The Maryland Attorney General?s Director of Civil Rights has launched an investigation into allegations that race played a factor in why a Baltimore County judge imposed a 30-year sentence upon a 24-year-old for writing two bad checks.
The story, first reported by The Examiner in Tuesday?s and Wednesday?s editions, triggered the complaint filed by the Baltimore County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“The punishment does not fit the crime,” said Pat Ferguson, president of the Baltimore County NAACP. “You look at Enron, you look at people who defrauded pension funds, nobody got 30 years.”
Former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling was sentenced to less than 25 years in prison.
Ferguson said she received a call from the NAACP?s state legal committee and asked her to get involved.
She contacted Carl Snowden, Attorney General Doug Gansler?s director of civil rights, to file a formal complaint about the sentence, which was given by Baltimore County Circuit Judge Patrick Cavanaugh, who is white, to Andrew Fisher, 24, who is black.
Fisher was convicted in August for two counts of writing $23,500 in bad checks for an electronic-security system.
Snowden said Thursday he has begun gathering information about the sentence.
“My job is to make sure people?s civil rights are not breached,” Snowden said. “…I?m looking at the typical sentencing for people who are first-time offenders who bounce checks in Baltimore County.”
Maryland NAACP President Jenkins Odoms said it?s important the civil rights organization get involved.
“You don?t have to be Einstein to see what?s going on here and across the country,” Odoms said, likening the case to the Jena 6 incident in Lousiana, which is drawing nationwide protests.
Todd Michaels, an attorney practicing in Miami who knows Fisher?s family, said the case is appalling.
“It seems patently unjust,” Michaels said. “There are people sitting in prison all over the country doing way too much time for minor crimes. The people serving these sentences tend to be poor and tend to be minorities.”
Cavanaugh has declined to comment to The Examiner on the case.
The judge denied a motion to toss the sentence, after Fisher?s attorney called it “illegal.” A three-judge panel has been assigned to review the sentence.
Join the discussion and take our poll in today’s examiNation Baltimore: What do you think about long jail sentences for worthless check writers?
