Sun quick to judge Mosby

Last November Baltimore elected the youngest prosecutor of any major American city, and Marilyn Mosby has brought a balanced approach and a steady hand to the work of restoring a sense of justice and civility to the city’s criminal justice system.

Ms. Mosby promised to work with police to bring a sharper, more collaborative focus on violent repeat offenders. She restored valuable community liaison positions that previously had been cut, and she pledged to treat every victim and defendant in her jurisdiction equally and fairly under the law.

She is seen as a role model by many people regardless of their race or ethnicity. Nationally, she is seen as a no-nonsense prosecutor who did not shrink from her obligation to prosecute the officers involved in the highprofile Freddie Gray police brutality case once probable cause had been determined after a swift and thorough investigation.

It is thus disappointing that our local media, knowingly or otherwise, have been so quick to judge many of her decisions before all the facts are known.

Recent stories have turned what seemed to be a simple policy disagreement over sharing witness information among law enforcement agencies and a local academic into a negative campaign of innuendo and insult.

Earlier this month, for example, a Sun editorial initially posted under the headline “Play nice Ms. Mosby” in effect admonished the state’s attorney for failing to “play nice” with the other adults on Baltimore’s Homicide Review Commission.

But only 11 days later The Sun’s Kevin Rector reported that the Police Department also had significant reservations about using active cases for the commission’s work and agreed with the position Ms. Mosby had taken from the beginning.

Systemic crime problems were neither created nor will they be solved in the first seven months of Ms. Mosby’s tenure. By the time many of the felony cases brought this year go to trial, we will be halfway through her term and might have a better idea of Ms. Mosby’s effectiveness.

Citizens from all walks of life want her to succeed. I still strongly believe she is the leader we need today to help protect our city tomorrow. Kweisi Mfume, Baltimore The writer is a former member of Congress representing Maryland’s 7th District and former national president of the NAACP. He is currently chairman of the Board of Regents at Morgan State University.

Victims need protection

Children who have been poisoned by lead paint in unsafe housing should not be harmed again by unfair settlement agreements stripping them of the monetary benefit awarded them by a judge or jury (“Protecting Baltimore’s lead paint victims,” Aug. 28).

The legislation that I will introduce in Annapolis next January will require that these agreements be submitted to a judge in the jurisdiction where the child lived — where a judge is likely to be familiar with the harm caused by lead paint.

In addition, a disclosure statement must be submitted to the judge outlining the terms of the settlement agreement and affirming that the family of the child has received independent professional advice about the proposed agreement. Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg, Baltimore The writer, a Democrat, represents Baltimore City.

Government at its worst

I just signed a petition against Baltimore County Council Bill 53-15, which changes zoning law to benefit the proposed White Marsh outlet mall. This project will not have any significant impact on me that I can foresee. So why bother? A couple of things jump out at me when I see how heavyhanded the county’s rulers are being in this matter. Years ago previous rulers decided they needed a way to repay their contractor friends. The zoning process simply did not give the contractors the flexibility or speed that they wanted. So that set of rulers developed the Planned Unit Development process (PUD). After you strip away all of the rhetoric it is simply spot zoning for the friends of rulers. Now even this process isn’t easy enough, and they, the rulers, have passed to specific legislation that only benefits one group.

The other thing that jumps up is that because of an ancient ritual called councilmanic courtesy, all the rulers throw their thoughts, values, opinions and ethics, aside and go along. The reason that this ritual survives is because every ruler one day will want his or her colleagues to put their minds in neutral and vote for their project. Great way to run a government.

William M. Libercci Sr.