BALTIMORE'S PUSH ON CRIME CREATES BACKLOG OF CASES

BALTIMORE - More aggressive efforts by the Baltimore police to reduce the
rate of homicides and other serious crime in the city has created such a
backlog of cases that a circuit judge has dismissed first-degree murder
charges against four men who had been awaiting trial for almost three years.

The Deputy State's Attorney for the city, Haven H. Kodeck, said today that
his office intended to appeal the decision, by Judge Roger W. Brown. But
Kodeck also said Judge Brown's ruling reflects "an overburdened court
system" and an unintended consequence of recent efforts by Baltimore's
Police Commissioner, Thomas C. Frazier, to drive down crime rates as the
city tried to polish its image to attract new residents and economic
development.

Kodeck applauded the police work but conceded: "There's not a whole lot we
can do, and when the system fails, it's regrettable. We feel that that
judge's decision was wrong." Judge Brown's ruling, issued on Tuesday,
followed a decision last month by a Maryland appeals court to overturn a
sex-charge conviction against a man whose trial had been postponed nine
times over 13 months because no judge was available on the next scheduled
day for the trial to begin. In general, a felony trial is supposed to begin
six months after arraignment, the court appearance in which charges are filed.

But as the Baltimore police grapple with about 300 homicide cases a year,
as many as 1,500 nonfatal shootings and thousands of cases in which people
are arrested for involvement with illegal drugs, the demand for judges,
prosecutors and public defenders has grown to an overwhelming level.

The case on which Judge Brown ruled involved four men -- Jay Anderson, 30;
William Harrison, 21; Donte Spivey, 22, and Stacey Wilson, 29 -- who were
accused of shooting to death Shawn L. Suggs in October 1995, when he was 21.

The four men spent several months in jail and then were released on bail.
While free, Spivey was arrested for another killing and was held, pending
trial.

But Judge Brown dropped charges against them in the Suggs case after the
trial date was postponed 12 times because of the unavailability of a judge,
a prosecutor or a defender.

Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan, chief judge of the Circuit Court for Baltimore,
said in an interview that the current backlog of felony cases exceeded
5,000, "and it is not inconceivable that some of them go back more than a
year."

Contributing to the backlog, Judge Kaplan said, is the availability of only
11 courtrooms and a limited number of prosecutors and public defenders, who
are vastly overmatched by the number of cases.

Kodeck said his entire office comprised 170 lawyers, only 18 of whom were
assigned to violent crimes, each of them carrying as many as 18 homicide
cases.

Michael N. Gambrill, the District Public Defender for Baltimore, said his
office had only 109 lawyers, with 31 of them assigned to felony trials.
Their average case load, Gambrill said, is 67 open cases, and some of the
defenders are handling more than 100 open cases.

"We have to cover district courts, circuit courts and central booking," he
said. "The need is tremendous."

Judge Kaplan said he tried to ease the pressure last May by adding two
courtrooms for felony cases, only for them to go unused because the public
defender's office, which is financed by the state, did not have the
personnel to take advantage of them.

"There's a shortage on both sides," Judge Kaplan said. "It's more critical
on the public defender side, but it's certainly a serious situation. It's
like trying to put 10 gallons in a 2-gallon jar."

Gambrill said -- and Judge Kaplan agreed -- that much of the backlog had
evolved from aggressive efforts by the police to reduce the level of
illegal drug activities.

But problems arise, they said, when the police make sweeps, arresting
dozens of people at one time and charging all of them with felony-level
crimes, when the offenses by some might only be less serious misdemeanors.
Unlike in some other jurisdictions where prosecutors determine the charges,
in Baltimore the police do.

Those kinds of arrests, Gambrill said, "are clogging up the court."

"If one addict is passing a capsule to another addict, the police charge
both with distribution, a felony," he said. "Technically, it is
distributing, but the question is, do you want to put that case on the
circuit court docket? We've got 60,000 drug addicts in the metropolitan
area. You can't arrest all those people and not clog the system."

Robert Weinhold, a spokesman for the police department, disagreed with
Gambrill's assertion, saying, "Officers are charging individuals within the
legal framework set forth by state legislators."

Weinhold also said the police found it extremely frustrating that an
overworked criminal justice system was allowing defendants to go free.