Justice delayed leaves time to die

After each arrest, he entered a juvenile system that’s supposed to provide
swift treatment and, if necessary, detention.

But every time Earl was arrested, juvenile justice workers and judges
released him, only to see him return. The court didn’t order any services
until his fourth arrest. And with his 11th arrest, in April, the courts
ordered him released after less than a month of detainment.

First, Earl was sent home with an electronic monitoring anklet and told not
to leave his family’s rowhouse. Then, on June 22, a judge ordered the anklet
removed.

Four days later, Earl was shot in the head and killed.

When his family and friends gathered last month to bury him, five charges
were pending against him.

In life, Earl Monroe was a problem for the juvenile justice system. In
death, he is being held up as an extreme example of its inability to swiftly
affect the lives of troubled children – testing the limits of its philosophy
that detention is a last resort.

“There’s a lack of immediate accountability,” said Joyce L. Wright, the
chief of the city state’s attorney’s office juvenile division. “Kids think the
juvenile justice system is a joke because nothing happens.”

Prosecutors and others complain that today’s juvenile justice system was
designed for teenagers being arrested after throwing rocks or getting into
fights – not dealing drugs or carrying guns.

The state’s juvenile system is far different from its adult equivalent,
which punishes through jail and fines.

Instead, the century-old philosophy for juveniles stresses assistance for
troubled youths, pursuing treatment and rehabilitation, with detention as the
last resort. Children accused of committing crimes aren’t actually found
guilty; judges rule “facts sustained.”

While a span of several months between arrest and sentencing might not be
considered long and troubling in the adult court system, time moves
differently for youths in need of swift feedback. Because most young alleged
offenders are set free almost immediately after arrest, even short delays
allow them to get arrested over and over again, slipping further toward lives
of crime.

“They just don’t have consequences quickly enough,” said the city’s health
commissioner, Dr. Peter L. Beilenson. “In all this legal stuff, what’s being
lost is that these kids are being released too quickly, kids are being shot,
shooting others and dying.”

Earl Monroe grew up and was killed in the 2600 block of Lauretta Ave. He
lived in a 75-year-old rowhouse with his mother, stepfather, grandmother and
some of his five siblings and half-siblings.

He was a sophomore at Walbrook High Uniform Service Academy, school
officials said. His mother, Ursula Renee Isaac, confirmed what many officials
suspected – although he dealt harder drugs such as cocaine, his use consisted
of smoking marijuana.

City, state, police and judicial officials interviewed for this article
said juvenile confidentiality laws prohibit them from discussing the specifics
of Earl’s case. But an account of the boy’s court records – obtained by The
Sun – shows that his first arrest was on robbery charges in February 2003,
less than a month after his 14th birthday.

Officers took him to the juvenile justice center.

Triage of offenders

In Maryland, police make about 50,000 juvenile arrests each year, nearly a
quarter in Baltimore. The worst offenders, such as those charged with murder,
go straight to adult jail. Virtually everyone else goes to juvenile services.

That’s where intake workers decide whether to refer cases to prosecutors or
treat them informally – either immediately dropping the charges or making a
deal to drop the charges if the accused aren’t arrested again.

If cases are referred to prosecutors, juvenile services workers choose from
three main options of what to do with the children until they appear in court:
release them to parents; release them on community detention, often with
electronic bracelets or the requirement to check in with the juvenile system’s
equivalent of parole workers; or detainment.

Some, often younger ones or those with troubled families, are assigned to
an environment similar to foster care.

Sending children home with relatives typically delays the initial court
appearance for at least 45 days, if not a few months; the other options
require children to appear in court the next day.

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Statewide, about 7 percent of all arrested children are detained until
court, according to state officials. An additional 6 percent are ordered into
community detention.

Within hours of his first arrest, Earl was released to relatives. Before
Earl appeared in court on his first charge, he was arrested three more times:
in March 2003 on charges of possession with intent to distribute cocaine, the
next day on another felony drug charge and three days later on another drug
charge.

That type of delay between alleged crime and court action is particularly
significant for teenagers, said health commissioner Beilenson, who draws an
analogy to parents waiting to discipline their children.

For example, Beilenson said, if his 14-year-old daughter wore something
inappropriate today, he wouldn’t wait 3 1/2 weeks to scold her and six more
weeks to ground her. Juveniles don’t understand delayed consequences, he said.

Treatment begins

After Earl’s third arrest in five days, he was detained, forcing him to
appear in court. Within eight days, he was ordered released with an electronic
monitor and instructions not to stray from home except for school.

And that marked his first court-ordered treatment. Records provided to The
Sun don’t list all of the services Earl received, but they show he was ordered
to have a drug assessment, perform community service, enter an advocacy
program and attend school.

About a month after being released, Earl entered the juvenile equivalent of
a guilty plea to one misdemeanor drug charge. It appears the other charges
were not pursued. The disposition – or sentence – was probation, one of the
least severe forms of punishment. It came three months after his first arrest.

It’s not unusual for cases to drag on even longer. A five-year-old study in
Baltimore showed that if an offender was released at the time of his arrest,
it took an average of seven months before the youth was sentenced, said
Circuit Judge Martin P. Welch, the judge in charge of the city’s juvenile
court. He and state officials say the system’s pace has accelerated.

Prompt rehabilitation

While seven months would be short for many cases in the adult courts, the
juvenile system is intended to move quickly enough to ensure prompt
rehabilitation and treatment for troubled youths. Adults also are typically
released with monetary bail requirements that increase with subsequent
arrests; juveniles such as Earl are simply released again and again.

A Police Department study of the most frequent juvenile offenders, set to
be published soon, found many cases where children were arrested over and over
before appearing in court on earlier charges – all because the system doesn’t
process their cases as quickly as they get arrested again, said James H.
Green, the department’s director of special projects.

“We’re watching a number of juveniles constantly get cycled in and out of
the system before the system is able to do anything with them,” Green said.

Four months after Lil’ Earl received probation, he entered another cycle of
drug arrests.

In August 2003, an arrest and a release to a relative. In September,
another arrest, a brief detainment and a release into a community detention
program.

In October, prosecutors dropped one of the two new charges. They reduced
the other to a misdemeanor and Earl admitted responsibility – the juvenile
guilty plea. In November, he was placed on more probation.

As 2004 began, the cycle restarted.

Police arrested Earl once in January and three times in March. Though he
was on probation, officials of the state Juvenile Services Department released
him to relatives after each of the first three arrests.

After the final March arrest, he was detained until court and released with
an electronic anklet.

In April, he was arrested – his 11th – on felony drug charges, apparently
while on electronic monitoring. This time, prosecutors sought to take his case
to the adult courts, raising the possibility of prison.

But in May, a judge told Earl he could stay out of adult court if he
entered the city’s juvenile drug court program. Earl joined, and in mid-May
the judge ordered him released with an electronic monitor.

The monitor was ordered removed June 22 because he was doing well.

On June 26, Earl was fatally shot in the head on the sidewalk near his
house.

He was on community detention at the time and had a court hearing scheduled
for Aug. 3.

Off the streets

“Why are these kids being released when everybody understands when you are
in the drug trade you are in the highest risk for being shot or shooting
others?” Beilenson asked. “Why would you release those kids back to their
parent?”

Of the 3,397 juveniles arrested for drug offenses last year in Baltimore,
16 percent were forced to appear at the next court session, according to
police data. Many more are released after that first court hearing.

Police Commissioner Kevin P. Clark wants more alternatives to detainment,
but he said he sees a need to keep more children off the streets and doesn’t
agree with those who argue that detention is where children meet other bad
children.

“How many children have been murdered in detention?” he asked. “How many
kids have been shot in detention? It’s not the same as out there on the
streets.”

Through July, there had been 22 juvenile homicide victims this year in
Baltimore. Nine were under the age of 11. The other 13 – including Earl – had
juvenile records, police said.

Based on a recent review of juvenile shooting and homicide victims,
officials found that, overwhelmingly, the victims were boys involved in the
drug trade. They were first arrested at an average age of 12. They were first
shot at an average age of 16.

That’s a four-year window to alter a child’s course, said Beilenson, who
also serves as chairman of the city juvenile fatality review committee.

But Earl’s window was just 16 months.

Isaac, Earl’s mother, said she wished juvenile services had detained him
after some of his first arrests. She said she asked juvenile justice workers
what would happen if she didn’t come to retrieve Earl. She hoped they would
detain him, but officials there told her she would be arrested for child
neglect, she said.

Isaac declined to talk more about Earl’s life, saying she didn’t want her
son to be remembered as a drug dealer. Earl’s father is incarcerated in
Virginia, relatives said. His paternal grandfather said he didn’t know the
boy.

The challenge of when to detain youths accused of crimes – even repeat
offenders – is faced by virtually every state in the country.

In most cases, Welch said, he supports services over detainment as the
answer to the societal problem of children causing trouble.

“You cannot incarcerate your way out of this problem,” the judge said.

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Maryland officials say that they have drastically improved the system in
the past few years. Juvenile Services Area Director Jim McClafferty said the
state began in January using a risk-assessment point scale to determine
whether a child should be released before trial. It weighs the severity of the
offense, the juvenile’s history of appearing for court dates and previous
offenses.

But both state officials and advocates caution that detention must be
limited to children who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others, or
are likely to skip court.

“There is an assumption on some people’s part that if a kid got arrested,
he must be guilty and he ought to be slammed some place,” McClafferty said.
“It may get them off the street at that moment, but that doesn’t mean they’re
receiving any treatment or learning anything. The farther into the system a
kid goes, the less chance we have of helping them.”

The state and prosecutors have made changes to force nearly all children
released to their parents to appear in court within 45 days, McClafferty said.

They have also begun a pilot program to have some released children appear
in five days. Previously, it took months. “Are we where we want to be yet? No,
not quite, but we’re getting closer,” McClafferty said.

Around Earl’s neighborhood, plywood windows are spray-painted in his
memory: “RIP Lil’ Earl.”

About 150 people gathered at his funeral July 2, largely to talk about what
he could have become. He wanted to be a basketball player. No one had him
pegged for a particular profession but they said he was smart enough to
succeed – if only he had listened to what they told him about dealing drugs.

Music and money

It’s not clear why the boy started dealing drugs. But at his funeral the
minister discussed the troubles of young men who want the big money of the rap
music artists they see on television. Earl loved rap music.

The killing remains unsolved, though family talked openly about police
suspecting another teenager – one who’s jailed on an unrelated murder charge.

Earl died days after a new class graduated from the drug court program in
which he was enrolled. Upon learning of Earl’s death, Assistant State’s
Attorney Steven Mitchell, who runs the program, crafted an e-mail to his
fellow prosecutors:

“I don’t know if this kid, who’d only been in the program for a month,
would have made it through Drug Court or not – all kids are different. But the
fact is, most of the 11 kids who just graduated were as big a Knucklehead as
he was (some even bigger) and they walked away.

“When we do what we do … yelling at kids, encouraging kids, locking kids
up if we have to, we’re really just trying to make an impact on their lives.

“It’s the little things that matter, but the stakes are high.”