 June
17, 2006 -- Baltimore Sun (MD)
Judge Criticizes Ex-Officer's 315-Year Sentence
Ex-City Officer Sentenced To Mandatory 315 Years For Gun
Crimes, Robbing Drug Dealers
By Matthew Dolan, Sun reporter
A federal judge in Baltimore criticized a Supreme Court ruling
that forced him yesterday to sentence a former city police detective
to spend the next three centuries in prison, urging the nation's
highest court to revisit the issue of mandatory sentencing for
gun crimes.
Dressed in prison garb, William A. King, 35, showed little
reaction as U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz reluctantly
imposed the lengthy prison term -- 315 years and one month.
"There is something fundamental wrong with this sentence,"
Motz said, comparing his condition to the dilemma of Pontius
Pilate, the biblical judge of Jesus who expressed doubts but
imposed a death sentence anyway.
Appearing anguished and rubbing his face, Motz described the
sentence as "absolutely disproportionate to the wrong that
was committed, although the wrong that was committed was a very
serious one."
The federal judge also ordered King to serve four years of
probation and undergo routine drug testing if the former officer
is ever released from a penal system without parole.
In April, a jury convicted King and his former partner, Antonio
L. Murray, of shaking down drug dealers for their own profit,
finding them guilty of more than a dozen federal gun possession
crimes that carry stiff, mandatory penalties required by Congress.
Murray is scheduled to be sentenced next week.
Both men were convicted of several counts of robbing drug
dealers and users in West Baltimore while wearing their police-issued
guns at their sides. The first gun charge carries a mandatory
five-year sentence; each subsequent count carries a mandatory
25-year sentence, to be served consecutively.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Peters defended the prison
sentence for King, saying in part that the crimes he was convicted
of were only a "small snapshot of what Mr. King and Mr.
Murray were doing on the street."
In a later interview, Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein
said, "Congress is always free to review" its mandatory
sentencing legislation, but added that he considered the issue
resolved in the courts.
King and Murray became a catchphrase on the streets of Baltimore
when their names surfaced in the Stop Snitching video, an underground
production that warns people against cooperating with police.
Their notoriety infuriated department leaders already battling
the image problem of several officers accused of wrongdoing.
"People like William King have no place in the Baltimore
Police Department and never will," Commissioner Leonard
D. Hamm said in a statement yesterday. "Thanks to tireless
efforts of the Police Department internal affairs section and
the United States attorney's office, justice was served."
His comments were echoed in a statement by the acting special
agent in charge of the Baltimore FBI office, Frank E. Goetz,
who said: "This man abused the trust of the citizens he
swore to protect and vilified the badge entrusted to him."
Both officers testified they stole cocaine and heroin to give
to informants because they said their training endorsed it. The
Police Department abandoned them because, they said, commanders
dared not admit that cracking the drug trade means bending the
rules.
In a strongly worded statement at today's hearing, Motz chastised
King, saying, "This wasn't rule-bending. You don't use your
informant to be a drug dealer for you."
Still, Motz said that the U.S. Supreme Court needed to review
the case because he believes the justices earlier misinterpreted
how the 25-year gun sentences should be meted out. The judge
said the 25-year penalties should only apply to those who re-offend
after their first conviction.
Therefore King, Motz said, should not have been required to
face so many consecutive 25-year sentences within the same case,
which is his first conviction.
King's lawyer, Edward Smith Jr., said he plans to appeal the
conviction and sentence.
"He has a lot of courage," Smith said of Motz's
comments.
King was so convinced that he could win at trial that he turned
down a plea bargain for 10 years in prison, according to Smith.
His superiors once saw King as particularly proficient in
arresting drug dealers in the department's new public housing
unit.
In court yesterday, King admitted he had made mistakes, but
argued his behavior had been taught to him by other officers.
He emphasized that he had never fired his gun or intentionally
hurt anyone.
And he reiterated that the rules he broke were rules broken
by other officers who also felt the pressure to make more arrests.
The evidence against him was overwhelming. Relying on hours
of secretly recorded conversations of the officers and several
drug dealers who testified at trial, federal prosecutors spent
almost three weeks presenting evidence that the officers robbed
drug addicts in West Baltimore to reward their sources on the
street and line their own pockets.
Defense attorneys described the officers as scapegoats.
After yesterday's hearing, his mother, Carolyn King, and other
relatives expressed confidence that the conviction would be overturned
on appeal. They appeared heartened by Motz's description of the
sentences as unduly harsh.
"Why did the judge say it was unfair? Because it is,"
King's aunt Joan Bond said.
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