A judge?s decision to give inmate Brandon Morris life in prison without parole for killing a correctional officer disappointed and angered the slain officer?s family.
Retired Anne Arundel Circuit Judge Joseph Manck denied the state?s request for the death penalty for Morris, 22, of Baltimore City, saying the victim?s family wouldn?t have closure during the years of appeals and retrials.
“It?s an outrageous way to penalize the victims beyond what they?ve already suffered,” he said.
In Maryland, a convicted murderer sits on death row for an average of 25 years, and the Court of Appeals usually reverses the death penalty and forces the family to endure a retrial, Manck said.
But the divorced wife of Correctional Officer Jeffery Wroten, 44, who Morris shot to death during an escape from Washington County Hospital in January 2006, was not comforted by Manck?s ruling.
“We completely supported the prosecutors? attempts in seeking the death penalty. We are disappointed we didn?t get it,” said Tracey Wroten on Monday outside of Howard Circuit Court.
“That?s a decision best left to the family. … It would have been worth the process.”
Wroten said Morris? apology to the family was insincere, because during his trial he mouthed obscenities at the guards and gave the finger to the family.
“He didn?t show my children?s father mercy,” she said.
“I have no mercy for him.”
The couple?s four daughters, ages 7 to 13, sat with their mother and watched as Morris smiled and shook the hands of his attorneys after Manck sentenced him to life in prison without parole and more than 300 years for several lesser charges. Those sentences are to run consecutive to the life sentence.
“You are an evil man. You took from the Wroten family the center of their universe, the glue that held their family together,” Manck told Morris.
Prosecutors said the death penalty was appropriate, because Morris is a danger to the correctional officers who will guard him.
Manck said his sentence ensures that Morris dies in prison because he will, by law, have to serve at least half of the sentence.
