Baltimore Mayor Martin O?Malley can now feel the pain of thousands of city residents.
That?s the opinion of several politicians who told The Examiner that the recent revelation that O?Malley was charged with driving under the influence in 1987 and later acquitted is proof that criminal records can come back to haunt anyone, even the mayor.
“There is some irony here in the fact that he was found not guilty, but yet it comes up to haunt him,” said Frank Conaway, Baltimore City?s Clerk of the Circuit Court.
State Del. Jill Carter, D-District 41, said the old charge should not be held against O?Malley, just as the wrongful arrests of thousands of Baltimore residents, under O?Malley, should not be held against those residents.
“It?s troubling that this could be brought up 20 years later when it?s irrelevant,” Carter said of O?Malley?s old drunk driving charge. “It should ring a bell for the mayor that the 25,000 people in Baltimore who are arrested without charges are also going to be haunted by those arrests.”
In 2005, Baltimore city police arrested about 100,000 people ? about 25,000 of whom were released from Central Booking without charge and another 25,000 of whom had their charges dropped in Circuit or District Court, leaving tens of thousands of residents with permanent records similar to O?Malley?s.
Carter said O?Malley?s past should not hurt him, but thousands of residents are hurt daily by being arrested.
“It?s not going to haunt him on any real level, where it?s going to affect his basic survival,” Carter said. “For a lot of people, it keeps them from getting a job or an apartment or a student loan.”
Raquel Guillory, spokesman for O?Malley, said his case is not comparable because O?Malley was not arrested in the city.
“First, his experience was not in Baltimore City,” she said in an e-mail, noting the mayor was charged in Montgomery County. “Second, the mayor was found not guilty.”
A person can file for his or her arrest record to be expunged, pending a judge?s approval, if the person has the charge dropped or is found not guilty.
City police offer faster expunging if the person waives his or her right to sue the department over the arrest.
