue.” (more…)

Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger says he hopes to use his position on a state commission reviewing the death penalty to explain why Maryland’s ultimate punishment should not be abolished.

“I think my role on the commission is to make sure everyone knows why the death penalty in Maryland needs to stay on the books,” Shellenberger said, adding that he believes it is used in only the worst of cases.

“I still firmly believe that the death penalty is an important punishment that needs to be available to prosecutors like me,” said Shellenberger, a Democrat.

Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, an opponent of the death penalty, appointed 13 of the 23 members of the commission that will review racial disparities, the impact of DNA evidence and the difference in costs to taxpayers for sentences of life imprisonment and the death penalty.

Also on the commission is Kurt Bloodsworth, who was convicted of murder in Baltimore County and sentenced to death. Bloodsworth was serving a life sentence after he was convicted in the 1984 murder of Dawn Hamilton. He was sentenced to death in his first trial but was granted a second after the Court of Appeals ruled prosecutors had withheld evidence.

Bloodsworth was exonerated by DNA evidence in 1993. Former Circuit Court Judge Jim Smith, now the Baltimore County executive, presided over the hearing that ended in Bloodsworth’s release.

Led by former U.S. Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, the commission is expected to report its findings in December.

Baltimore County long has been considered a jurisdiction that favors the death penalty. Sandy O’Connor, Shellenberger’s Republican predecessor, had a reputation for seeking the death penalty in nearly every case where it was deemed appropriate.

Currently, five inmates are on the state’s death row, including two sentenced for murders in Baltimore County. Four of the five, including the two from Baltimore County, are black; all five were convicted of killing white victims.

Does Shellenberger believe he’ll have to defend the county’s historical position on the ultimate punishment?

“I don’t know if ‘defend’ is a good enough word,” he said. “I think the word is ‘explain.’ ”

“It’s a representative Democracy and for 30 years the people of Baltimore County have spoken loud and clear on the death penalty,” Shellenberger said. “County residents believe in the death penalty, and I believe in the death penalty. I reflect the community.”