EHRLICH SETS REFORMS FOR JUSTICE SYSTEM

GOP Governor Candidate Urges Tougher Sentences For
Felons With Handguns; 'Long Overdue in This State'

Uniform DNA evidence standards would bring U.S. grants
to Maryland

Ocean City - Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. laid out plans to reform
Maryland's criminal justice system yesterday, including more
aggressively targeting felons with handguns and curbing imprisonment
of nonviolent drug offenders.

Delivering his first significant policy proposal since announcing he
will seek the Republican nomination for governor, Ehrlich told the
Maryland Republican Party's spring convention that he would end Gov.
Parris N. Glendening's death penalty moratorium and create a new
academy in Carroll County to provide statewide training for crime
scene technicians and expanded DNA testing.

Ehrlich's push to target felons with handguns would build on a
Richmond, Va., program known as Project Exile, which he has long
sought for Maryland.

The program relies on federal and state prosecutors to seek tough
mandatory sentences for such violations - accompanied by an
advertising campaign warning criminals about the penalties for gun use
- - and it is credited with helping to reduce gun violence in Richmond
and other communities.

"Project Exile is long overdue in this state," Ehrlich told about 250
GOP members in a hotel ballroom. "I promise you, as governor I will
bring Project Exile to Maryland."

Ehrlich said one obstacle to putting Project Exile in Maryland is a
provision permitting three-judge panels to overturn mandatory minimum
sentences. He said he would seek legislation to enforce the five-year
minimum sentences for such gun offenses.

"Project Exile worked in Richmond, and it can work here," Ehrlich said
in an interview after his 30-minute speech, blaming the current
administration for failing to put it in place. "But it does not fit
their agenda."

A spokesman for the state Democratic Party said Ehrlich ought to take
his case to U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio, who has been criticized
by Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley for prosecuting fewer gun cases.
"He ought to go talk to his Republican U.S. attorney and find out why
he doesn't want to do it," said David Paulson.

Ehrlich said state prosecutors must be part of prosecuting such gun
crimes, too. He said the Glendening administration has focused on
handgun control for everyone, while Project Exile focuses on keeping
guns from felons.

By building a "Maryland Forensic Science Academy" on the site of the
former Springfield Hospital Center in Sykesville, Ehrlich said,
Maryland would create uniform state standards for crime scene evidence
and potentially qualify for millions of dollars in federal grants to
help with DNA testing in criminal prosecutions.

"Let's help our criminal justice system catch up to the new
technology," Ehrlich said. "DNA evidence can be exculpatory, ... and
that should be just as important as catching the bad guy."

The Department of Justice has $30 million in grant money available to
states for DNA testing, but Maryland isn't eligible to apply because
it does not have statewide standards for how such evidence is
collected and processed, Ehrlich said. He said his goal is for all
crime lab technicians in the state to earn national accreditation by
2008.

The General Assembly approved a law this year calling for DNA samples
to be provided by all felons, but no funding was set aside in the
budget for it. Ehrlich said the federal money could go toward
fulfilling that measure.

To expand drug treatment in Maryland's prison system, Ehrlich promised
a "significant increase," but said he does not yet know exactly how
much he would spend.

Ehrlich also called for less emphasis on locking up nonviolent drug
offenders and those who commit nonviolent property crimes to feed
their drug habits. "You can't warehouse nonviolent addicts forever,"
he said.

Such a policy also could help Republicans build support in urban
neighborhoods where drug abuse is more prevalent, Ehrlich said. "That
builds credibility in some areas where we have very little
credibility."

On the death penalty, Ehrlich sharply criticized Glendening's recent
decision to impose a one-year moratorium on the death penalty in
Maryland while a study examines racial bias in capital punishment in
the state. Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, who is seeking the
Democratic nomination for governor, supported the moratorium.

"I think it was cynical and grossly unfair to the victims' families,"
Ehrlich said.

He said that if questions of guilt and innocence are raised, then the
governor ought to hold up executions until the process can be fixed -
as has occurred in Illinois. But he said that such issues are not part
of Maryland's capital punishment study.