Md. judge quietly negotiated job with prosecutors while hearing cases [including Magruder High School shooting case]

 

Defense lawyers challenge rulings by former Montgomery County Circuit Judge David Boynton

At least four cases handled by a Maryland judge are being challenged after he presided over a series of hearings and did not reveal he was in talks to accept a job in the office of local prosecutors.

For more than six weeks, according to court documents and recorded proceedings, Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge David Boynton never disclosed he had discussed, negotiated and accepted a position with State’s Attorney John McCarthy’s office as chief of his Felony Trial Division. Boynton started that high-ranking job in February, days after retiring from the bench.

One sentencing in question includes the high-profile case of a Magruder High School student who shot and nearly killed another teen in a bathroom. In that hearing, Boynton ruled from the bench as McCarthy sat in the front row of the gallery.

Defense attorneys say the way Boynton and McCarthy handled the job switch contradicts Maryland rules designed to promote “public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary.”..

...On Dec. 22, Boynton took up the sentencing of Steven Alston Jr. Nearly a year earlier, the 18-year-old was charged with attempted murder after bringing an untraceable “ghost gun” to Magruder High School and shooting another teen in a boys’ bathroom. As the case progressed, Alston’s defense attorney, David Felsen, discussed with prosecutors a way for Alston to plead guilty and — recognizing his age, cognitive limitations and previously clean criminal record — be sent to a prison program for young offenders, according to court records and hearings. The program typically takes six to seven years to complete.

The attorneys met with Boynton to discuss their plea terms. He then emailed them saying he was willing to impose a sentence “sufficient to allow defendant to complete” the program while maintaining the discretion to sentence Alston to as many as 25 years. The final decision, Boynton wrote, would come after he presided over a sentencing hearing...

Md. judge quietly negotiated job with prosecutors while hearing cases - The Washington Post