There was never much doubt that the doctor who gave pop king Michael Jackson a powerful cocktail of narcotics and the anesthetic propofol in the hours before the singer died last July in a rented Los Angeles mansion eventually would be called to account. On Monday, Lost Angeles police charged Conrad Murray, a cardiologist whom Mr. Jackson had hired as his personal physician in preparation for a hoped-for comeback tour in London, with involuntary manslaughter in the singer’s death.

Why did it take take authorities eight months to bring charges against Mr. Murrary? In all likelihood the delay was caused not just by prosecutors' need to gather evidence and interview witnesses but to take every precaution to avoid the kind of public relations missteps that could sink what clearly will be one of the biggest high-profile celebrity cases of the decade. Mr. Jackson’s international fame, and the legions of fans who have been re-energized in the months since his death, guarantee that any trial centered on his passing from the scene will be the subject of intense media scrutiny around the world.

Continue reading "Even in death, the King of Pop keeps making headlines" »

Posted by Glenn McNatt at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Law and criminal justice
        

If the Tea Party movement wanted to shake its image as the angriest bastion for the lunatic right -- with heavy emphasis on the lunatic part -- last weekend’s first-ever national convention in Nashville did not help.

Even more than Sarah Palin’s appearance, what continues to resonate with the general public post-convention is Tom Tancredo’s racist attacks and his endorsement of a civics and literacy test for voters.  That the former congressman from Colorado is an anti-immigrant blowhard should not surprise anyone who  caught his ugly, voter-rejected act during the Republican presidential primaries two years ago. But that Tea Party leaders chose not to condemn his speech in Nashville suggests their ideologies are closely attuned – much to their shame.

Tea partiers should have at least flinched when Mr. Tancredo started out by attacking President Barack Obama by invoking his middle name of Hussein – that shopworn technique of not-so-subtly suggesting some nefarious Iraqi connection. Or perhaps when he blustered that “people who could not even spell the word or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.”

But when the Republican suggested that Mr. Obama won because the nation lacks a civics and literacy test for voters, the crowd should have been stunned and alarmed. Surely, anyone familiar with this country’s civil rights history should have been. For decades, such tests had one purpose: to prevent blacks from voting.

And to make reference to them in the context of the country’s first African-American president? That’s not some slip of the tongue or a moment of political incorrectness. That’s the stuff of Klan rallies.

Posted by Michael Cross-Barnet at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)
Categories: Upcoming editorials
        

During the November trial of former Mayor Sheila Dixon, journalists and others watching the proceedings sent a constant stream of short updates to the website twitter.com and other social media platforms about every twist and turn of the case. Those updates bounced instantly around the web from one circle of acquaintances to another as ordinary citizens added comments and debated one of the most important events in recent Baltimore civic life. When the jury finally delivered its verdict, the stream of tweets and re-tweets multiplied into the thousands within minutes. Everyone was interested, and everyone had something to say.

You might call that civic engagement. But the Baltimore Circuit Court called it unacceptable. The day after Ms. Dixon agreed to a plea that included her resignation from office, Marcella A. Holland, the administrative judge for Baltimore City, issued an order banning "the use of any device to transmit information on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In or any other current or future form of social networking from any of the courthouses within the Circuit Court for Baltimore City." The order is predicated on the assumption that posting to Twitter is effectively the same as having television cameras broadcast court proceedings, which is already banned throughout the state. That analogy is false, and it exposes a misunderstanding of social networking and of the reasons why the courts have been justified in placing limited restrictions on the media in the first place.

Continue reading "Twitter crackdown in Baltimore Circuit Court" »

Posted by Andy Green at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Law and criminal justice
        

Plagued though he was with misfortune of biblical proportions, even the long-suffering Job never had to contend with the prospect of back-to-back to snowstorms Baltimore faces this week. After dumping up to three feet of frozen precipitation around the metro region over the weekend, forecasters say the heavens are set to open again Tuesday with at least another five or six inches, maybe more. That hardly seems fair.

Deniers of global warming are apt to look at the deluge as proof that climate change is a hoax, as if scientists weren't talking about a gradual increase in average temperatures but a new weather system in which it would be 70 degrees out in January. At times like this, though, you almost wish that caricature were true. One of the worst storms in memory to hit the metro area is about to be followed by yet another snowfall of the sort that ordinarily wreaks just the normal havoc on our road, rail and air transportation network. But while it looks like the city is in for a double-whammy that may take us the rest of the week to recover from, Baltimoreans are always up to a challenge. And that may be the kindest way of putting what we'll be up against for the next few days.

With side roads still clogged with snow and ice slush, and major arteries functioning well below normal, we'll all need the patience, hard work and good cheer we can muster to surmount the difficulties and inconvenience these storms are bringing. That, along with a mindfulness that spring, however distant it now seems, eventually will arrive, is the only way to get through this with bodies and souls reasonably safe and intact.

Continue reading "Snowmageddon is here, but not for long" »

Posted by Glenn McNatt at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: City talk
        

In this volatile political atmosphere, elected officials who take actions contrary to the views of voters are likely to find the electorate unforgiving this November. It is a powerful theme that Republicans have been using to great effect in Washington of late: the perceived gap between public opinion and public policy.

Amazingly, Sen. Joan Carter Conway is pursuing precisely that folly with her recent disclosure that she opposes legislation to allow Marylanders to have bottles of wine shipped directly to their homes. Polls show the public favors the law, and a majority of the General Assembly have signed on as co-sponsors of the bill.

But Senator Conway, chair of the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, is doing far more than opposing the bill; she’s taken the unusual step of threatening not to allow the legislation to come up for a committee vote at all.

Such a desk-drawer veto would not only thwart the legislative process (six of nine committee members are among the co-sponsors) but demonstrate a political hubris with which Democrats ought not be comfortable.

The Baltimore senator has said her chief concern is that somehow the proposal would facilitate under-age drinking. She’s also suggested that it might be difficult for the state to collect appropriate excise and sales taxes from out-of-state wineries.

But neither claim holds much water, let alone wine. Shipping wine is legal in more than two-thirds of states, where neither concern has materialized as a serious problem.

The under-age drinking claim is particularly nonsensical. Under the proposal, United Parcel Service and FedEx are the only two potential shippers. Both have proven themselves reliable in other states, and their drivers must check photo ID of wine recipients to make sure they are 21 years old – just as any clerk or waitress in a liquor store, bar or restaurant must do.

Surveys have repeatedly shown that minors find it far easier to ask an older friend or relative to buy alcohol for them and it’s not usually the kind of boutique wine that ends up bubble-wrapped in shipping boxes. In Maryland, there are approximately 6,300 liquor stores, bars and restaurants where a straw purchase can take place. Why would anyone wait a week for an expensive direct shipment for which they’d need an adult to sign?

Taxes have also not proven to be a serious obstacle in other states. Wineries are only too pleased to pay taxes to the state where a bottle is delivered instead of where it was produced. It’s all the same to them.

Certainly, there are more pressing issues before the state legislature this year than making it possible for average people to have wine shipped to them. The recession, falling tax revenues, and projected budget deficits have left many in Annapolis with important, albeit unpopular, choices to make.

But few issues better underscore why voters are suspicious of government in this state: the influence of the liquor lobby, the coziness of regulators with the alcohol industry (Senator Conway’s spouse is a longtime Baltimore liquor inspector) and the willingness of leaders to blithely ignore the public’s wishes.

Legalizing direct shipment is good for consumers and good for Maryland’s wine industry. Such obvious benefits should easily trump the objections of self-interested liquor wholesalers, retailers and even regulators who seek to preserve Maryland’s antiquated liquor laws. Woe to any politician who thinks the voters won’t notice such a glaring example of arrogance.

Posted by Peter Jensen at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: State House
        

Maryland dodged a proverbial bullet last month when the Court of Appeals upheld the state’s long-standing cap on non-economic damages in most medical liability cases. The ruling allows some control over large damage awards that can drive up the cost of health care.

But that’s hardly cause for celebration. Medical malpractice litigation is still an area that operates as a kind of high-stakes lottery where patients and medical practitioners alike win or lose on the most capricious of circumstances -- actual injury and physician malpractice not always proving to be significant factors.

Democrats ought to particularly take note in their post-Massachusetts Senate election funk. While Republicans have given President Obama much grief for neglecting to include any cost-controlling malpractice reform in his massive health care bill, their ire would be more appropriately directed at the state level, where most tort law is written.

Many voters have the impression that Democrats in Annapolis are under the thumbs of trial attorneys who rake in huge sums from such litigation. When the state faced a malpractice insurance crisis five years ago, lawmakers were quick to raise a tax to help subsidize insurance costs but were not so keen on legal reforms that might reduce the cost of so-called "defensive" medicine.

But there are at least two measures the General Assembly could pass this year that would help, at least in some modest way, reduce costs without doing harm to plaintiffs. Indeed, both proposals could directly benefit patients and their families.

Continue reading "Two modest proposals for medical malpractice reform" »

Posted by Andy Green at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Law and criminal justice
        

Continue reading "Politics and the historic tax credit" »

Posted by Andy Green at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: State House
        

Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake isn’t getting much time to settle into her new job. Immediately after being sworn in, she was confronted with the biggest crisis a mayor can face: snow. With forecasts ranging from 1 to 2 feet this weekend, Baltimore won’t have to wait long to cast judgment on its new leader’s management potential.

But it’s just as well that Mother Nature isn’t affording Mayor Rawlings-Blake the luxury of a slow start, because the issues facing the city won’t either. In addition to the city’s persistent problems, Ms. Rawlings-Blake faces a budget crisis and, following her predecessor’s resignation, a crisis of confidence in City Hall. She has no time to lose.

The budget. Baltimore expects a budget shortfall of $130 million or more in the fiscal year that begins July 1, and Mayor Rawlings-Blake has mere weeks to craft a budget proposal to close that gap. So far, Ms. Rawlings-Blake has suggested she will follow a sound approach to the problem. She will prioritize key functions, such as fire and police protection, and look for things the city can do without. Every program has a constituency, as Ms. Rawlings-Blake and her former colleagues on the City Council demonstrated last year when they balked at proposed cuts to rec centers, but as mayor she needs to make hard choices. New revenues should be approached cautiously, and it is heartening that Ms. Rawlings-Blake has indicated that she opposes a general property tax increase.

Mayor Rawlings-Blake also needs to push for an end to an expensive variable pension benefit plan in the police and fire pension system and take other steps, such as increasing the retirement age.

Continue reading "The task at hand for Mayor Rawlings-Blake" »

Posted by Andy Green at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: City talk
        

White House critics have been howling for weeks about the Obama administration's decisions to try Christmas Day bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in civilian court, to read him his Miranda rights and to provide him a lawyer, claiming those decisions amounted to some kind of soft-hearted liberal capitulation to terrorism. Once Mr. Abdulmutallab was read his rights, they claimed, he stopped cooperating and robbed the U.S. of any chance of gaining actionable intelligence from him that could be used to disrupt other plots.

Apparently not so. News reports this week say Mr. Abdulmutallab has resumed cooperating with authorities, in part because his family has been enlisted to help convince him to talk. The 23-year-old has reportedly identified his handlers in Yemen and others invovled in the plot. Would his parents have been so willing to help if the United States had thrown their son into Guantanamo and commenced waterboarding him? Probably not.

Adherence to the rule of law isn't some kind of handicap but rather a hugely important weapon in our efforts to fight terrorism. The asymmetrical conflict in which we find ourselves cannot be won through our military efforts alone but also requires the help of people around the globe who conclude that our way is better than the terrorists'. Our handling of Mr. Abdulmutallab is providing us both the intelligence we need to hunt down terror cells and the good will necessary to eliminate the attitudes that make terrorism possible in the first place. It doesn't guarantee that we won't be attacked again, but our old approach didn't either.

Posted by Andy Green at 1:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Terrorism
        

After a week in which now-former Mayor Sheila Dixon was feted and celebrated by her colleagues as if she was going off on a well-deserved retirement rather than resigning in disgrace, it took Judge Dennis Sweeney to finally say what no other public official in this state has been willing to: Sheila Dixon was guilty, the evidence against her was overwhelming, and she brought shame onto Baltimore that was only compounded by the unwillingness of other city officials to condemn her in any way.

At Ms. Dixon's sentencing, Judge Sweeney read a lengthy prepared statement in which he defended the plea deal that will allow her to clear her criminal record and to retain her pension. The judge said being forced to leave such a high office that Ms. Dixon had fought for two decades to attain was a heavy penalty and "a badge of dishonor that she will live with for the rest of her life" -- and added that absent a plea deal, litigation could have dragged the matter on for months or years. Given the tenacity of Ms. Dixon's attorneys, led by Arnold Weiner, Judge Sweeney is no doubt right about that. Ms. Dixon did not speak after the hearing, but Mr. Weiner did, and he betrayed no sense that his defenses of his client, as flimsy as they were loud, had been discredited. There is no doubt that he and Ms. Dixon would have fought on and would have left the city in a leadership vacuum for the foreseeable future.

Judge Sweeney took aim at the claims made by Ms. Dixon and her attorneys that the prosecution and guilty verdict against her were polticially motivated, fueled by media hype or the product of jury incompetence or misconduct. The judge concluded that "from what I saw at trial and in the motions before the court, the cases against Ms. Dixon were strong, if not indeed overwhelming." The jury, he said, was kind to convict her of only one count, and had she gone to trial for perjury, Judge Sweeney said a conviciton "would have been a virtual certainty." The mayor's downfall was not, as she has claimed, the result of prosecutors pressuring her former boyfriend to lie. It was the product of her own illegal acts, uncovered in a painstaking investigation, supported by credible witnesses and documents. Ms. Dixon took gifts and did not report them, as she was required to do by law. And she solicited gift cards from developers under the guise that they would help poor children but spent them on herself. Her defense provided no evidence to counter those facts.

It did, however, engage in an extremely distasteful effort to discredit the jury. Judge Sweeney, to his credit, defended the 12 men and women who sacrificed weeks of their lives for the trial and deliberations. Indeed, their conduct was not perfect. Jurors communicated outside of court in ways they should not have done, and some did not give complete answers during jury selection. But the notion presented by Ms. Dixon's lawyers that they somehow conspired against her is absurd. As Judge Sweeney noted, "Many commentators glibly predicted even before jury selection began that a hung jury split along lines of race, sex or income would be the result. In contrast, from what I saw in this case, all of the jurors took the case very seriously, put aside their personal biases and worked very hard together as a team to resolve the case based on the evidence in the case and the law." Baltimore could not have asked for more dedicated service from its citizens, and the fact that the mayor of the city, through her attorneys, smeared their honest work did a disservice to the very notion of community.

The point Judge Sweeney made that is most important going forward is his caution that the current attention being paid to restoring ethics in City Hall not be a passing fad. The new mayor, Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, has offered an important proposal for reforming the ethics board, and her former colleagues on the City Council are drafting additional ethics legislation.

But the judge has reason to be concerned based on the utter unwillingness of any officials to publicly condemn Ms. Dixon's acts. In particular, the judge singled out an affidavit City Solicitor George Nilson provided for Ms. Dixon's attorneys that had the effect of backing up Mr. Weiner's arguments that developer Ronald H. Lipscomb, who received millions in tax breaks from Baltimore, did not count under the ethics code's definition of someone doing business with the city -- thus, Mr. Weiner contended, the mayor was free to take whatever gifts from him that she chose. "The official position of the city was not met, to my knowledge, by any dissent or outrage by other elected city officials at the time it became public," Judge Sweeney said.

Mr. Nilson has many admirers among the city's movers and shakers who would like to see him retained in the Rawlings-Blake administration. He is intelligent and well qualified and has performed decades of honorable service to the city and state. By all accounts, the city law department functions better than it has in years. However, if he wants to keep his job, he must answer for that memorandum.

Hours after Judge Sweeney spoke, Ms. Rawlings-Blake took the oath of office in a small, subdued ceremony. That was the appropriate choice. The lifting of the cloud of corruption over City Hall is an occasion to be celebrated, but not today. Judge Sweeney's comments underscored the heavy burden Ms. Rawlings-Blake faces to restore citizens' trust in their government. The best way she could do that was by quietly going to work.

Posted by Andy Green at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
Categories: City talk
        

The heart-rending images of injured and frightened children after Haiti’s devastating earthquake last month no doubt stirred the compassion of many Americans, including the Baptist evangelicals from Idaho now being held on suspicion of human trafficking in Port-au-Prince.

We reserve judgment on the group’s claim that they were motivated only by the best of intentions when they tried to spirit more than 30 youngsters across the border into the neighboring Dominican Republic without proper documents. But we can well understand why Haitian officials are insisting they knew what they were doing was illegal and are calling for the Americans to be prosecuted for kidnapping and trafficking in child victims of the tragedy.

In the chaotic situation after the quake, thousands of children were separated from their parents or caregivers. Even before that catastrophe, Haiti had more than 300,000 orphaned or abandoned children vulnerable to exploitation by human traffickers masquerading as relief organizations or aid workers, and the country’s notoriously corrupt government too often turned a blind eye to the trade in human lives. Trafficking victims ended up as sex slaves or unpaid household domestics far from home, condemned to miserable lives of perpetual involuntary servitude.

The Idaho Baptists may not have known this tragic history of exploitation when they set out for Haiti, but once they got there they had a responsibility to make sure the children they wished to help really were orphans – it turns out most were not -- and to follow the legal requirements for taking them out of the country.

That they did neither suggests they had no intention of trying to abide by either U.S. or Haitian adoption laws.

(AP photo)

Continue reading "Protecting Haiti's children" »

Posted by Andy Green at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: World map
        

Overhead power lines aren’t aesthetically pleasing. Neither are utility poles. Asphalt roads? Ugly, too. Add to the list sheds, fences and drainage ditches.

Yet we seem to happily accept them all -- even in the most bucolic of settings -- because people require these things to live comfortably. Utility poles bring telephone services, roads enable travel in all kinds of weather, ditches make it possible to control the run-off from rain storms.

The latest such convenience to draw the ire of local elected leaders is the residential wind turbine. The Baltimore County Council is considering legislation to set standards for their use instead of allowing them only as a special exception. The county’s planning board has recommended allowing one wind turbine no taller than 60 feet per one-acre property.

That hardly seems unreasonable given that wind energy may be one of the most attractive (at least from a policy standpoint) energy options available to the United States. It is pollution-free, and produces no greenhouse gases, and the technology is established and available.

But from the reaction of some County Council members, one might think Baltimore County was contemplating the end of green spaces altogether. Councilman T. Bryan McIntire is against their use in the rural areas of the county, while Councilman Stephen G. Samuel Moxley isn’t enthusiastic about their use in residential neighborhoods. That doesn’t leave much.

While it’s certainly reasonable to set standards, it outrageously short-sighted to ban them from residential areas altogether. Is wind power the answer to all Maryland’s energy needs? Certainly not. But how can it be so quickly rejected on the slimmest of excuses?

Continue reading "The windy county" »

Posted by Andy Green at 1:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Baltimore County
        

At her news conference the day she announced her plan to resign, Mayor Sheila Dixon deflected questions about the charges of embezzlement and perjury that had ended her political career, saying she would still be constrained in what she said until after her plea deal was finalized on Feb. 4. After that, she promised, she would have a lot to say. That suggests two possibilities. The mayor could admit what she had done wrong, apologize and ask for the city's forgiveness before returning quietly to private life. Or she could maintain the defiance that has characterized her response to the charges so far, blaming everyone but herself for her downfall. The former might allow the city to put a dark chapter behind it, to remember the real good Ms. Dixon has done for Baltimore, and begin to overcome the anger fanned by the plea deal in which she walks away with an $83,000 a year pension for life. But don't bet on it.

In a memo released Tuesday, State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh called Ms. Dixon unrepentant, defiant and arrogant, even after a jury of her peers found her guilty. But we don't have to take his word for it. Two days after agreeing to the plea deal, which also requires her to donate $45,000 to charity and perform 500 hours of community service, Ms. Dixon spoke to a reporter from the Associated Press who, she later said, "caught me in a moment." She refused to admit any wrongdoing and sought to blame her situation on Ronald H. Lipscomb, the prominent city developer with whom she had a brief affair during which he spent thousands on gifts and travel with her. She said prosecutors had pressured Mr. Lipscomb into lying. She called him "a player" with "multiple girlfriends" whose gifts didn't amount to much.

That outburst might be attributed to a moment of high emotions, but it dovetails with an impromptu interview Ms. Dixon gave to The Sun's Annie Linskey just before she agreed to the plea deal. Then, the mayor still appeared to lay the blame on Mr. Lipscomb. "The bad choice I made was getting into a relationship with Ron Lipscomb," she said. That reflects both a massive misreading of what actually led to her conviction -- her use of gift cards donated by another developer, Patrick Turner, on gifts for her family rather than the city's poor children -- but also a curious denial of her own exercise of free will. Mr. Lipscomb did not force her to take the gifts, or to fail to report them on her ethics forms. And she, not Mr. Lipscomb, was the one who asked for the gift cards and spent them.

The notion that a woman who has clawed her way to the pinnacle of power in Baltimore through sheer personal determination was the pawn of a caddish boyfriend is laughable. If that's what she means by telling all, let's skip it.

Continue reading "Mayor Dixon's final words" »

Posted by Andy Green at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: City talk
        

Today's address by Gov. Martin O'Malley to a joint session of the legislature, and the GOP response by Sen. Allan H. Kittleman, revealed less about the state of the state than it did about the state of Annapolis. Governor O'Malley was on defense, proposing few concrete ideas but emphasizing the successes he has had and pitching the virtue of the hard choices he has made. Senator Kittleman was on offense, seeking to portray Democrats as arrogant, reckless spenders who are out of touch with Maryland voters. In this election-year exchange, Governor O'Malley played down the profundity of the problems we face, and Senator Kittleman ignored their complexity.

"The state of our state," Governor O'Malley said, "is stronger than most." If this speech was a dry run for his re-election effort, that ringing endorsement of our status might be the central message of his campaign. If he had not pushed through controversial measures like tax increases, spending cuts and slot machine gambling, if the state had not kept up its record-breaking investments in public education, if it had not frozen tuition at colleges and universities, if it had not continued preserving land and cleaning up tributaries, Governor O'Malley said, Maryland would be in much worse shape than it's in.

It has been widely observed that Mr. O'Malley lacks the joie de vivre as governor that he displayed as Baltimore's mayor, and the grim determination he conveyed in his speech -- as if the virtue of governance lies in the extent of its unpleasantness -- reflects the philosophical underpinnings of his administration. Governor O'Malley likes to see himself as the adult in the room who will do what's necessary even if it's unpopular. Before he came to Annapolis, the state had long papered over a structural imbalance between the amount of money it took in and the amount it spent, a problem profoundly worsened by an income tax cut in 1998 and the passage of the Thornton education funding plan in 2002. During his first year in office, Mr. O'Malley attempted to fix that problem once and for all through a package of tax increases, spending cuts and expanded gambling, and for a moment, it looked like his efforts would be sufficient. But then the global economy collapsed, and the state's finances are now worse off than they were before.

The governor noted accurately in his speech that he has submitted a balanced budget every year (which is required by law) at a rate of spending growth lower than what a panel of lawmakers and outside experts deems to be fiscally sustainable (which is not required). He said state general fund spending is lower than it was four years ago (true, though not the whole picture) and that Maryland remains one of only seven states with a AAA bond rating. But he failed to mention that his budget office projects $8.4 billion in budget shortfalls over the next four years -- even if the economy grows at a healthy annual clip.

(Sun photo: Lloyd Fox)

Continue reading "Both parties in a state of denial" »

Posted by Andy Green at 2:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (14)
Categories: State House
        

The immediate move, to only expel gays who openly declare their sexual orientation rather than investigating claims made by third parties, is a good first step. One of the most unfortunate consequences of the current policy is the extent to which it harms national security by providing such fodder for gay servicemen and women to be blackmailed.

Removing the threat that a soldier could be outed lessens the climate of fear for gays in the military but it doesn't afford them equality and justice, and the idea that the Pentagon could take up to a year to figure out a way to reverse the policy is frustrating. There are legitimate issues to be decided, such as whether the Pentagon would provide benefits to domestic partners of gay servicemen, or how the military would handle the objections of a straight soldier to bunking with a gay soldier. But Congress and the Obama administration need to place limits on the process, so the scattered elements of the military that still resist this change can't use it to perpetuate a de facto ban.

Posted by Andy Green at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (43)
Categories: National politics
        

The spirit of President George W. Bush's landmark education reform bill, No Child Left Behind, was absolutely on target. The idea was that all students, regardless of their race or background or where they go to school, should be expected to succeed. But the way elements of it have been implemented, such as the mandate to make "adequate yearly progress," have warped the educational system from this lofty goal into a numbers game, overly reliant on a black-and-white interpretation of test scores. Bad schools can escape with few sanctions, and those that are forced to reconstitute themselves get too little support to do so. And the lack of nuance in the system can make a chronically failing school look no different from a high-achieving school having a bad year.

President Barack Obama has signaled that he wants a major overhaul in the law. He's keeping the idea intact but trying to make it a more flexible tool that recognizes progress and innovation and rewards them. Rather than doling out federal education aid based on the poverty level in a school district, as has been the practice for years, the Obama administration intends to distribute aid based on the willingness to reform.

That could be particularly beneficial to Baltimore City schools, which have shown significant progress in recent years and where leaders have embraced wholesale change. Maryland is at a disadvantage in the federal Race to the Top program because state leaders have not yet committed to the reforms necessary to compete. But they are already well under way in Baltimore City schools, where charters and other experimental school structures are flourishing. This law change would lock Baltimore into continuing this effort; if it falls back onto its old ways, it could lose federal funds.

Additionally, the Obama administration is seeking to change how the law deals with ensuring teacher quality. The current approach is to require that schools put a highly qualified teacher in every classroom, as determined by the instructor's credentials and educational background. The Obama approach would determine teacher quality by measuring how well that instructor boosts student achievement. Rather than measuring inputs, we'd be measuring outputs, and that's what this law was supposed to be about in the first place.

Posted by Andy Green at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
Categories: Education
        

Baltimore City Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III made the right decision Friday when his department announced it would resume naming police officers involved in shootings. The year-long detour from the department's former policy of naming such officers has not served the police or the citizens well, and Mr. Bealfeld's compromise plan to disclose the officers' identities after a 48-hour waiting period addresses the concerns about both safety and community trust.

Mr. Bealefeld had originally defended the department's new policy by saying it was designed to protect officers from the possibility of retaliation. But the department was unable to provide any evidence that the old policy had put officers at risk; in fact, none of the threats against officers that Mr. Bealefeld mentioned had been related to shootings.

In the meantime, the department did have at least one instance in which the identity of an officer was important in the public's ability to evaluate her actions. Last February, officer Traci McKissick was dispatched to the scene of a family dispute. The encounter ended with the officer wrestling with a 61-year-old man, disarmed and pinned to the ground. Other officers arrived and shot the man, Joseph Forrest, who died. Ms. McKissick recovered her weapon and shot him in the thigh.

The accounts of how the incident spiraled out of control differ. Ms. McKissick insisted she had been attacked. Mr. Forrest's family said she was aggressive and unprofessional. One might ordinarily give the benefit of the doubt to the officer, except that Ms. McKissick had been involved in a similar incident four years before. She was chasing a drug suspect and jumped into the car he was driving. She got in an altercation with him and lost control of her gun, which discharged into the backseat before the suspect threw the gun out the window. The weapon was never recovered.

If Ms. McKissick's name had not been reported by The Sun -- in spite of the department's policy -- the public might have been much less likely to question Mr. Forrest's death or Ms. McKissick's conduct. (Her version of the story later fell apart on the stand, forcing the state's attorney's office to drop charges against a man she claimed had stepped on her hand and prevented her from recovering her gun.)

The policy became even more problematic with Mr. Bealfeld's decision that he would release the names of officers he believed had acted heroically. What was intended as an honorable gesture backfired -- any officer who was not named might imagine that the department was implying that he had acted questionably. The department also said it would name officers who were found in internal investigations to have acted improperly. That became the subject of a legal motion in a manslaughter case against an officer. Thomas Sanders, who was accused of shooting an unarmed man in the back in 2008, argued that because he had been named, the department was implying that he was guilty, thus robbing him of the opportunity for a fair trial.

The policy to withhold names was popular with the police union, but it caused nothing but problems for the department and furthered an impression that the police hold themselves above the law. Officers need to weigh the theoretical risk that a named officer might someday be the subject of threats against the very real risks caused by the climate of mistrust created by a department that citizens feel is looking out for its own first and for them second. At a time when public safety is showing signs of sustained improvement in Baltimore, Mr. Bealefeld was wise to remove this potential impediment to that progress.

Posted by Andy Green at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: City talk
        

President Obama pledged to make job creation a top priority in his State of the Union address, and his appearance at a Highlandtown machine shop last Friday confirmed it. But while his proposed $5,000-per-new-job tax credit for small businesses sounds helpful, it’s a relatively paltry incentive and ripe for abuse from firms that are bound to find ways to collect the credit without necessarily expanding their payroll.

If voters are angry that so much money went to bail out banks, will they necessarily be excited by the prospect of small businesses getting a one-year $33 billion hand-out and Social Security discount? Surely not when incidents of fraud are exposed, as will inevitably happen.

If Mr. Obama and the Democrats in Congress want to do more to jump-start hiring -- as they should given that 15 million Americans are out of work -- a more sensible means is at hand. And perhaps most important, the money spent could represent a genuine investment, the payoff coming not just today but to the benefit of generations to come.

This nation’s transportation and public works infrastructure is strained and deteriorating to an alarming degree. The U.S. has not kept up with needs, and for all the talk of the burden the budget deficit places on our children and grandchildren, this failure to keep our infrastructure in good repair may prove just as onerous.

Perhaps it’s not sexy to talk about asphalt and steel, concrete and catenary, but the construction industry has been hit harder than most sectors of the economy. Even the tens of billions committed by last year’s economic stimulus pales in comparison to the unmet needs.

That was amply demonstrated last week when Mr. Obama announced the beneficiaries of the $8 billion in high-speed rail program contained in the stimulus. As welcome as the boost will be, it is likely to leave states feeling a bit like a hungry orphan looking for more workhouse gruel: For every dollar awarded, the government had $7 in requests from states. Many received little more than planning money for projects that neither the feds nor the states are prepared to finance.

Right now, states have 10,000 ready-to-go transportation projects valued at $79 billion waiting to be funded, according to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Funding them creates real, not theoretical, private sector jobs, many of them in small companies.

Continue reading "Instead of a jobs tax credit, we should fix our infrastructure" »

Posted by Andy Green at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Categories: Economic recovery
        

President Obama is making a portentous trip to Baltimore today. Not because he's meeting with the House Republican caucus at its meeting at an Inner Harbor hotel in some sort of stab at bipartisanship. The way things are going in Washington, they would probably vote against their own party's platform if he proposed it. Instead, it's noteworthy that the president is coming to Baltimore at all.

Despite Baltimore's status as the closest "real city" to Washington, and previously a frequent venue for presidents to roll out their initiatives, Mr. Obama hasn't set foot in Charm City since a whistlestop speech on the way to his inauguration last year. The White House wasn't particularly cagey about the fact that the president was avoiding any association with our indicted mayor, Sheila Dixon. She was far from the dais when Mr. Obama spoke in War Memorial Plaza, and months later, she was publicly disinvited from a White House gathering of big city mayors.

This was a shame, not so much because of the slight but because in Mr. Obama we have, for the first time in decades, a president closely associated with a big city and, presumably, more focused on urban problems than the most prominent residents of Crawford, Texas, or Little Rock, Ark. The closer our municipal leaders can work with the new administration in Washington, the better.

The announcement of a major jobs initiative at a small business in Highlandtown wasn't the first sign that Baltimore has come in from the cold now that Mayor Dixon has announced her resignation. Incoming mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake was included last week in a White House meeting of the National Conference of Mayors at which President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden spoke. But with City Hall cleansed of the stains Ms. Dixon brought upon it, we can hope these are just the first steps in forming productive relationship between the administrations in Baltimore and Washington to make this city a showpiece of urban renewal.

Posted by Andy Green at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)
Categories: City talk
        

Everyone has heard the horror stories from California, which after passing a 1996 law legalizing the medical use of marijuana for patients with cancer and other serious illnesses found itself awash in pot shops and physicians who seemed all too eager to hand out cannabis prescriptions to anyone who asked, regardless of the complaint. California is belatedly moving to correct the worst abuses of that law, but the sheer number of loosely regulated pot dispensaries and pharmacies that sprang up after its passage is making reform an uphill struggle.

We certainly don’t want to see California’s experience replicated in Maryland, where a proposal to legalize marijuana for medical use is pending in the General Assembly this year. Opinion remains divided among the medical community over the potential therapeutic benefits and risks of medical marijuana. Yet there’s enough anecdotal and other evidence suggesting it can ease the suffering of some patients diagnosed with chronic and terminal illnesses that the idea shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.

Maryland already acknowledges -- and in some ways actually encourages -- this ambivalence. The state’s current law on the subject, passed six years ago, doesn’t explicitly exempt the medical use of marijuana from criminal prosecution, but it does allow people accused of possessing small quantities of the drug to claim "medical necessity" as a defense. If a judge accepts their claim, they can get off with a fine not exceeding $100 -- less than some parking tickets.

The problem with the current statute, of course, is that it still forces people who do have a genuine medical necessity to break the law -- and risk being slapped with a criminal record -- simply in order to get the treatment they need. And it makes judges, rather than doctors, the ultimate arbiters of what is medically necessary.

(AP photo)

Continue reading "Maryland should (cautiously) legalize medical marijuana" »

Posted by Andy Green at 5:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (42)
Categories: Health and mental health