The lone debate between Baltimore?s top prosecutor, Patricia Jessamy, and her challenger, Stephan Fogleman, centered on one issue: quality-of-life arrests.
At the NAACP candidates forum ? the only time Jessamy and Fogleman will share a stage during this campaign ? Fogleman attempted to portray Jessamy as too combative with the police and too reluctant to enforce misdemeanor laws.
“This is the only prosecutor?s office in the entire country that is telling the police to arrest less people rather than more people,” Fogleman said. “… We have a collective need in the city to enforce quality-of-life crimes.”
Jessamy, who has been critical of the police department?s misdemeanor arrests, said she is not a lapdog of the mayor and police, according to a video of the event reviewed by The Examiner.
“I can guarantee you that Pat Jessamy is not going to be a rubber stamp …” she said.
During Saturday?s debate, Fogleman was critical of Jessamy?s conviction rates: 68 percent for felonies and about 50 percent for violent felonies, he said.
“We have record high funding and record low results …” he said. “Half of the defendants are walking out of Mitchell courthouse are not guilty on serious felonies.”
But Jessamy said she has raised conviction rates in comparison to her predecessors. The police department hurts its own serious felony cases by making frivolous arrests, she said.
“That?s the message I?ve been trying to get across to the mayor and the police commissioner,” she said.
In recent weeks, The Examiner has run articles about misdemeanor arrests by the city police that Jessamy has declined to prosecute,
including public urination and open container violations.
Fogleman, whose campaign theme is “Fight Crime, Not Cops,” has pledged more vigilance on such misdemeanor cases.
“We don?t have as many bad arrests as my opponent has led you to believe,” he said.
During the question-and-answer program, NAACP President Marvin “Doc” Cheatham said Fogleman sounded like he was “running for president of the FOP, not state?s attorney.”
The NAACP and the ACLU have filed a lawsuit over what they call “illegal arrests” by the city police.
