he phrase “the new normal” has been thrown around since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as America struggles to define—and design—what that is exactly, colleges are paving the way for what it might look like.

After the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, colleges and universities throughout the Baltimore region began to find their groove as they moved into the 2021-2022 school year. Coronavirus safety committees had been erected, new mandates put in place, safety protocols implemented—everything from vaccine requirements to temperature checks to quarantine procedures and wastewater testing that can pinpoint a COVID infection before anyone is symptomatic.

By some counts, colleges may very well be the safest places to live and work.

“Just following simple rules of wearing face masks and social distancing, using wastewater management and testing when we need to, we have, in many ways, been able to return to normal life,” says Goucher College President Kent Devereaux. “Full athletics, student clubs, dining in the dining hall, use of the library—everything that you’d normally have, we’ve been able to return to.”

Despite the challenges and anxieties faced by students, staff, and faculty alike, some unexpected silver linings have emerged.

“It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

The widespread adoption of technology across college campuses has proven to provide more flexibility, efficiency, and innovation—and even accessibility, in some cases. Counseling sessions, for example, began to be conducted remotely during the pandemic and many students found that they preferred it to in-person sessions. Students who cannot, for whatever reason, make it to an in-person class can now study from anywhere.

Challenging times, combined with advances in technology and the general acceptance of it, have also brought more cooperation and collaboration among schools. It’s becoming more common, for example, for schools that offer complementary programs to partner with one another to offer students an educational pathway to continue studies in their chosen areas. That may mean a discounted tuition rate, a transfer of class credits, or an internship through a partner school.

Maybe most importantly though, schools, at their best, foster an environment where students are supported, expand who they are, and connect with like-minded people. At a time when gathering together is not always safe, being in a community has become even more precious, and students have found new ways to connect.

OCA Mocha, a coffeehouse in Arbutus founded by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, is one example of how effective a gathering place can be at a time when people are craving human connection. What started as a class assignment—to design a community center of some sort—has become a gathering place not just for UMBC students and alumni, but the Arbutus community at large.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories from people who are extremely grateful to have this space,” says Michael Berardi, UMBC class of 2019 and co-founder and general manager of OCA Mocha, which stands for Opportunities for Community Alliances. The coffee shop includes a stage, a community room, and an art gallery, employs UMBC students and alumni, and provides internship opportunities for current UMBC students.

“We have local groups and organizations that meet regularly in our community space and are grateful to not have to meet in someone’s living room or church basement,” says Berardi. “We see a lot of connections being made. It’s just incredible to watch how it’s grown into the vision that we, as a group of students, had.”

We checked in with colleges and universities throughout the region to find out what’s new and what campus life and classes look like, two years into the pandemic.

COPPIN STATE UNIVERSITY
A historically Black institution founded in 1900, Coppin State University is situated in the heart of Baltimore City in the Mondawmin neighborhood. Part of the University System of Maryland in Baltimore, the school offers 32 undergraduate and 11 graduate degrees, along with nine certificate programs and one doctorate degree. It’s been rated No. 4 Best HBCU in the Nation (College Consensus), the Top 5 Best Value Online Program (Online School Center), and No. 17 Best Value in the Nation (College Consensus).

In the summer of 2021, CSU announced its Student Debt Relief Initiative, which clears roughly $1 million in student balances and provided a $1,200 credit to every student enrolled in the fall 2021 semester. CSU also created the Freddie Gray Student Success Scholarship, which is available to graduates of Carver Vocational-Technical High School, where Gray was a student.

Coppin also takes esports (competitive video gaming) seriously. In the fall of 2021, Coppin became the first HBCU to open a building on campus exclusively devoted to esports. The Premier Esports Lab opened in September with a guest appearance from Grammy-nominated artist Cordae.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,383 undergraduates, 341 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $6,809 in-state, $13,334 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 40%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Business, Biology, Education, and Criminal Justice, Rehabilitation Counseling

DICKINSON COLLEGE
Founded in 1783, Dickinson College is a liberal arts college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with a suburban campus that spans 144 acres. The school offers 41 undergraduate degrees within 17 fields of study.

It’s been rated as one of the best schools in the country for its sustainability efforts, which include an 80-acre, USDA-certified organic farm. Princeton Review rated it No. 2 in the Top 50 Green Colleges, and it was rated No. 2 in Overall Top Performers among baccalaureate institutions in the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s “Sustainable Campus Index” in 2019 and 2020.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,345
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $58,708
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 52%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: International Business, Economics, Political Science & Government, International Relations & National Security, General Psychology

GETTYSBURG COLLEGE
Gettysburg College, a private, liberal arts school, sits on 225 acres adjacent to the historical Gettysburg Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Many of the buildings on campus are historically significant, so it’s no wonder that it draws students interested in studying history.

The school offers 65 academic programs, more than 120 campus clubs and organizations, and 800 events on campus each year, plus more than 100 study-abroad opportunities open to students.

Its Majestic Theater serves as a venue for the greater Gettysburg community, hosting national acts as well as performances by the school’s Sunderman Conservatory of Music students.

It’s ranked No. 12 for “students who study the most” by the Princeton Review, which also ranked Gettysburg College’s dining hall No. 9 in the country for best campus food.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 2,600
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 10:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $59,960
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 56%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Political Science, Economics, Health Sciences, Organization and Management Studies, History, Psychology

GOUCHER COLLEGE
A private, liberal arts college in Towson, Goucher College prides itself on its close-knit community.

Goucher was extremely proactive when it came to COVID-19 precautions, being the first in the state to implement wastewater testing, which is able to isolate COVID infections by dorm.

Also of note: The college recently opened two new residence halls as part of the school’s First-Year Village. One hundred percent of Goucher students study abroad, and the school is committed to sustainability.

Most recently, Goucher has begun exciting partnerships with other schools, such as Johns Hopkins University, Loyola University, and more to come, to provide a pathway for students to continue their education beyond Goucher. For instance, their 4+1 MBA Program allows students to earn an advanced business degree through Loyola via a “Fast Track” admission process, and at a 15% discount on tuition.

SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,100
STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 9:1
ANNUAL TUITION: $48,000
ACCEPTANCE RATE: 79%
POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Psychology, International Relations, Economics, Political Science, Business Administration

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) offers nine academic divisions and hundreds of courses of study, with campuses spread throughout Baltimore, including the Peabody Institute, a music and dance conservatory in Mount Vernon. Its main Homewood campus is located on North Charles Street.

The prestigious, world-renowned university has a strong reputation for its public health and medical studies and has been compared to Ivy League schools.

One of its points of pride is its financial aid program, which covers 100% of calculated need for every admitted student, without loans. This means JHU works with families to calculate what they can afford to contribute toward the total cost of attendance—including meals, books, travel, and other expenses—and JHU covers the rest with grants that don’t need to be repaid.

This school year, JHU added two new minors: Latin American Studies and Writing Seminars.

It also announced new efforts this year to move toward a broader, more flexible undergraduate educational experience that will include a required first-year seminar and the streamlining of major requirements to allow for greater intellectual exploration.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,333 undergraduates, 22,559 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 6:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $56,313 for Peabody Institute, $58,720 for the School of Engineering and the School of Arts and Sciences
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 9%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer Science, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neuroscience, Economics, Public Health Studies, International Studies

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY
This private, Jesuit institution offers undergraduate and graduate programs on a beautiful urban campus in northern Baltimore City. Education at Loyola is based in the Jesuit tradition of scholarship cura personalis, or care for the whole person. Loyola is known for its academic rigor while helping students lead purposeful lives. Seventy percent of students study abroad. It currently ranks fourth in best universities in the North region according to U.S. News & World Report.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 3,787 undergraduates, 1,353 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 12:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $53,430
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 80%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business, Management, Marketing, Journalism, Social Sciences, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Psychology, English Language and Literature, Engineering and Education.

McDANIEL COLLEGE
McDaniel College sits in a bucolic setting near Westminster in Carroll County. The private, four-year liberal arts college offers more than 70 undergraduate programs of study and more than 20 graduate programs. McDaniel’s most recent addition to its curriculum is a National Security Fellows Program that provides students with knowledge, skills, and experience in national security as well as the ability to specialize in an area of interest, such as interstate conflict, intrastate political violence, cybersecurity, ethics, and human rights.

Also new this year, McDaniel appointed an inaugural associate provost for equity and belonging who provides vision and leadership to the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and works in collaboration with the provost to co-lead the college’s diversity, equity, and inclusion administrative committee, and guides the Bias Education Response Support Team.

The school also launched a new STEM Center to serve as a physical hub to support students studying the sciences. It hosts workshops and other events while also supplying online and hybrid support.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 1,757 undergraduates, 1,324 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 13:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $46,336
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Kinesiology, Business Administration, Psychology, Biology, Political Science, International Studies

MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
The largest of Maryland’s HBCU’s (Historically Black Colleges and Universities), Morgan is a public institution founded in 1867. It is situated in northeast Baltimore. As a Carnegie-classified high research (R2) institution, Morgan provides instruction to a multiethnic, multiracial, multinational student body and offers more than 140 academic programs at undergraduate and graduate levels. As Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University, Morgan fulfills its mission to address the needs and challenges of the modern urban environment through intense community level study and pioneering solutions.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 6,270 undergraduates, 1,364 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 15:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $8,008 for in-state and $18,480 for out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 73%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Civil Engineering, Communications Engineering, Business Administration and Management, Social Work, Biology/Biological Sciences, Architecture, Finance, Psychology, Sociology

NOTRE DAME OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY
A private, Catholic liberal arts university in northern Baltimore, Notre Dame of Maryland University offers programs from undergraduate through PhD, as well as Maryland’s only women’s college. It recently launched the first master’s of art degree in Art Therapy program in the state.
The beautiful, wooded campus is just steps from the bustling downtown Baltimore culture. With values rooted in Catholicism, the school focuses on service to others and social responsibility.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 783
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 7:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $39,675
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 88%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Nursing, Education, Biology, Art Therapy, Pharmacy

TOWSON UNIVERSITY
One of the largest public universities in the state, Towson University offers more than 60 undergraduate majors and continues to draw students from other states, though it remains part of the University System of Maryland.

Its campus continues to expand, with a huge new dining hall, a 23,000-foot recreation and fitness facility with an indoor swimming pool, and its 5,200-seat arena for sporting events and concerts. In 2021, it opened its new Science Complex, the largest academic building on campus at 320,000 square feet.

In September, Towson opened its StarTUp at the Armory, a space for startups and new businesses to engage with the broader community and larger businesses. It serves as a home to Towson’s entrepreneurship programs, as well as student competitions and events.

While Towson remains the largest supplier of medical professionals and educators in the state, the university has also built a strong reputation for its College of Fine Arts and Communication, as well as its Asian Arts & Culture Center, both of which bring students into the wider community and the Baltimore community to Towson for enriching performing arts, music, and visual art programs.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 17,907 undergraduates, 2,949 graduates
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 16:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $7,100 in-state, $22,152 out-of-state
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Business Administration, Education, Nursing, Exercise Science, Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology, Biology, Computer Science, Information Technology

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE
University of Maryland, Baltimore is Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university. Located in downtown Baltimore, it offers 86 degree and certificate programs through its six nationally ranked professional schools—dentistry, law, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and social work—and an interdisciplinary graduate school.

The school’s 14-acre BioPark is Baltimore’s biggest biotechnology cluster, employing 1,000 people, and remains on the cutting edge of new drugs, treatments, and medical devices.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 7,244
• ANNUAL TUITION: Varies by school
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Medicine, Law, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Nursing, Social Work

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE COUNTY
University of Maryland, Baltimore County educates a campus of more than 10,000 students in programs spanning the arts, engineering, information technology, humanities, sciences, preprofessional studies, and social sciences. Located on the edge of Baltimore County, it allows easy access into the city and all the conveniences of suburban life and housing. It also offers plenty of opportunities for study abroad.

In the fall of 2021, UMBC opened the Center for Well-Being, a new two-story complex that houses Retriever Integrated Health, Student Conduct and Community Standards, and i3b’s Gathering Space for Spiritual Well-Being. UMBC’s already significant NASA partnerships have continued to grow. In October, NASA announced a major award of $72 million over three years for the new Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research II center. UMBC is leading the national consortium and will receive over $38 million. The GESTAR II consortium will support over 120 researchers, creating extensive opportunities for breakthroughs in Earth and atmospheric science research, and providing major opportunities for students to conduct research and be mentored by NASA scientists and engineers.

• SIZE OF STUDENT BODY: 13,638
• STUDENT TO FACULTY RATIO: 17:1
• ANNUAL TUITION: $12,280 in-state, $28,470 out-of-state
• ACCEPTANCE RATE: 81%
• POPULAR AREAS OF STUDY: Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Social Sciences, Psychology, Visual and Performing Arts

 

Cited tuition costs exclude room and board and books.

I ripped open the mustard-colored, legal-size envelope. I could tell by the handwriting, it was from my father. The only other time he had sent me a letter was when I was a child at sleep-away camp. A note, paper-clipped to a handful of legal documents, read, “put these in a safe place.” There were: Health Care Directives, Living Wills, Durable Powers of Attorney, and Trust Agreements—reminders of my parents’ mortality. One by one, I skimmed the legalese. When I saw my name, I paused. My parents had appointed me their Power of Attorney, to make their life and death decisions. It made sense, I am the eldest child and an attorney. Even so, I felt anointed. Now, a decade later, the power is paralyzing.

My father passed away from a heart attack three years ago. He and my mother had been married for 63 years. My mother crumbled. She spent most of the following year in bed and her muscles atrophied. She developed Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Now, at age 85, she wears a diaper underneath her black pull-up slacks and she’s confined to a wheelchair. She cannot wipe her runny nose, plop a piece of chocolate into her mouth, nor wrap a shawl around her cold shoulders. She lives in a senior living community in South Florida, near my brother and sister. A team of caretakers provides her with round-the-clock care.

Late in the summer, my sister came to visit me in Baltimore. We were at dinner and had just ordered wine, when my cell phone rang.

“Mrs. Black?”

“Yes”

“This is your mother’s aide. Please don’t worry. But your mother’s been lethargic and has stopped eating—I erred on caution and called her doctor. He said to call an ambulance. We’re at the hospital now. I will keep you posted.”

Soon after, my mother’s doctor called me. He had conferred with the emergency room physician. They suspected that my mother had a bowel blockage and admitted her for testing and observation. If their suspicions were confirmed, she’d have surgery in the morning. Between tears and fears, my sister and I spent the rest of dinner searching for flights to Miami. There weren’t any flights that night, so we booked the first plane out the next morning.

When we arrived at the hospital, my mother was out of surgery and stable. But our relief was short-lived. Mom developed multiple infections and complications—her kidneys began to shut down. Each morning, I would drive from my hotel to the hospital, hoping that my mother’s kidneys had reversed their decline. Creatinine, a word I’d never heard of before her hospitalization, became a part of my daily vocabulary. It is an indicator of kidney function. My mother’s normal level was 0.5; it was now 3.6

A parade of “ologists” consulted on her case: urologists, cardiologists, nephrologists, neurologists, and others. None of them were optimistic. Eventually, her doctor took me aside and said, “We need to talk.” He ushered me down the hall and into a legal-pad colored room, just big enough to hold a two-seat sofa, an arm chair, and a wooden table. It smelled like antiseptics. I sat on the sofa, he sat across from me in the arm chair.

In a matter-of-fact voice he said, “Are you her power of attorney?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we can’t find a DNR, (do not resuscitate). You need to sign one. I’m sorry, but there is not much more we can do for your mother. Her kidneys are failing—it doesn’t look good.”

“There’s nothing you can do?”

“She’s 85 years old. She is not a candidate for dialysis. If she shuts down, it would be cruel to insert a feeding tube or keep her alive with artificial means.”

He handed me a yellow paper to sign, in large caps it read, “DO NOT RESUSCITATE.” I held it away from me, as if it were my dog’s newly filled poop bag.

“Okay, let me talk with my family. I’ll get back to you in the morning.”

“I understand. And, if it’s alright, I’ll have someone from hospice get in touch with you.”

I am not good at making irreversible decisions—I struggled with neutering my dog. I didn’t want to sign the DNR, nor agree to hospice. I did not want to play a role in my mother’s death.

I went back to her hospital room. I kissed her and said, “I love you. I’ll be back tomorrow.” Then, I drove to my hotel room to reread those documents from that mustard colored envelope that my father had sent years ago. They were now downloaded onto my iPhone. This time, I read them as if my mother’s life was at stake. The boilerplate language said:

“If at any time I am incapacitated, and I have an end-stage condition . . . and no reasonable medical probability of recovery . . . I direct that life prolonging procedures be withheld . . . ”

Initially, I thought I was off the hook—her directives were clear. It was my job to execute, not to decide. But then, in less time than it takes for my nail polish to dry, I thought back to all the papers my businessman father had asked my mother to sign over the years. She never read them. He said, “Sign.” She said, “Where?”

I also thought about my mother’s fear of dying: If she sneezed in the morning, she called her doctor by afternoon. She made an appointment for her flu shot, before the vaccine was released. She wouldn’t allow us to visit her if we had a cold. A headache was indicative of a brain tumor. Her favorite hand lotion was Purell.

Would she want to fight now?

In the past, I had tried to talk to my mother about her wishes. She never said, “Let me die, naturally.” I pushed her, trying to avoid this very situation, “Mom, if the only way to live is with a feeding tube down your nose or in your stomach, do you want that?”

“Okay, fine. Do whatever you want. I’m not talking about it anymore.”

Knowing that I had to get back to the doctor by morning, I stayed up most of that night talking with my family. Everyone agreed that Mom no longer had quality of life. Artificial interventions were more for us than for her. It was selfish to cause her more pain. If she died, who were we to play God and revive her? Fear of dying is not the same as choosing life.

The next morning, I went to the hospital with the signed, yellow DNR. But the decision was no longer in my hands. Mom’s creatinine levels had dropped—her kidneys were improving. The potent antibiotics prescribed for her infections may have harmed her kidneys. The nephrologist changed medicines and she responded. Mom continued to progress and by the end of the week, after a month of hospitalization, they sent her home.

My siblings and I met with the hospice people before her discharge. They educated us and made us question whether, given my mother’s age and condition, it was fair to put her through any more hospitalizations. They could help enhance her quality of life. If we changed our minds, we could withdraw their services.

That was five months ago. Mom’s kidneys have stabilized, though her Parkinson’s has progressed. While oftentimes she’s miserable, there are still sparkles of joy. She enjoys TV shows like America’s Got Talent and Dancing with the Stars. She smiles when I visit—especially when I bring sesame-covered bagels. She insists that her jewelry matches her outfits. And she loves to sing.

I’ve played and replayed a video that my sister texted me last week. It’s of a hospice volunteer, strumming her guitar while singing to my mother, “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day.” Mom cocks her head to listen. Her eyes twinkle with recognition. She joins in, “I got a beautiful feeling, everything’s going my way.”

If I look at the video too closely, I can’t help but spot the emergency notebook lying on her kitchen counter. It holds that yellow DNR. My signature is at the bottom.

At 7:43 a.m., on a clear, otherwise picture-perfect morning, the first day of October, Baltimore County Vice Narcotics and Gang Enforcement Team officers—in full tactical gear with weapons drawn—begin yelling and pounding on the front door of a four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath, two-and-a-quarter acre brick home on Manor Road in Phoenix. If they’re not up already, families in this bucolic neighborhood will be soon, trying to get their kids off to school. One next-door neighbor comes outside, concerned that there’s been some sort of medical emergency.

“Police with a search warrant!” the officers bellow. “Open the door! Police with a search warrant! Open the door!”

The home’s windows are open—it had been that kind of breezy, autumn sleeping weather the night before—but there’s no response from inside the house. And now the police, having announced their presence, break through the door with a battering ram. Just inside, standing in the living room near one of the two sofas, officers immediately identify 50-year-old commercial insurance broker Francis “Chip” Carnes. But initially, they are unable to locate the target of their search warrant—Carnes’s fiancée, attorney Jill Swerdlin—though they do locate her 8-year-old son in an upstairs bedroom.

Eventually, police discover Swerdlin in the basement of the $370,000 home, near a washbasin—there’s a Ziploc-type baggie with white residue atop the sink’s drain. Handcuffed and brought upstairs, Swerdlin, still in a long nightshirt, is told to sit in the living room across from Carnes, also in handcuffs, where both are read their rights per Miranda. That’s when Det. Douglas Kriete, a thickly built, goateed, ponytailed, 31-year police veteran, asks the couple if there is anything illegal in the house. Carnes, again, not the target named in the warrant, tells Kriete that there may be “some old smoking devices”—the words from the police report—meaning crack pipes, in the bedroom. Swerdlin concurs, according to the same police report, adding that there are guns in the basement inside a safe near where she was found by police.

None of this, however, is why the police are here.

A self-described “Jewish mother of two kids” from a prominent Baltimore County family of attorneys, Swerdlin, 47, was the focus of a five-month investigation and grand jury indictment, with prosecutors alleging that she was the center of a “hub and spoke” conspiracy to distribute illegal prescription drugs. The indictment alleges Swerdlin, a former public defender in private criminal defense practice for the past five years, provided legal services in exchange for illegal prescription drugs; possessed and distributed controlled substances, including oxycodone; conspired to distribute illegal prescription drugs; and—this was the kicker that sparked media attention when she was arrested—smuggled illegal prescription drugs into the Baltimore County Detention Center.

But while being questioned, Swerdlin initially refuses to talk about her role in obtaining or exchanging illegal prescription drugs, according to police. Only when Kriete threatens to end the interview and simply take her away, he testifies later, does Swerdlin open up to his more obliging, younger partner—the “good cop/bad cop” routine. Once her son has been fed breakfast and walked to the bus stop at the end of driveway, Swerdlin, who would certainly be expected to understand what’s she’s agreeing to do, appears to come clean.

This is what she wrote:

“In 2009 I was in a serious car accident and due to my injuries I was prescribed oxycodone. After approximately a year my dr. discontinued my prescription. I was still in pain and addicted to oxycodone so I purchased them from people who were selling them for money. I have given other people pills who needed them and I have asked other people close to me to get them for me. I am ashamed about my behavior especially because I am an officer of the court and have been a professional for 23 years.”

Then, potentially damaging, in terms of legal consequences—Swerdlin also participates in a written Q & A. In response to detectives’ questioning, she affirms, among other things, that she involved her 28-year-old legal assistant (charged with possession and intent to distribute) in oxycodone exchanges and that she brought, on one occasion, illegal prescription drugs to a client jailed at the Baltimore County Detention Center to increase her fee. She gives up the names of 11 people from whom she received oxycodone pills, including former clients with violent histories. And when detectives also ask if she provided oxycodone to her 20-year-old son Brett, who has pled guilty to one count of possession of a controlled and dangerous substance in an arrest related to the investigation, she writes, “Yes.”

TOWSON-BASED CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY JILL SWERDLIN AFTER HER ARREST ON PRESCRIPTION DRUG DISTRIBUTION CHARGES

That would seem like case closed. Police take “green dot,” pre-paid debit cards from the house, confiscate a cellphone, planner, and receipt book as evidence—as well as a couple of pills, more baggies, vials, and paraphernalia. End of the story; except it’s not. Seven months later, in a Baltimore County Circuit Court criminal motions hearing this past May 16, Swerdlin—tall, slim, in a conservative black dress, sweater, and heels—claims her civil rights were violated by officers and that a quid pro quo offer was made by detectives.

Fidgeting, shooting glances back at Carnes (who was eventually charged with possession of cocaine and paraphernalia) from the defense table—and told at one point to “sit still” by Judge Timothy L. Martin—an understandably anxious Swerdlin and her attorney argue that her statement, particularly that less sympathetic Q & A, should be thrown out. In the meantime, the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland has sought an injunction to stop Swerdlin from practicing, alleging professional misconduct in a civil suit, including misleading clients about her ability to influence judges, and accepting money for legal services and then failing to provide those services. Swerdlin and Carnes also face a forfeiture suit regarding the shotguns (essentially Carnes’s hunting rifles) located in the Manor Road house because of the proximity to alleged illegal narcotics.

Then there are other personal things to contend with: Her Pikesville townhouse is in foreclosure; there are contract and tort claims being brought against her by two former clients; plus, family issues—her son Brett is living in a North Carolina recovery house, while his father, her first ex-husband, has stopped talking to her. Swerdlin, who agreed to be interviewed for this story even as she faces a plea hearing in mid-June, says she’s been clean and sober ever since her arrest and subsequent treatment, but it’s a lot for anyone deal with, let alone someone trying to recover from drug addiction.

But there’s still the broader question. How exactly does all this suddenly happen to a former St. Paul’s School mom with no previous criminal record? Why, for example, do Baltimore County police and addiction specialists say they aren’t surprised anymore that an upscale lawyer, following a doctor’s prescription for pain medication (at least initially), finds herself hustling pills from convicted drug dealers? Just how bad is the prescription painkiller problem in the suburbs?

If the stereotype persists that somehow this country’s drug problem is an inner city, “urban” crisis—read: low-income, poorly educated blacks or Latinos using crack cocaine or heroin—it’s time to put an end to that notion. And if the belief persists that soaring prescription opiate abuse in the U.S. is somehow relegated to Appalachia or some other poverty-stricken region where unemployed white people live—it’s time to put that notion to bed, too.

One good way to get a handle on the extent of the prescription drug problem is to look at the hard data on accidental overdoses.

In 2010, prescription drugs killed more than 22,100 people in the U.S.—triple the number from a decade ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—and more than twice that of cocaine and heroin combined. What’s more, opiate pill addiction is now being blamed for reversing an earlier decline in heroin-related overdoses. Two years ago, the Maryland Department of Health reported that heroin-related overdoses had begun to spike again, and they linked the uptick to prescription opiate use that eventually becomes heroin use when the addict can no longer find or afford prescription opiates.

Most dramatically, recent studies show that for the first-time, more deaths are attributed to drug overdoses than car accidents or gun violence. But still think someone from Swerdlin’s demographic is an atypical drug addict or that it’s largely a teenage problem? According to the CDC, prescription drug overdose rates are highest, by far, among whites when compared to African-Americans or Latinos, and also highest among those aged 35-54—with both rates continuing to climb. Prescription overdose death rates among women, in particular, have reached unprecedented levels, increasing 400 percent from 1999 to 2010.

“This cuts across all boundaries, all levels of society,” says Mike Gimbel, Baltimore County’s former “drug czar” for 25 years. “And it is a huge problem in the private schools. But when teenagers start experimenting with pills today, they usually begin in their parents’ bathroom cabinet.”

And yet all of this is still a fairly recent development. It wasn’t that long ago, in 2006, that the Baltimore County Police Department first deemed it necessary to create a new narcotics unit, the pharmaceutical drug diversion team, specifically to tackle the crisis of the illegal distribution of prescription pills. That first unit only had two officers. Today, the unit is managed by a corporal and a sergeant, who oversee five detectives. In 2013, the unit made 305 arrests, including 168 for felonies, many including violent offenses, and they executed 52 search-and-seizure warrants like the one that brought them to Manor Road—far surpassing the numbers for any other illegal drugs.

Baltimore County police sergeant Bruce Vaughn notes this was all accomplished despite the unit’s having to overcome greater obstacles than other narcotic units, because they’re going after a black market for drugs that are legal when prescribed correctly. Also, HIPAA privacy laws can bog down background investigative work. “These can be complicated cases,” Sgt. Vaughn says. “Like investigating financial crimes.”

According to law enforcement, prescription drugs have become a driver of criminal activity because so much money is involved. The going rate is now $30 for a single 30 mg pill, compared to, say, $10 for a small amount of heroin—and that, for all intents and purposes, prescription drugs have become street drugs. They’re often trafficked by the same people who sell heroin, coke, and marijuana, often violent offenders. The former client Swerdlin allegedly smuggled drugs to inside prison is there on armed robbery charges. He has also been charged with attempted murder in the past. In fact, a number of those initially charged in the indictment with Swerdlin have been found guilty of distributing other drugs previously. Four are former clients and a couple have faced armed robbery and firearm charges.

“We could use five more detectives,” Kriete says. “The prescription drugs take up more than triple [the time] of anything else we deal with.”

Gimbel, himself a longtime recovering heroin addict from Pikesville, calls prescription painkiller drugs like OxyContin “heroin in a bottle” and says that 80 percent of the calls he receives today from families seeking help for a loved one are related to prescription drug abuse. “It used to be 5 percent.” He says anyone taking these powerful pain medications every day for 30 days will begin to build a tolerance—inevitably suffer withdrawal symptoms—and that it should be protocol for every patient to go through a medically supervised detoxification program. “Look, this stuff isn’t coming from Central America, Columbia, Peru, or Southeast Asia,” Gimbel continues. “It’s doctors that are prescribing this stuff.”

Once addicted, he and other recovering addicts say, all bets are off.

“You cross every line that you think you’ll never cross,” says Linda Y., a former Johns Hopkins nurse who was fired for shooting up pain medication intended for patients in the bathroom at work. (She asked to remain anonymous in accordance with 12-step tradition.) The assumption is that a lawyer or nurse, or any suburban professional for that matter, lives two lives once they become an addict, but that’s not true, Linda says. “It’s one life,” she says. “It all revolves around getting what you need.”

She adds that the problem of prescription drug abuse is particularly acute in the world of health care providers given the access that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others have to medication—and notes that 12-step meetings in the Roland Park, Rodgers Forge, and Homewood areas are frequented by individuals in those industries. Linda went through a three-year, Maryland Board of Nursing discipline and rehabilitation program, including treatment and drug screens, to earn back full practicing credentials, adding, “I wish it had been five years like it is today. I needed it. It really helped me.”

Bob D., a 49-year-old lawyer who went through treatment for prescription drug addiction at Father Martin’s Ashley’s two-year pain recovery program in Havre de Grace, was initially prescribed medication for a rare neurological condition. But ultimately, the “cure” for his pain became worse than the underlying problem. He hid his addiction as long as possible, “doctor shopping” (going from one doctor to the next, hoping each would authorize a new prescription) and keeping the true number of pills he was taking from his neurologist and partner. “I was obsessed with my ’scripts,” he says. “I started with a pill every day like I was picking up my morning coffee. It was three or four years of a living hell.”

In fact, one of the things Bob says he learned at Father Martin’s Ashley was that drugs used to treat chronic pain, like oxycodone and hydrocodone, are not only addictive and potentially deadly—“my greatest fear was that I would forget how many I took and not wake up one morning”—but often don’t work long-term for chronic conditions. And these drugs can actually create a change in the neurological system where people develop hyperalgesia and become far more sensitive to pain than when they started out on these drugs. Today, Bob follows a routine he began at Father Martin’s Ashley that includes A.A. meetings, meditation, prayer, deep-stretching exercises, and some yoga to treat both his addiction and chronic pain. He reports he’s begun playing tennis again for the first time in years.

Ground up and snorted, or injected, which some abusers do, prescription pain pills can mimic the high of heroin, but even in pill form, opiates can create a false sense of euphoria and well-being, which is part of their insidious nature, says Dr. Carol Bowman, a Father Martin’s Ashley addiction specialist. “An injury sends a message to the brain. The medication, however, blocks the neuroreceptors and sends those signals away—but it also blocks all pain signals,” Bowman says. “It doesn’t distinguish if it’s anxiety, depression, or physical pain.” She adds that it doesn’t take long, either, for the drugs to confuse the brain’s normal “feel-good” chemical processes. “When they stop being taken, they suppress the brain’s natural production of dopamaine, our natural reward system, which also begins another downward spiral.”

Gimbel—who says he’s seen weekend warriors with knee and back injuries get hooked—believes there’s also a deeper societal component underlying the problem. “Everyone who gets admitted to the hospital today is asked to assess themselves for pain on a scale of zero to 10—that wasn’t always the case,” he says. “The target is always zero with the pharmaceutical companies pushing their products, so doctors try to get everyone down to zero. It’s like no one is supposed to experience pain anymore. It’s, ‘Here take a pill.’”

“And of course, all of this is just treating the symptoms,” Bowman adds, “not the actual causes of the original pain, which is what we should be examining.”

It’s this dual track—the physiological and psychological—that makes addiction, and treating addiction, tricky to fully understand, says Dr. Michael Fingerhood, director of the division of Chemical Dependency at Bayview Medical Center. There is a genetic component to addiction that makes some people more susceptible; there is a “phenomenological” component (i.e., stressful events or periods); and there’s the purely physiological aspect (the physical cravings)—particularly with the powerful round of painkiller drugs that were introduced en masse a little more than a decade ago.

“These are not your mother’s Valium or a drink after work: ‘Tough day, I think I’ll have a Percocet.’ But people think they are because they’re prescribed,” Fingerhood says. “I’m not surprised at all that people get to a place where they don’t know who they are anymore and can’t ask for help. Prescription drug addiction is the elephant in the room. It’s the epidemic no one talks about.”

A few days after her mid-May criminal motions hearing, outside a bustling Panera Bread cafe in the Hunt Valley Towne Centre shopping complex, Swerdlin—calmer than she appeared in court, dressed in a sleeveless white blouse, her hair colored a darker hue than in her smiling mug shot—recalls the car accident that ultimately led to her addiction, and to her journey from defense attorney to defendant. She’ll never forget the date; it was her 44th birthday, Jan. 6, 2009.

“I was leaving the Baltimore County courthouse, headed for Wabash Avenue, and it was raining. I was going about 5 mph on Allegheny [Avenue], trying to see, my view was obstructed, and I got T-boned,” she says. “My BMW was totaled, and I was taken to the hospital.” Police reports aren’t clear about who was at fault, but Swerdlin says the young driver of the other car was speeding. Her car did a 180-degree spin, and though she was wearing her seat belt, her face smashed against the empty passenger seat, badly damaging an eye socket and fracturing her cheek. “Of course, when I left the hospital,” she says, “I had the prescription for oxycodone.”

Her doctor cut off her prescription approximately a year later. But she says she needed oral surgery, which led to another prescription. She also says that she hit up friends and family members from time to time for pills, telling them that she didn’t feel well for one reason or another. “I didn’t go the doctor route [doctor shopping] and didn’t want to go through insurance,” she says, adding that she was “professionally, ethically, morally too proud” to have that on her medical records. Instead, she says, she found it easier to get what she needed from clients she was representing, who had been accused of drug dealing.

“Being a criminal defense attorney made it accessible,” Swerdlin says. “I started taking on clients who were drug clients. I started getting a good reputation from defending drug dealers, trying to get them into drug rehab and drug court, and I got to where I was making good money dealing with high-level people.”

She was eventually taking “five to seven” pills a day, starting first thing in the morning, then spread throughout the day, and “not eating lunch for years” while she hurried to track down pills, argue her cases, and make it to school to pick up her youngest son.

She also says that her addiction was “at low level for a long time, probably until six months to a year” before her arrest and “then it went from zero to 60 in a hurry.” She says that she was able to keep her use and behavior a secret from those closest to her, and that Carnes “had no idea” why the police broke into the house last fall.

Court records, police testimony, and allegations from other clients suggest life began getting unmanageable for Swerdlin before last fall, however. For starters, it was not long after her accident in 2009 that her name began to regularly appear as a defendant. Initially, it was for minor things. In 2010, there was a contempt charge that was dropped. Then there were a number of traffic violations, starting in 2011—driving with an expired tag, failing to produce a vehicle registration card, and later driving with a suspended license and other charges. Also, in 2011, her condo association sued for late fees. There’s the foreclosure that begins in 2011. And, Baltimore County police say she popped up on their “radar” in January 2012—a year before she says her addiction become serious—as part of a separate and still ongoing investigation (although Swerdlin is not accused of running any sort of major drug ring).

The first claims of professional misconduct, including that she took money in return for legal services not provided, date back to the fall of 2012. But most of the seven allegations, all of which Swerdlin denies, occurred more recently, in 2013. Baltimore County assistant state’s attorney Jason League, who is prosecuting the Swerdlin case, notes that she continued to represent drug clients even after her arrest until the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland filed an injunction.

Her testimony at her criminal motions hearing also differed substantially from that of the four police officers called to the witness stand. She testified that she believed her house was being robbed and under attack, possibly from a disgruntled former client, when police pounded on her door. She says she heard, “Get down, this is a robbery,” not “Police with a search warrant! Open the door!” She also says that she was in the basement near the washbasin when found by police because she was trying to run from the house to get help. Taken with her allegation that male officers helped her get dressed—and not the female officer who was called to the scene—and claims that a quid pro quo was offered (that police told her they would not arrest her fiancé and she’d receive a better deal if she agreed to the Q & A), Judge Martin said in court that he did not find her testimony “terribly credible.”

Of course, disputes in court over the facts aren’t uncommon. At the same time, Swerdlin seems to be walking what could look like a fine line to a jury at the moment: admitting to addiction and obtaining and using illegal prescription drugs while declaring herself not guilty of the most serious crimes of which she is accused.

“I’m an addict,” Swerdlin says. “But I’m not guilty with what they are charging me.”

She also says in the interview at Panera Bread that the Baltimore County police only found a single piece of paraphernalia, a spoon owned by her 20-year-old son, in the search of her and Carnes’s home. (Reached by phone, her son would not comment.) But, according to police reports, four burnt pipes were found, and it was Carnes who was charged with possession, not her oldest son—who lived in her Pikesville townhome at the time. Nonetheless, she suggests that charges against Carnes will be dismissed if she accepts a plea.

As far as the allegations that she took payments in return for legal services not provided—in one case a judge has already ruled in favor of the plaintiff—or other accusations that she implied that she could influence judges, Swerdlin says, “Once people found out what happened to me,” referring to her arrest, “they started coming out of the woodwork, looking for money.”

And finally, she also claims she is being unfairly targeted by law enforcement officials because of her “elevated status” as an attorney. “I’m not being treated like everyone else,” she says. “The state is trying to make an example of me.”

Meanwhile, even as Swerdlin maintains she’s being unfairly treated by law enforcement and prosecutors, she weaves 12-step lingo into the conversation, speaking about taking things “one day a time.”

After being bailed out of jail by Carnes, she entered the Kolmac Clinic’s intensive outpatient program on the campus of Sheppard Pratt. She’s says she goes to A.A. meetings on a daily basis and that it was her 12-step sponsor who was with her all day at her criminal motions hearing.

She says that she believes in God and that everything happens for a reason, and if she had to go through this to become an example for others—a cautionary tale, as it were—so be it.

She admits that her arrest has been “devastating,” but that she has also gotten a great deal of support, receiving, she says, more than 200 messages and e-mails from friends, family, and colleagues. She does admit that she “lied to judges, lied to people, and lied to people that could’ve probably helped me.”

And whatever the outcome of her legal case, successful recovery from addiction remains a fraught road for anyone, requiring life-long care, as with other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, to which addiction treatment and recovery is often compared. Studies show that the majority of those in recovery do relapse, often requiring additional treatment. Fingerhood, the Bayview addiction specialist, estimates that about half of those seeking treatment for opiate addiction and also receiving drugs such as buprenorphine or methadone to stave off cravings, are able to attain “sustainable abstinence”—defined as one year clean and sober. Without medication help, he says, “It’s about 10 percent.”

As her nearly two-hour interview is concluding, Swerdlin says her sponsor tells her that it will take the same length of time off drugs, as on them, before she will even begin to feel like her self again, and she acknowledges that jail is a possibility. “I’ve never been in trouble and hopefully the 43 years before my addiction [will] all be considered,” she says. “I’m happy that my two children have good fathers. If I have to go to jail and do time, then I will do what I have to do.”

She intimates, however, that plea negotiations are imminent, and that disbarment with the possibility of applying for reinstatement five or so years down the line is a more likely scenario than a prison sentence.

If necessary, she says, she will re-invent herself.

“Who knows?” she says. “Maybe I’ll write a book about this one day if I lose my license.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story will appear in our July 2014 issue, on newsstands later this month.

UPDATE (June 15, 5 p.m.):

Towson-based attorney Jill Swerdlin pled guilty to three charges this afternoon in Baltimore County Circuit Court related to the above story and faces jail time and disbarment, per her plea agreement with the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Swerdlin pled guilty to the distribution of buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, and the distribution of a controlled dangerous substance to a client incarcerated at the Baltimore County Detention Center. She also pled guilty to conspiracy to possess oxycodone.

The sentencing agreement, which will not be officially disposed until the end of July, calls for a maximum 5-year prison sentence for Swerdlin, with all but 18 months suspended. Swerdlin will not be eligible for home detention during her 18-month sentence, but will eligible for work release and may apply for parole. She also consented to disbarment as part of her plea.

Other plea agreement stipulations include three years of parole and probation, drug treatment, and random urinalysis.

Also as part of the deal, Swerdlin, a criminal defense attorney, agreed to meet with prosecutors and Baltimore County Detention Center officials to reveal everything she knows about drug smuggling efforts at the jail. Jason League, assistant state’s attorney for Baltimore County and lead prosecutor on the case, said changes have already been made since Swerdlin’s arrest to improve security at the jail.

According to the plea terms, Swerdlin may also seek to modify her sentence—essentially seek a probation before judgment final disposition—if she successfully completes all of her required stipulations, enabling her, potentially, to regain her law license down the road.

Three others indicted in the Swerdlin conspiracy case have already pled guilty and a fourth is expected to plea guilty next week, according to prosecutors. Six other people charged in the conspiracy still have their cases open.

“She’s different than just an addict because she had access to clients who were in a holding facility, and, as an officer of the court, she was abusing that access by smuggling drugs into prison,” League said afterwards. “Smuggling contraband into prison goes far beyond just that one client—many of the people there have drug problems and for them this is gold. So that becomes a huge problem and obviously, we have an obligation to uphold the integrity of our jails.”

League added that the broad prescription drug investigation that began in January of 2012, and led to Swerdlin’s arrest, remains ongoing.

Update: This article has been updated to contain a sponsored link from recovery.org.

The guards told Kirk Bloodsworth they had a work detail for him. A room near the prison hospital, above his cell and tier, needed painting, they said. When you’re locked up 23 hours a day, even painting becomes a welcome diversion, so Bloodsworth went along. The “room” that guards said needed painting turned out to be a 9-foot-tall, hexagonal steel vault—albeit with sealed glass windows, for witnesses. Square in the center of the cramped space, bolted to the floor, sat a steel chair with leather leg, arm, and chest straps—nicknamed the “captain’s chair.”

Bloodsworth, who had been found guilty of the rape and murder of a 9-year-old Rosedale girl, was sentenced to die in the chair he was now being told to paint. “You’ll be Captain Kirk soon.” “We want to get it ready for you.” “Paint it nice.” “Beam me up, Scotty…”

“Just jerks,” Bloodsworth recalls. “They thought it was funny.”

The guards also took it upon themselves to explain how the process worked. Hydrochloric acid would be poured into the vat beneath the chair. Once strapped in, at the warden’s signal, the executioner would mechanically drop cyanide pellets in the acid, filling the vault with putrid fumes that would sear Bloodsworth’s eyes and nostrils before reaching his lungs—the condemned are told to take deep breaths to avoid prolonging the agony. Gasping and choking would precede panicked contortions and seizures. It took about 10 minutes. Longer for a big guy like the young, 225-pound Bloodsworth, the guards said.

From that day forward, each time Bloodsworth walked into the exercise yard, he couldn’t stop himself from looking up at the concrete ventilation pipes, where the deadly gas left the chamber, atop the penitentiary’s roof. He began suffering suffocation nightmares, waking up and vomiting afterward. “For two years, I slept right below that room. It was always in the middle of my thoughts.”

Built in 1811, the massive, stone Maryland Penitentiary where Bloodsworth spent two years on death row and almost nine years altogether once held prisoners in dungeons. Since renamed the Maryland Transition Center, it looms in East Baltimore like a foreboding medieval castle. The state has executed 314 individuals in its history, nearly all here, most by hanging—the remnants of which also served as a haunting reminder of Bloodsworth’s fate. “They still had an outline [of the scaffolding] on the wall,” he says.

“You could see clearly in the yard where they used to hang people.”

Ultimately, in June of 1993, the twice wrongly convicted Bloodsworth became the first U.S. death row inmate exonerated through DNA evidence. Incredibly, it later turned out that the guy who actually abducted and murdered Dawn Hamilton slept in the tier below Bloodsworth—doing time on completely different charges.

Flash forward. After fighting for his life inside prison and, for a long period, struggling on the outside from the anguishing ordeal—bouts of depression and drinking, job problems, a second divorce—Bloodsworth found himself sitting in the State House balcony in March when the General Assembly cast votes abolishing the death penalty. An Eastern Shore native and honorably discharged Marine with no previous criminal history, Bloodsworth, now 53, jumped out of his seat and threw his hands into air. He’d been working for this moment ever since his arrest nearly 30 years ago.

“How did it feel? I was counting the votes and when we had enough ‘green’ votes—green is ‘yes,’ red is ‘no’—I screamed.

Twenty-eight years later, I’d killed the thing that almost killed me,” he says. “I sort of felt like Atlas and the world had come off my back. I could finally stand up straight. Nobody in my state, let alone an innocent man, will ever be convicted and sentenced to death again. It was the most gratifying moment of my life.”

Leading up to the General Assembly, legislation to end the death penalty hadn’t been expected to even reach the floor for a full vote. Senate President Mike Miller was not a supporter and, for years, bills had stalled in committee. In January, however, Miller changed judiciary committee assignments—with the intent of allowing a full death penalty vote—and suddenly a crack of daylight appeared.

Organizations like Maryland Citizens Against the State Executions, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and the NAACP were committed to the legislation, as was Gov. Martin O’Malley, who threw his weight behind passing the measure. But it was Bloodsworth, meeting year after year with every group and legislator who would hear his story, who’d become the face of the campaign to end capital punishment.

“He’s moved more hearts and minds in Annapolis than anyone I know,” says Jane Henderson, former executive director of Maryland Citizens Against the State Executions, who met Bloodsworth a few years after his release at an early coalition meeting on Harford Road.

Baltimore City Delegate Samuel “Sandy” Rosenberg, House sponsor of the end-the-death-penalty bill, says Bloodworth’s presence in Annapolis humanized theoretical death penalty debates. “Kirk is an individual who was wrongly prosecuted by our system’s best efforts—our prosecutors are effective when they have eyewitnesses,” Rosenberg says. “But it’s no longer abstract when you meet him.”

Not long after Maryland voted to become the 18th state to abolish the death penalty (the law went into effect October 1), Temple Law School professor Louis Natali invited Bloodsworth to address his capital punishment class. Since his release, Bloodsworth, now the director of advocacy for the Philadelphia-based nonprofit Witness for Innocence, has become one of the most sought-after anti-capital-punishment advocates in the country.

“Most of you have never, will never, come in contact with someone who has been through the criminal-justice system and received a death sentence,” Natali says to his students by way of introducing Bloodsworth. “I want you to meet someone who has and can tell you what that experience is like.”

Not exceptionally tall, exactly 6-feet, Bloodsworth nonetheless remains a sizeable man—barrel-chested, broad across the back, large head, thick neck, and beefy hands—and possesses a commanding presence in front of the law class. But he’s also the sociable, down-to-earth waterman’s son he was before his incarceration.

“I’m from New Orleans, and we like stories, and we all know how to tell a story down there,” says Sister Helen Prejean, who co-founded Witness for Innocence and was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in the movie, Dead Man Walking. “Kirk, where he’s from, the Eastern Shore, I guess, he’s got that as well. He’s this big guy with a big soul and that comes through.”

He starts from the beginning: “August 9, 1984, I open the door and there’s lights in my eyes. ‘Kirk Bloodsworth, you’re charged with the first-degree murder of Dawn Hamilton, you son-of-a-bitch.’”

He explains that he didn’t remotely match the physical description given by the first two eyewitnesses—8- and 10-year-old boys. “They said he was 6-foot-5 with curly blonde hair. My hair was as red as a fire plug in those days, I had sideburns down to here, and I was missing a tooth in the front.”

Dawn Hamilton, Bloodsworth continues, was outside playing with friends, including the two boys, fishing at a nearby pond when they saw a man approach her after she went looking for her cousin. (Bloodsworth never lost sight of the fact that the real killer of the pretty, sandy-haired girl—whose picture he sometimes carries to speaking engagements—hadn’t been found. He mentioned her frequently in his prison letters and journals.)

Bloodsworth recounts the way the mis-identification process unfurled. The boys, looking at images of generic facial features, helped Baltimore County police create a sketch, which was released through the media. The crime had generated tremendous outrage, and more than 500 tips poured in. Bloodsworth notes he was tip No. 286.

At the time, he’d gotten married and moved to Essex and was working six days a week in a furniture warehouse when his next-door neighbor told police he resembled the man in the sketch. Working through the list, nothing panning out, detectives eventually located Bloodsworth, whose one day off coincided with the murder. Police also learned he’d returned to his hometown of Cambridge shortly after the tragedy. Bloodsworth, admittedly a 23-year-old good ol’ boy who enjoyed his beer and pot, tried to explain he’d gotten into an disagreement with his then-first wife.

Several others where Dawn lived also later identified him in a photo line-up, but only after they’d seen his face on TV during his perp walk. That was the “evidence” against Bloodsworth. Meanwhile, he had 10 alibi witnesses and hadn’t been alone all day.

Well-informed on legal and criminal-justice issues, Bloodsworth can dispassionately detail all the practical, ethical, religious, racial, economic, and selective bias objections to the death penalty. But whether he’s talking to a law class, testifying in Annapolis or another state legislature, in front of Congress, or appearing on The Colbert Show, he hones in on a single point.

“There isn’t a system you can create run by human beings that is infallible,” he says. “Ann Brobst, prosecutor, very smart; Robert Lazaro, prosecutor, very smart; Det. Bob Capel, smart; the judges, smart; the juries, made up of concerned citizens. All trying to do the right thing.

“Dozens of people. Dead wrong.”

Ultimately, a chain of events as unforeseeable as those that put him on death row saved Bloodsworth. An avid reader in prison, he learned about DNA through a nonfiction book, The Blooding, which recounted a U.K. serial killer’s capture through the groundbreaking science. He pleaded with lawyer Bob Morin (now a D.C. judge) to test the semen stains, which could exonerate him, on Dawn’s underwear. Morin, in turn, reached out to the Innocence Project, a recently formed legal clinic founded by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, which promoted DNA analysis to exonerate innocent prisoners.

Fortunately, the clothing and evidence, at one point believed to be missing, was tracked down in a cardboard box in a closet in then-Baltimore County Judge James Smith’s chambers. Later came the phone call in prison: The results excluded Bloodsworth.

“The first time I met Kirk was in jail,” says Scheck. “I also went with him to visit Sen. Patrick Leahy when we worked on getting Congress to pass the Innocent Protection Act in 2004.” The act includes procedures for DNA testing and funding through a program named after Bloodsworth. “He was such a powerful example, in person, of how important this issue is . . . [The legislation’s passage] showed how great Kirk is as a survivor and an advocate.”

Scheck was also with Bloodsworth years later, in Illinois, when the death penalty was under reconsideration there, watching the play, The Exonerated. Scheck says he got a glimpse, once again, of how difficult it can be for the ex-inmate to relive his death row experience. “About 10 minutes in, he had to leave, he was welling up, and he didn’t come back,” Scheck says. “When he talks about the death of a parent—his mother—while incarcerated, he often loses it at some point. So, it’s not easy, emotionally, for him to tell his story, but it’s also very important.”

A large part of Bloodsworth’s healing from his prison trauma stems from retelling his own story, pushing through rather than burying the pain. “It’s cathartic,” he says, “and cheaper than seeing a therapist.” He says fully embracing the realization that all human beings are fallible—“including myself”—has led to greater forgiveness and healing. In particular, forgiving those who sent him to death row, but others, too, like lawmakers who refused to ever meet with him.

“I made a decision and that was, I can’t live with this pain,” Bloodsworth says. “I’m a grown man, and I have lived through this—it’s acceptance. If I don’t forgive people—and forgiving people turns out to be a very good way to live—I’m not going to get past this. If you hold a grudge, a resentment, a vendetta, it just eats you alive. “

Sister Prejean has gotten to know Bloodsworth over almost 20 years and believes that translating his experience into a meaningful narrative—and sharing it to help others—continues to provide needed healing.

“Part of the work he does, for him, is a way of dealing with this horrible trauma he went through,” she says, describing the extreme mental distress of death row as meeting the United Nations’ definition of torture. “But one of the great things about human beings is that we have the ability to transcend the horrible things that happen to us, and Kirk has done that by trying to make sure this never happens to anyone else. It goes past himself, past ego, it’s from personal pain. It’s truly a salvational thing he is doing.”

Showing a visitor around the small Witness for Innocence office recently, Bloodsworth notes that his story is not unique.

One-hundred and forty-two people have been exonerated from death row since 1976. He stops in front of 18 portraits of former death row inmates from across the U.S.

He knows them all. And their stories.

“Ray Krone, the 100th death row inmate exonerated, was honorably discharged from the Air Force and a mailman in Arizona. He’s on our board. Albert Burrell is from Louisiana. Harold Wilson’s from Pennsylvania. Shujaa Graham lives in Takoma Park and is a great friend. . . . We have a gathering once a year where we get everyone together. Not everybody makes it, but a bunch do.

“Freddie Pitts is from Florida,” Bloodsworth continues, gesturing to another photo and turning around. “He wrote the words on the back of my T-shirt.” Across Bloodsworth’s Witness for Innocence T-shirt, it reads: “You can free an innocent man from prison, but you can’t free him from the grave.”

“All good guys,” he says. “I wouldn’t wish what they went through on my worst enemy.”

In the garage beneath the downtown law offices of Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler, Larry Gibson lifts a piece of luggage loaded with hardcover copies of his award-winning book, Young Thurgood, from his trunk. He intends to wheel the heavy bag up Charles Street to the city courthouse for a book signing with local bar association members. But first, the 71-year-old Gibson chats with a parking attendant, who wants the attorney to present his book to his church.

“I’m saving the last day in June for you,” says Gibson, nodding. “Let’s get it confirmed. The calendar’s filling up.”

By his count, Gibson has done 44 signings since the book’s release last December. Walking north past the Hotel Monaco, he stops and notes that this is the old headquarters of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad—the company name still engraved over the archway—for which the future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and his father once worked as dining-car waiters.

Weaving through traffic, Gibson—without a hint of resentment—recalls his own experiences growing up in segregated Baltimore, such as getting kicked out of a recreation center with his older brother and cousin. “We were leading both the Ping-Pong and pool tournaments,” he says, laughing. “That’s what made me mad.” He talks about setting pins at Stoneleigh’s duckpin lanes—“where I wasn’t allowed to roll a ball”—and working on a bakery truck as a teenager. “We made deliveries to places, like Highlandtown, that I didn’t know existed, and I thought I knew every neighborhood in Baltimore,” Gibson says, with another laugh. “We also delivered different kinds of bread, like pumpernickel, that I’d never seen.

“Before I went to work in the Carter Administration, for a background check, they asked for all my addresses, and I realized we moved every 18 months,” he continues. “Of course, I’d only known all the black neighborhoods.”

In 1956, however—two years after Marshall, a Baltimore native, won the landmark Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision—Gibson entered City College high school. Voted the storied institution’s first African-American class officer, he moved on to Howard University, becoming a student civil-rights leader, motivated, he says, by a basic desire to “fully participate” in life. After Columbia Law School, he was the first “negro,” as the Baltimore News-American reported, appointed to clerk for a federal judge in Maryland in 1967.

And then Gibson clerked for Venable, Baetjer & Howard, one of the state’s two biggest law firms—his goal at the time to buy his parents, a janitor and a cook, a house. He recalls that period now, before his presentation in the courthouse’s Barr Library, where he spent long hours researching cases as a Venable clerk. “I had every intention of working for Venable; there was an expectation that I would. But then Martin Luther King was shot and I’m thinking, ‘Why am I going to work for the establishment?’” Gibson says. “And I changed my mind.”

“There was a need to open the door in local politics, and that’s what he did,” says Schmoke. “Larry was a street fighter.”

With Baltimore convulsed in riots following King’s assassination, Gibson instead decided to join the city’s top black law firm, Brown, Allen, Watts, Murphy & Russell, and immediately set out to elect the first black leaders—including two of those partners listed above—to citywide offices. Quickly developing a reputation as a high-energy, no-holds-barred, grassroots organizer, Gibson served as campaign manager for Joseph Howard, who became the first black judge on the Baltimore City Supreme Bench and the first African-American to win a citywide seat in the fall of 1968—just seven months after King’s death. In the next election cycle, Gibson directed the campaigns of Milton Allen, the first African-American elected Baltimore State’s Attorney—and the first to hold a chief prosecutor’s position in a major U.S. city—and William Murphy, who won a Municipal Court judgeship. Paul Chester, whose campaign Gibson also directed, became the first African-American circuit-court clerk the same year, 1970.

Finally, the young organizer and his law firm supported Parren Mitchell, who became the first African-American from Maryland elected to Congress in 1970. Mitchell, who had lost in his 1968 bid, won by 38 votes and would serve eight terms. In two years, the color of Baltimore’s political landscape had begun a transformation.

“I thought it was important for African-Americans to gain full participation—beyond voting—in the political process,” says Gibson of those groundbreaking campaign efforts. “Part of that meant removing barriers to holding political office.”

Later, Gibson became best known locally for directing the two successful State’s Attorney races and three successful mayoral campaigns of Kurt Schmoke, the first African-American elected to Baltimore’s highest office.

“There was a need to open the door in local politics, and that’s what he did,” says Schmoke, who stepped down last year after a decade as dean of Howard University’s School of Law. “Larry was the street fighter, very much engaged in all of the campaigns, an aggressive campaigner on the retail level. He started with judgeships, with citywide races, then Congress, and up from there.”

But for as much as Gibson relished the battle of campaigning, he never had an interest in governing himself. If nothing else, his interests always ran too wide to focus on a single all-consuming job like holding public office. Actually, he admits even trying to discourage Schmoke from running for office initially. “People would accuse me of pulling the strings in the background, but once the election was over—I was out of it,” Gibson says. Half the time, he adds, perhaps only half-joking, he didn’t even know the names of everyone in Schmoke’s cabinet.

A former high-school hurdler who wore the black-rimmed glasses in style in the 1960s, Gibson cut a lean, more hard-edged figure as a young man. Today, in silver frames, with a grandfather’s receding hairline, he seems perfectly comfortable in his elder-statesman-like role. He admits to a natural mellowing—“maturing” in his words—over the years. “I’ve gained wisdom, I understand some things better than I used to,” Gibson says. “Everything is not black or white anymore. There are more shades of gray.”

Reminded that he was often described as brash in the media and worse by political foes—former Gov. William Donald Schaefer once was quoted calling him a racist (a comment which still draws the ire of longtime best friend and attorney Ron Shapiro)—Gibson shakes his head and smiles. Then, however, the old intensity flashes as he looks over his glasses to make eye contact and his point. “I was in Baltimore during the riots and my friends and I didn’t take that track,” he says. “We went about changing things through the political and legal system.”

“I was upset because I had to pay for a lunch I didn’t want, and I knew they hadn’t really integrated. I called that my Sit-in Salad.”

But for all his accomplishments, city politics has been just one aspect of Gibson’s varied career, which includes practicing law as well as nearly 40 years teaching at the University of Maryland School of Law—after becoming the first black law professor at the University of Virginia. (“Charlottesville was nice, but too quiet,” he says. “My wife and I missed the excitement, the noise, and everything going on in the city.) Former students include Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Gov. Martin O’Malley, and U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, among others.

A few more things Gibson has done: He served six years on the City Board of School Commissioners after former Mayor Thomas D’Alesandro III appointed him to the board at 26. He successfully defended a Baltimore Black Panther Party member on kidnap and murder charges and fought high-profile housing discrimination cases with Shapiro in the 1970s. He served in the U.S. Justice Department as associate deputy attorney general. He helped get the University of Maryland law library named after Marshall and was the principal advocate behind renaming BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport. A lifelong photographer, Gibson has curated exhibitions around Maryland’s first black attorneys, civil rights, and Marshall’s career. Later, he served as a campaign advisor to the presidents of Liberia and Madagascar. He even represented the professional baseball umpire’s union for seven years.

Currently vice chairman of the city’s Historical and Architectural Preservation committee, Gibson remains involved with the effort to preserve the former Read’s Drug Store building on Howard Street, where then-Morgan College students staged some of the earliest Civil Rights-era sit-ins. For his part, Gibson recalls staging a sit-in as a 19-year-old Howard student at the old Oriole cafeteria on York Road in the fall of 1961. Except, in order to avert any disruption or media attention, the cafeteria unexpectedly decided to integrate—for a day. “I had grabbed a meal that I didn’t even like, baked fish—the fish I’d always had was fried—and a salad with carrots, raisins, and mayonnaise. Then, they rang me up, and I didn’t have any money. I had to borrow money to pay for it.

Now, he’s added historian and author to his resume, chronicling Marshall’s formative years in Baltimore and the environment that shaped the first black Supreme Court justice. In the book, Gibson brings to light interviews he taped with Marshall’s relatives and classmates in the 1980s—going so far as to document his grades at Baltimore’s “Colored High School” and college debating career—as well as his early, critical civil-rights battles in the state.

“I thought it was a great book and called Larry to tell him so,” says Shale Stiller, partner at DLA Piper and former president, CEO, and chairman of The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, who said he bought about 75 copies of the book to give away. “It’s a poignant and direct account of what it was like for African-Americans to live in Maryland in the 30 years after the turn of the century.”

In a sense, in writing about Marshall’s life and early career in Baltimore, Gibson has come full circle.

On July 1, 1975, at 11 p.m., Gibson and another young lawyer drove to Marshall’s Falls Church, VA, home to ask the Justice to sign an emergency order blocking the firing of City Schools Superintendent Roland Patterson.

“We started out nervous, but we kept telling each other;that the worst that could happen was Marshall would not let us in or he would refuse to sign the order,” Gibson says. “But, we had difficulty finding Marshall’s neighborhood and house. We got lost several times. As we wandered around, frustration became the dominant sentiment . . . and [we] considered going back to Baltimore. The only feeling I remember as we knocked on the door was hoping that we were at the right house.”

The Justice, in his bathrobe, invited the attorneys inside.

“It took him about 10-15 minutes to take care of the paperwork, and he said, ‘You know [Chief Justice] Burger is going to knock this down tomorrow,’” recounts Gibson. “But the Patterson thing was political, and he knew we were trying to get a hit in the media, which we did, and buy time. After that, we talked about Baltimore until 2 a.m. He wanted to know about certain neighborhoods, if this building or that building was still standing. He was completely different than the press accounts of him I’d read that referred to him as cantankerous—and that he didn’t like Baltimore.”

Thurgood Marshall Jr. appreciates that Gibson’s book corrects the perception that his father held hard feelings regarding his hometown. A Washington lawyer and former Clinton Administration official, he has been on friendly terms with Gibson for two decades and even remembers that first late night when the young Baltimore attorney knocked on his family’s front door. “My father had nothing but affection for Baltimore,” he says. “He experienced some things there he didn’t like, but that was because of the times in which he lived, not particularly tied to the city.”

“There are so many formative moments that professor Gibson brings out that affected my father’s life,” Marshall says. “It’s amazing how much I learned about my father and my relatives—some of whom I only knew by their first name or a nickname. I’m flabbergasted at times by his attention to detail.”

“. . . that the worst that could happen was Marshall would not let us in or he would refuse to sign the order.”

Gibson’s curiosity about Marshall and his early life and career was piqued further after a brief meeting at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse dedication on Calvert Street in 1985. Marshall was chatting with Mitchell’s widow, civil-rights activist Juanita Jackson Mitchell, when Gibson approached and asked a nearby bystander to take a picture of him with the Supreme Court Justice. It was the last time that he’d see Marshall in person. The bystander struggled with his camera for a few moments, prompting Marshall to lean toward Gibson and quip, “So, what am I supposed to do, kiss you?”

“I never got over that first encounter in July 1975,” Gibson says. “The man whom many legal historians consider the most important American lawyer of the 20th century had spent more than two hours talking with two young lawyers from Baltimore who showed up at his front door late at night. I guess, that’s when I became a Thurgood Marshall addict. I wanted to learn more about him.”

Although he didn’t have a book in mind then, Gibson set about interviewing Marshall’s relatives and classmates—while they were still around—over the next few years. It took another 25-plus years before Gibson would complete his biography, at the urging of Karen Rothenberg along the way, another former University of Maryland law-school dean, who, Gibson jokes, “got tired of hearing me complain that somebody should set the record straight and write this book.”

Schmoke says the link between Gibson and Marshall goes deeper than the biography (which is dedicated to Gibson’s wife, Diana, and Marshall’s wife, Cecilia). It’s a shared commitment to equality and progress, he says, one that Marshall’s law-school dean at Howard—whom Gibson highlights in the book—tried to instill in his students.

“Larry would fit in the mold of Charles Hamilton Houston, who was Thurgood Marshall’s mentor,” says Schmoke. “Houston said lawyers can be either social engineers or they can be parasites on society, and he was always encouraging lawyers to be social engineers—advancing their clients’ cases, of course—but always working for positive social change.

“Anybody can be a lawyer,” Schmoke says. “Larry Gibson is an example of a lawyer as social engineer.”

Appraised of Schmoke’s words, Gibson, researching a potential follow-up book on Marshall, pauses for a moment. “That’s stated pretty strongly, the line about ‘parasites on society.’ That’s not language I’d use. But when I went to law school, we were only graduating two black lawyers in the state a year. It wasn’t like you had a choice, you had to sit on boards, become a trustee or chairman of this organization or that—you had to be a leader. There wasn’t the luxury of ‘just’ being a lawyer.

“And yes, I think we moved the ball forward. I know we did. But it wasn’t like any of the things I did ever felt like a sacrifice,” adds Gibson. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”

Edited by Max Weiss. Written by Jess Blumberg, Ken Iglehart, Suzanne Loudermilk, John Lewis, Amy Mulvihill, Evan Serpick, and Max Weiss

Delegate Keiffer Mitchell Jr. is at a cafe, being interviewed for this story, when his cell phone rings. “Hang on a sec, I’ve got to take this,” he says. He leans away and answers the phone. He’s discussing the Baltimore Grand Prix —the upcoming Indy car race that Mitchell was a key player in bringing to Baltimore. All of downtown will be affected by the race, and whomever Mitchell is talking to is clearly concerned about logistics.

The delegate’s omelet arrives and sits untouched as Mitchell continues to talk in a cheerful and reassuring manner. More than 10 minutes later, he’s off the phone. He looks up sheepishly. “Sorry, that was Brian Rogers,” he says, referring to the chairman of T. Rowe Price, who is on our list (under Finance Power). “Speaking of power. . . .”

Mitchell digs into his (now cold) omelet and resumes the interview.

The moment was not staged for the benefit of this story, but it very well could’ve been. Rogers has access (he was calling Mitchell’s cell) and influence (Mitchell was bending over backwards to accommodate him) and probably could’ve interrupted the breakfast (or lunch or family dinner) of just about any politician in town.

This story is our attempt to explore Baltimore power and the various ways it manifests itself in the region. Political power and financial power are perhaps the most obvious kinds, but there are other, less conspicuous types of power at play in such arenas as culture, health care, sports, and technology. What follows is our examination of power in all of its incarnations—from the boardrooms to the chatrooms and beyond.

Politics

The position comes with power. But it’s how you wield it that really counts.

Governor Martin O’Malley
He spends a lot of time in Annapolis, but Governor O’Malley is still a Baltimore guy, and he wields an enormous amount of power here. For one thing, the former Baltimore mayor was a mentor to Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and the two frequently acknowledge their close working relationship. Further, the road-tested, iron-tough Democratic political machine that O’Malley built (or rebuilt) endures. And every time he has an important moment, whether launching a reelection campaign or declaring victory, O’Malley is in Baltimore, flanked by the city’s political elite, including Rawlings-Blake and Rep. Elijah Cummings. O’Malley is still captain of Baltimore’s Democratic ship.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
When fiery Sheila Dixon resigned last year, Rawlings-Blake’s low-key technocratic style was a welcome change. Now, the quiet machinations of her power are bearing fruit. After capably managing the biggest back-to-back blizzards in local history, she balanced an out-of-control budget, overhauling the police and fire department pension systems, making huge spending cuts, and passing a bottle tax—all without raising public ire too broadly. She announced ambitious new projects, like the 2011 Grand Prix race, and moved to renovate vast swaths of vacant housing. With all due to respect to Dixon, Rawlings-Blake demonstrates that one doesn’t have to wave a shoe to demonstrate power.

Rep. Elijah Cummings
Like all of Maryland’s U.S. Senators and Representatives, Cummings spends a lot of time in D.C. But more than any of the others, Cummings is a fixture in Baltimore. He fights for local interests, defending the fishing industry (maritimeprofessional.com calls him “the domestic maritime industry’s biggest advocate in Congress”) and proposing $2.25 billion in federal funds to clean up the bay. He sits on the board of trustees for the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore and the National Aquarium, and generally weighs in thoughtfully and impactfully on every issue of consequence, from slots to education funding.

And don’t count out:

• New Baltimore State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein upset incumbent Pat Jessamy with support from police commissioner Frederick Bealefeld and a tough-on-crime approach that resonated with voters and could elevate him to higher office.
• Otis Rolley, Frank Conaway Sr., Councilman Carl Stokes, and Council President Jack Young have all been mentioned as potential 2011 mayoral candidates, but for our money, former Congressman and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume seems ripe for a return to prominence.
• As deputy mayor for Economic and Neighborhood Development, Kaliope Parthemos oversees the Baltimore Development Corporation, Board of Estimates, and Board of Municipal and Zoning Appeals. More importantly, she’s the Mayor’s most trusted consigliere.

Religion

For the faithful of all stripes, these men of the cloth carry the most clout.

Frank M. Reid III
Rev. Frank Reid, 59, is senior pastor and CEO of northwest Baltimore’s Bethel AME Church, the largest congregation in the city at over 10,000 worshippers and the choice for a number of politicians and other movers and shakers in the African-American community like Sheila Dixon.

Archbishop Edwin Frederick O’Brien
As if being the spiritual leader of half a million Catholics in central Maryland wasn’t enough, the O’Brien-led Archdiocese of Baltimore oversees five hospitals, 70 schools, two seminaries, a food kitchen that serves 250,000 meals a year, plus countless other social service programs. O’Brien’s military background—he was an army chaplain with the rank of captain who served in Vietnam—has undoubtedly served him well in dealing with the challenges of leading his flock in what have been difficult times for the Catholic Church.

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg
For 32 years, Rabbi Wohlberg has been the guiding light of 1,400-member Beth Tfiloh, the largest modern orthodox synagogue in the United States, serving both as rabbi of the congregation and as dean of Beth Tfiloh’s 1,000-student, K-12 school. Dubbed “the master of the sermon” by the Baltimore Jewish Times, he is an author and regular panelist on WMAR-TV’s Square Off.

And don’t count out:

• Bishop Walter S. Thomas Sr., 60, is longtime pastor of the 7,000-strong New Psalmist Baptist Church in northwest Baltimore. Like Bethel AME, New Psalmist claims its own VIP members (like Rep. Elijah Cummings), and Rev. Thomas’s live Internet broadcasts and regular radio services are followed by thousands.
• Rabbi Daniel Cotzin Burg, 34, the charismatic new rabbi at Beth Am synagogue, is packing the pews.
  “He is already the talk of the town,” says one member of the congregation.

Development

They’ve built this town, and, very often, they call the shots (and slots).

John Paterakis Sr.
Paterakis, 81, made his money as president of the family-owned H&S Bakery, the largest privately owned bakery in the U.S. H&S and its sister companies supply McDonald’s, as well as house brands for Giant Foods, SuperFresh, and others. But he’s as well known now for his H&S Properties, which has developed the $600 million waterfront Harbor East district, which includes high-end condos, office towers, restaurants, hotels, and retail space. Financing, schminancing: In the early years, his Harbor East vision was largely kept alive by Paterakis’s own checkbook, which also has bankrolled numerous political campaigns. And now he’s developing Harbor Point, a former industrial site just to the east that will be an $800 million complex of homes, offices, hotels and shops.

David S. Cordish
The 70-year-old president of The Cordish Companies is from a family that’s been doing urban redevelopment for more than a century (his sons are now VPs). He’s been behind Harborplace-esque urban renewal projects all over the U.S. that include entertainment venues, retailing, restaurants, gaming, residences, and hotels. His big new roll of the dice? The gaming casino at Arundel Mills shopping mall that voters signed off on in a November referendum. Cordish went door to door to make his case. Was there ever any doubt that he’d hit the jackpot?

Edward Miller
What’s the top guy at arguably the best hospital in the world doing under “developers”? Because Johns Hopkins Medicine Dean and CEO Edward Miller is the man behind the curtain for entire medical mini-cities, including the massive renovation projects that have transformed East Baltimore. The two new state-of-the-art hospitals for adult and pediatric patients represent one of the largest hospital construction projects in the nation. In his 13-year tenure as dean, he’s been the driving force for dozens of other Hopkins projects, too, and was a key mover in the Baltimore City-initiated biotech park north of the campus on a once-blighted 80-acre tract. We’re guessing Miller isn’t anywhere near done with his ceremonial hardhat and gold shovel.

And don’t count out:

• Michael S. Beatty, president of H&S Properties Development, is the guy who’s made John Paterakis’s ambitious and complex projects look like a cake walk.
• Edward St. John‘s company, St. John Properties, has built more than 13 million square feet of apartments, offices, retail, and warehouses worth over $1 billion. But St. John, 72, is also known for his generosity—he’s given more than $43 million to various causes through personal, corporate, and foundation donations.

Finance

Money is power and these financiers manage it, spend it, and control it.

Mark R. Fetting
Fetting, 56, the president and CEO of Legg Mason, was the board’s choice three years ago to fill the shoes of retiring founder Raymond A. “Chip” Mason, who in 40 years grew the global firm to nearly $700 billion in assets under management. Fetting was an executive senior VP at Legg for seven years prior to his appointment. He serves on several community boards, including Mercy Hospital and Gilman School.

James A. C. Kennedy and Brian Rogers
T. Rowe Price Group CEO/president Kennedy and chairman Rogers oversee a global investment firm that manages $440 billion in assets. Besides employing 5,000 people, the most noticeable impact that the duo has on the region is the culture they promote of community involvement by T. Rowe staffers, who contribute heavily to local education, arts, and social causes.

Charles Newhall
Got a great business idea? Wouldn’t you love to bend the ear of venture-capital giant Charles “Chuck” Newhall, cofounder (with Dick Kramlich and the storied Frank Bonsal Jr.) of New Enterprise Associates (NEA)? In the past 30 years, NEA has committed more than $11 billion to bankroll some 650 new information-technology, health care, and energy-technology companies here and abroad, of which more than 165 have gone public and more than 265 have been acquired.

And don’t count out:

• Since relocating to Baltimore from New York in 2002 to oversee the takeover of the former Allfirst Financial, Atwood “Woody” Collins III, the M&T Bank Mid-Atlantic Region president, has gotten involved in everything from mayoral task forces and the Greater Baltimore Committee to the city’s economic development board and the Babe Ruth Museum.

Media

Traditional media may not be as omnipotent as it once was, but it still has plenty of juice in this town.

Mary Corey
Corey has been at The Baltimore Sun for more than 23 years, starting as an intern. Over that time, she’s risen up the paper’s masthead, earning allies and kudos. In May, she took over as director of content, the first woman in the paper’s 173-year history to lead the newsroom, replacing Monty Cook, an out-of-towner brought in by the paper’s owners at The Tribune Company who oversaw massive layoffs and downsizing. Under Corey’s leadership, the paper has stepped up coverage of breaking news—evident in its coverage of the September shooting at The Johns Hopkins Hospital—and added new sections, including The Sun Magazine.

Jayne Miller
There is one journalist in Baltimore that virtually every public figure is afraid of: WBAL-TV reporter Jayne Miller. Her investigative reports have exposed corruption in public officials and failures of the criminal justice system. Her 2003 coverage of irregularities at mortgage servicing company Fairbanks Capital was picked up nationally, as one of the first stories to expose problems in the subprime lending industry. These days, whenever there is an important story in Baltimore—from Sheila Dixon’s trial in January to the November elections—everyone looks to Miller for the most decisive analysis, which impacts how everyone else reports the story.

Bob Philips
Philips, the market manager for all CBS radio stations in Baltimore, including The Fan, WLIF, and WWMX, plays a subtle but powerful role in determining the stories, events, and topics that become major in the area. By directing the news departments that Marylanders listen to in drive time, even on a non-news station like WLIF (which is often the number-one rated station), Philips helps to set the agenda for other outlets in town and directs the conversations at water coolers throughout the region.

Mark Miller
Miller has long led the WBAL-AM’s comprehensive news operation, and when longtime program director Jeff Beauchamp left the station last year, the unassuming Miller took on that role, too, playing a quiet but powerful role in the way Baltimore gets news. Over the last year, Miller has made WBAL more news-oriented—launching anchored news programs during morning and afternoon drive times—while still leaving it opinionated, installing right-leaning talk-show host Shari Elliker as anchor for the afternoon program and keeping former First Lady of Maryland Kendall Ehrlich on the air through the elections. It’s the kind of formula that has worked on national outlets like Fox News, and time will tell if it works locally and affects the way other stations in town operate.

And don’t count out:

• Larry Young’s talk show on WOLB (1010-AM) is a powerful voice on national and local affairs, particularly in the African-American community.
• Local NPR affiliate WYPR, led by president and general manager Tony Brandon, has probably the second biggest radio news operation in town, after WBAL (with more in-depth features), and an audience of affluent movers and shakers.
• Dogged Sun reporter Justin Fenton has been behind some of the biggest stories in town, scrambling to get to the bottom of the Hopkins shooting and breaking the news that Ehrlich operative Julius Henson was behind election-day robocalls.

Culture

The ever-strengthening arts community has some of its most high-profile leadership ever.

Fred Lazarus
Lazarus, the president of Maryland Institute College of Art, could vie for the top spot in the education category—MICA is, after all, one of the best art schools in the country—but that designation is too narrow for such a visionary leader. Lazarus has fostered strong ties with the business and nonprofit communities and gracefully shepherded an expansion of the school’s footprint that’s utterly transformed the Station North Arts District and enhanced the city’s cultural riches.

Marin Alsop
Alsop, the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, has set the bar high for leaders of the city’s major arts organizations. Not content with being a programming genius and a captivating presence on the podium, Alsop isn’t shy about flexing some marketing muscle—putting the BSO in front of new audiences, whenever possible—partnering with non-classical artists, and reaching out to the community at large.

David Simon
Simon’s work (The Corner, Homicide, The Wire, and Treme) has resonated far beyond Baltimore to shape an ongoing dialogue about urban America. Its been the subject of college courses and even won him a MacArthur grant last year. As if that weren’t enough, he’s also married to author Laura Lippman, no minor powerhouse herself.  

John Waters
Baltimore’s bonafide cultural icon continues to evolve beyond film, with art exhibits at A-list venues like the Gagosian Gallery in L.A., a witty memoir (Role Models), and speaking gigs around the world. Whether trading quips with Letterman or hobnobbing at an Oscars party, Waters is our most enduring and effective ambassador.

Doreen Bolger
Under Bolger’s leadership, The Baltimore Museum of Art has shed its old image as an insular organization and forged stronger relationships with other arts institutions and community groups. While spearheading ambitious capitol campaigns and renovation projects, The BMA director is just as liable to turn up at a warehouse gallery opening as she is a corporate boardroom.

And don’t count out:

• Bill Gilmore, executive director of Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, oversees a $6.4 million budget and local events such as Artscape, the Baltimore Book Festival, and the Preakness Parade.
• Carla Hayden, executive director, Enoch Pratt Free Library, has reinvigorated the Pratt as a vital cultural center and been named by President Obama to the National Museum and Library Services Board and the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.
• Jed Dietz, director of the Maryland Film Festival, also serves on the board of Centerstage, where he’s heading the search for Irene Lewis’s replacement.

Education

They’re the toughest——and most important——jobs in Baltimore. These leaders are making a difference.

Andrés Alonso
Since coming to the Baltimore as CEO of public schools in 2007, Alonso has turned the system upside down, decentralizing power from North Avenue, closing failing schools, and opening more than a dozen new ones, with the intention of giving parents more choices. In the process, test scores and graduation rates have gone up, drop-out rates have declined, and many families who had previously fled public schools are taking a second look. With this year’s new contract between the city and the Baltimore Teachers Union, Alonso took on an even more prominent role as a reformer on the national stage.

Nancy Grasmick
As Maryland’s Superintendent of Schools, Grasmick led the charge to win some of the $4.3 billion in federal “Race to the Top” funds. With 19 years in the position, Grasmick was able to quickly mobilize the legislature and education officials across the state to overhaul tenure and evaluation systems, set new curriculum standards, and design a new way to collect student data. As a result, Maryland was one of nine states (along with D.C.) to win funding, earning $250 million that will go toward implementing reforms and creating new schools.

Ron Goldblatt
Tough economic times have meant that many private schools have struggled to maintain enrollment, but the Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS) and executive director Goldblatt have provided a steely backbone for its 115 members. This year, the organization flexed its muscle to help shoot down new legislation that would have required greater state regulation of independent schools and held a steady stream of workshops to help increase enrollment.

Marietta English
The Baltimore Teachers Union took a bold step this year, approving a new contract that includes pay increases, but also ties salary to student performance, making it one of the most reform-minded contracts in the country. After the membership initially voted down the deal, union president English worked with schools administrators to nail down more specifics and held information sessions in every school in the city, which resulted in an overwhelming 1,902-1,045 vote.

And don’t count out:

• Alonso’s hand-picked Baltimore City Public Schools’ new chief academic officer Sonja Brookins Santelises is already getting attention for talk of increasing standards in city schools and raising elite schools to the level of the top public schools in the country.
• Cheryl Bost, president of the Teachers Association of Baltimore County (TABCO), led the fight against a cumbersome new student evaluation tool, the Articulated Instruction Module (AIM), delaying its implementation and putting county superintendent Joe Hairston on the hot seat for granting the program’s copyright to an employee.

Legal

These are the 800-pound gorillas of Baltimore’s law scene, and their firms have the revenue to prove it.

Peter G. Angelos
A honcho among honchos, Angelos, 81, could obviously fit into a number of our categories, including sports (as CEO and chairman of the board of the Orioles) and philanthropy. He’s made his millions representing the victims of faulty products, medical malpractice, and personal injury, but is best known for class-action suits against manufacturers of asbestos and tobacco.

Francis B. Burch Jr.
Frank Burch helped turn the regional law firm Piper & Marbury, with its 250 lawyers, into DLA Piper, an international practice with more than 3,500 lawyers and revenue of $2 billion. And he’s a trustee of The Johns Hopkins University, Johns Hopkins Medicine, and the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University, as well as past board chairman of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the University of Maryland School of Law.

James L. Shea
Shea, 58, is chairman of the board of law firm Venable LLP, with 600 lawyers based mostly in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and New York. He’s also on the boards of the Greater Baltimore Committee and the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore.

And don’t count out:

• Senior Venable partner Benjamin Richard Civiletti, probably the best-known name in American law, was U.S. Attorney General during the Carter administration, and recently became the first U.S. lawyer to charge $1,000 an hour.

Underground

Baltimore has become a national center for underground culture. Below, the leaders of the artists, hipsters, and tastemakers who make the scene.

Dan Deacon
In 2004, musician Deacon moved to Baltimore with a mantra: “The future surrounds us. Let us begin.” Setting up camp in the Copycat building on Guilford Ave., he and some friends founded Wham City, an arts collective bursting with creativity. Wham City threw massive dance parties in industrial spaces, drawing artists, musicians, and patrons from local colleges, especially MICA, and beyond. In 2006, they founded Whartscape—a more D.I.Y. answer to Artscape—giving a platform to local bands like Beach House and Ponytail, who would go on to gain national followings. They staged theatrical programs like Shoot Her! Jurassic Park: The Play. The excitement around the scene helped spur an arts renaissance in Station North. After a successful Whartscape in July, he announced that it would be no more. “Part of the fun was making it grow,” he said. “But we’d like to move on and try something new.” At the photo shoot for the cover of this magazine, Deacon huddled with BSO maestra Marin Alsop about a potential collaboration. Later that day, a BSO rep called the office looking for Deacon’s contact number. We can only imagine what he has in store for Baltimore next.

Matt Porterfield
Porterfield has a legit shot at being mentioned in the same breath as Levinson and Waters as one of the city’s finest filmmakers. Porterfield’s latest movie, Putty Hill, has been a hit on the festival circuit—screening in Berlin, Lisbon, Copenhagen, and Austin’s SXSW—and elicited raves from The New Yorker’s Richard Brody, who opined that “if there’s an independent cinema, [Putty Hill] is it, and if there’s a new director, here he is.” Porterfield gets extra credit for crafting music videos for local bands such as Double Dagger and teaching film at Hopkins.

Scott Berzofsky, Dane Nester, and Nicholas Wisniewski
These three MICA grads formed the arts collective Baltimore Development Cooperative (BDC), which addresses urban issues with a powerful mix of creative moxie and grassroots organizing. Their recent The Food Network exhibit at the Creative Alliance included installations by community groups such as Hamilton Crop Circle and info-sharing forays into city neighborhoods. The BDC also cosponsors STEW, a dinner (held three or four times a year) that raises money for various social justice projects.

And don’t count out:

• The folks at Red Emma’s present talks and performances at their Mt. Vernon bookstore/coffeehouse and at 2640 in Charles Village, and they operate The Baltimore Free School.
• Program director Megan Hamilton books a wide range of events at the Creative Alliance—a recent run of shows included Ethel Ennis, the Baltimore Men’s Chorus, Mink Stole, Maria Broom, a klezmer band, and a burlesque performance—and is a tireless advocate for the local arts scene.

Business

These impresarios of commerce provide the tax base that is the lifeblood the city.

Jack B. Dunn
The man behind the success of the $1 billion-a-year FTI Consulting has been CEO and president Dunn, a lawyer and former officer at Legg Mason (and current Orioles partner). Besides its corporate consulting services, FTI has some unusual skill areas, especially “forensic accounting,” or the science of finding out where the money went. (Investors hire FTI when a company fails——so that part of the business had been booming.) He’s also a board member at several major corporations.

Fred Festa
Yes, Festa, the chairman, president, and CEO of W.R. Grace, heads a company that went Chapter 11 after facing millions of dollars worth of awards in asbestos suits filed by the likes of Peter Angelos. But the Columbia-based Grace is back, selling close to $3 billion in specialty chemicals, catalysts, sealants, and construction materials worldwide. Better yet, both the company and its thousands of employees donate significantly every year to education, health, and human services causes.

Kevin A. Plank
Under Armour President and CEO Kevin Plank’s big idea (to create a synthetic, moisture-wicking fabric) sells close to $1 billion a year and has gone public. Now Plank is going after the industry giant Nike, with a foray into athletic footwear. (Don’t be too surprised if Nike tries to buy them.) Plank sits on the UM’s board of trustees, as well as serving on the board of directors for the Baltimore City Fire Foundation, the Greater Baltimore Committee, and Living Classrooms Foundation.

And don’t count out:

• Allegis, founded 27 years ago (as Aerotek) by Steve Bisciotti and James Davis, and now controlled by Davis, is a mammoth staffing company with more than $4 billion in revenues in 2005.
• Willard Hackerman, president and CEO of construction giant Whiting-Turner, may be 92 now, but he shows up at the office every day and still wields considerable influence in commerce, philanthropy, and politics.
• Mayo Shattuck, president and CEO of Constellation Energy, took his shareholders for a queasy ride after the market collapse in late 2008, but he’s stayed on the job because he’s making money again and even growing the $16 billion energy giant.

Green

Meet the eco-warriors who are fighting the good fight——and winning.

Malcolm Woolf
Anyone who doesn’t think finding sustainable ways to meet our society’s energy needs is the challenge of the 21st century hasn’t been paying attention. In Maryland, the man with the plan is Malcolm Woolf, head of the Maryland Energy Administration. He’s been instrumental in toughening up the state’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard, which requires reducing statewide energy consumption by 15 percent by the year 2015 and generating 20 percent of energy from renewable sources (including two percent from solar) by 2022. “He knows how and when to push and when to ‘play ball’ in crafting legislation,” praises Jim Pierobon, the communications director with the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

Michael D. Smith
Giving a Constellation Energy executive props for green power seems counterintuitive, to put it mildly. But who’s better poised to transform the energy industry than someone on the inside? Enter Michael D. Smith who, two years ago, became the chief sustainability officer for retail energy at Constellation NewEnergy, a subsidiary of the Fortune 500 company/utility that handles development and installation of sustainable product offerings, including its burgeoning solar business. If you want to go green, save money, or both in the future, chances are you’ll be buying what he’s selling.

William C. Baker
William C. Baker is the president of the 200,000-member-strong nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which boasts a $22 million annual operating budget, 160 full-time employees, and offices in three states plus D.C. Because of these resources, the CBF is a player on both the state and federal level. They deal with “the big picture,” acknowledges Jana Davis, associate director of The Chesapeake Bay Trust, which contributes funding to some of CBF’s programs. Baker is “organizing their priorities the right way, and he’s getting a lot of big wins for the bay,” she adds, citing CBF’s role in strengthening storm water runoff regulations and Maryland’s new environmental literacy high school graduation requirement.

Beth Strommen
As manager of the Baltimore City Office of Sustainability, Beth Strommen is the city’s green guru, heavily involved in drafting and editing many of our metro’s most important environmental and land use regulations, including the Forest Conservation Program, the Baltimore Bicycle Master Plan, and the Maritime Master Plan. Says Prescott Gaylord, the owner of Baltimore Green Construction, “Beth is highly effective and may be the most well-known face of green in the city.”

And don’t count out:

• David Borinsky, CEO of nonprofit One Green Home at A Time, oversees green rehabs in some of Baltimore’s most blighted neighborhoods.
• Thanks to president and CEO Chickie Grayson’s leadership, Enterprise Homes has already built 1,275 green, affordable homes in the area and is committed to creating or preserving 5,000 more by 2013.
• As chair of the House of Delegates’ Environmental Matters Committee, Del. Maggie McIntosh (D-Baltimore City), holds sway over a matrix of issues ranging from agriculture to motor vehicles.

Technology

These tech titans heard the 21st-century bell——and answered it.

Dave Troy
Even those not too involved in tech circles know about Bmore Fiber, last year’s initiative to bring Google’s ultra-high-speed broadband network to Baltimore. Troy was one of the leaders of the movement, not to mention he has 25 years of experience in technology and design. “Dave is hugely influential in the startup scene,” says programmer Mike Subelsky. “He is definitely the man for our times.”

Sid Meier
Sid Meier has been called “the godfather of computer gaming”—and rightfully so. He’s had 26 years of experience and has helped create the popular simulation game genre. As current director of creative development for Firaxis Games, Meier established Hunt Valley as the gaming capital of Maryland when he started in the early 1980s.

Heather Sarkissian
Heather Sarkissian is somewhat of a tech renaissance woman. She was the CEO of mp3car.com, a local company that builds sophisticated mobile computers for corporate and government clients. She helped found Betascape, which is the tech version of Artscape. She also heads BmoreSmart, a group of social entrepreneurs in Baltimore aiming to make the city a better place. “Heather really knows how to get things done,” says programmer Mike Subelsky.

Jay Steinmetz
Steinmetz is CEO of Barcoding, a company that sells and programs inventory-tracking systems and has been included on several of Inc. magazine’s coveted top business lists. As chair of the Maryland Technology Development Corporation, which provides funding for local programs, Steinmetz is also helping the next generation of techies.

And don’t count out:

• Mike Subelsky is cofounder of Ignite Baltimore and web startup OtherInbox.com.
• Brian Reynolds was mentored by Sid Meier, and is now chief designer at Zynga East (creator of the infamous Farmville).
• Jennifer Gunner, the interim executive director of the Greater Baltimore Tech Council, is known for bridging “old” and “new” tech circles.

Philanthropy

Where government and the corporate world fall short, these captains of charity fill the gap.

William J. McCarthy Jr.
There are foundations and charitable organizations with more money and equally worthy causes, but few are more visible to average Baltimoreans than Catholic Charities, headed by executive director McCarthy. With 2,000 employees and 15,000 volunteers, Maryland’s largest private provider of human services, with an annual budget of $127 million, answered more than 600,000 requests for food and emergency services last year and served 350,000 meals to the hungry, as well as operating 80 other programs.

Marc B. Terrill
Since 2003, Marc B. Terrill has been the face of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, a 90-year-old foundation whose charitable reach extends far beyond the Jewish community through partnered initiatives in the region with Catholic Charities of Baltimore, the Harry and Jeannette Weinberg Foundation, and other groups.
As president, Terrill, who is also on the Baltimore Community Foundation board, oversees 20 agencies that meet educational, religious, humanitarian, health, and social service needs locally, nationally, in Israel, and throughout the world. And The Associated has financial clout: It raised $31 million last year and has a $500 million trust. (Among other Jewish Federations across North America, Baltimore’s boasts the highest per-capita giving.)

Deborah Flateman
Deborah Flateman oversees 80 employees, two warehouses, and $32 million a year at the Maryland Food Bank, all resources that are focused on gathering food donations from manufacturers, growers, retailers, and individuals and getting it to the needy through 600 soup kitchens, shelters, and other providers in central Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Economic times have increased the need for food assistance by more than a third.

Donn Weinberg
With total assets of $2 billion, the Weinberg Foundation is one of the largest private charitable foundations in the United States, funding nonprofits that provide services to economically disadvantaged people, primarily in the U.S. and Israel. Under the chairmanship of former trial lawyer Donn Weinberg, the foundation’s roughly $100 million annual grantmaking goes to programs to help seniors, the disabled, education, children, and basic human needs and health. And he can sing and dance, too: As a hobby, Weinberg is a volunteer singer-entertainer at older-adult facilities in the Baltimore area and for nonprofit fundraisers.

And don’t count out:

• James Piper Bond is president of the $16 million-a-year, 300-employee Living Classrooms Foundation, which uses boats and the bay to educate inner-city youth, and also provides job training, neighborhood rehab, and management of once-failing charter schools.
• Tim Kelly is director of Fells Point’s Esperanza Center, funded by Catholic Charities of Baltimore, which provides legal and social services to the city’s growing Hispanic population.
• Terry M. Rubenstein is executive vice president of the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, a $100 million group of family funds that doles out roughly $5 million a year to cultural causes here and in Israel, as well as meeting middle-class needs with library and school computers, city parks improvements, and scholarships for families with average incomes.
• He didn’t want to be on this list because he’s fairly new at the job, but we can’t totally ignore Annie E. Casey Foundation president and CEO Patrick McCarthy, whose Baltimore-based foundation, with its roughly $2.6 billion in assets, gives away close to $150 million nationally every year.

Sports

It’s not just our favorite pastime (and obsession), it’s one of the driving forces of the local economy.

Steve Bisciotti
There’s really no disputing it anymore: Baltimore is a football town. Last year, Forbes magazine estimated the Ravens’ worth as $1.1 billion (as compared to the Orioles’ $376 million). And owner Bisciotti has a low-key, hands-off leadership style that appeals to the local fan base. Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles praises Bisciotti for “being smart enough to know what he doesn’t know.” Says WNST’s Nasty Nestor Aparicio: “The Ravens have become the most important binding element in our local society—across race, color, creed, gender, age. When they do well, the city feels good. That’s a lot of power.”

Ozzie Newsome
Ravens’ GM Newsome’s ability to “gauge talent” is unsurpassed, says Pressbox’s Stan “The Fan” Charles, but he also knows when to give up draft picks and pull the trigger on a great trade. “He’s the prime [force] in making the Ravens great,” says WNST’s Nasty Aparicio. And since much of the Ravens’ enormous value stems from its on-field success, it’s no surprise that Steve Bisciotti told The Baltimore Sun last year: “We want Oz to be here as long as Ozzie wants to be here.” Looks like the owner can evaluate talent almost as well as his GM.

Andy MacPhail/Buck Showalter
Both these men represent a sea change in the Orioles organization: President Andy MacPhail was the first person under Peter Angelos to be given some measure of control. “Though he’ll always answer to Peter, there’s no question that Andy has been given total leeway to do his job as he sees fit,” says WJZ sports director Mark Viviano. As for Showalter? “Buck brought credibility to the position that it hadn’t had in 10 years,” Viviano says. “And it was immediately reflected in how the players responded.”

Cal Ripken Jr.
From introducing baseball in China to building little league stadiums, Cal Ripken Jr. is using his power as an ex-Oriole for good. “One of the greatest reflections of Cal’s power is that the mere mention of his involvement in something uplifts its potential,” WJZ’s Marc Viviano says. “He’s one of those personalities you just trust and believe.”

And don’t count out:

• Linebacker Ray Lewis “ultimately has the most power to change our city over the next 20 years,” says WNST’s Aparicio, “with his brand, star, and transcendence.”
• Jay Davidson, the president of Baltimore Racing Development, leads the team that took the exciting gamble of bringing Grand Prix racing to Baltimore.
• Terrance Hasseltine, the director of the Maryland Office of Sports Marketing, was responsible for bringing the 2009 World Football Challenge to M&T Bank Stadium.
• The Sun’s Mike Preston is the most influential sports columnist in Baltimore. Many believe that Preston’s relentless criticism led to the firing of Ravens coach Brian Billick.

Health

If there is a single dominant field in the Greater Metropolitan area, it’s health care. These are the scions of the industry.

Robert Chrencik
Chrencik served as the financial officer at the University of Maryland Medical System for more than 20 years before being named UMMS president and CEO in 2008. He serves on the board of each of the 12 UMMS hospitals (which have 15,000 employees), and gets out of the office, too: He’s on the board of the Greater Baltimore Committee, The Center Club, and is a past president of the Maryland Chapter of the Health Care Financial Management Association.

Ronald R. Peterson
As president of The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System, Peterson oversees Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Howard County General Hospital, Suburban Hospital, and Sibley Memorial Hospital, as well as The Johns Hopkins Hospital. How big a job is that? Hopkins hospital, consistently ranked America’s best, includes more than 2,200 beds, employs 22,000 people, treats more than 800,000 patients from all over the world, and brings in $1.3 billion in revenue (plus the value of $161 million in uncompensated care).

Robert Murray
Every spring, hospital administrators, doctors, and insurance companies around the state wait with bated breath to hear what Murray will say. As executive director of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, Murray leads a process that determines how much health care providers can charge for services. The Commission’s decisions directly affect virtually every doctor and patient in the state, and, in a state where health care is the largest industry, that makes Murray our local equivalent of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke.

And don’t count out:

• As president and CEO of Sinai Hospital and, after the 1998 merger with Northwest Hospital, of Lifebridge Health, Warren Green has been a leader in the world of community hospitals for 19 years, providing a perspective to balance the big university institutions downtown.
• Chester “Chet” Burrell is president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the top medical insurer in the state. The company’s decisions—such as recent ones to include nurse practitioners in its network as primary care providers or to maintain child-only plans—have a huge impact.

Nightlife

Here are the forces behind everything that goes bump (and grind) in the night.

Heidi Klotzman
Klotzman owns special event firm HeidnSeek Entertainment, which specializes in event coordination, marketing, and runs an online entertainment guide with more than 30,000 subscribers. Beyond promoting parties at Red Maple and Milan, Klotzman advertises charity events and hosts networking functions. “She’s a promoter with a conscience,” says Sam Sessa, The Sun’s entertainment editor.

Cullen Stalin
Long before Baltimore’s nightlife scene was on the map, Cullen Stalin was drawing a crowd. He and Simon Phoenix are resident DJs of TaxLo, the city’s biggest dance party for nearly a decade (attracting such famous acts as M.I.A). Last year, he helped start “No Rule”—a hugely popular dance party at the Metro Gallery—that bridges the hipster and hip-hop scenes. Cullen has helped developed TaxLo into “one of the most powerful nightlife brands in the city,” says City Paper’s music editor Michael Byrne.

Bill Muehlhauser
As the owner of the Rams Head Group, Muehlhauser owns five spaces in Stevensville, Annapolis, and Baltimore—including Rams Head Live! and Pier Six. He was smart enough to partner with promoter Seth Hurwitz of I.M.P. to bring big-time national acts to Rams Head Live! (like the Beastie Boys and Smashing Pumpkins), and is currently working with David Cordish to plan a new live music venue in the Arundel Mills slots parlor.

And don’t count out:

• Casey Hard, beer manager at Max’s Taphouse, helps organize beer festivals and built the bar into what it is today.
• Marc McFaul is growing a little bar empire with two Ropewalk Taverns (in Federal Hill and Bel Air), The Stalking Horse, and McFaul’s.
• Frank Remesch, general manager of 1st Mariner Arena, has brought huge names to Baltimore, like Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z.

Dining

These restaurant royals are at the top of the Charm City food chain.

Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf
The formidable restaurant team—Foreman’s a restaurant visionary; Wolf’s a world-class chef—came to the forefront of the city’s dining scene in 1995 and haven’t stopped since. The business partners have since formed the Foreman Wolf group to oversee their four restaurants: Charleston, Cinghiale, Petite Louis, and Pazo (they also have two wine stores). It’s no surprise that this duo is planning another business venture this year. Their empire grows.

Eddie Dopkin
Dopkin is probably best known for transforming a stretch of W. Cold Spring Lane into a mini restaurant row with Miss Shirley’s Cafe, S’ghetti Eddie’s, and Roland Park Bagel Co. (He also owned Loco Hombre and Alonso’s until selling them about a year ago.) His Crazy Man Restaurant Group now has another Miss Shirley’s at the Inner Harbor, and Dopkin is grooming his son David in the business. Dopkin is also exploring locations for one, possibly two, Miss Shirley’s in the next year.

Vasilios Keramidas
Keramidas, who heads up Kali’s Restaurant Group, has carved out a dining stronghold in Fells Point. The elegant Kali’s Court started the buzz, followed by Mezze, Meli American Bistro, and Tapas Adela. Now, he and his partners—Karen Patten, Eric Losin, and Theodore Losin—are gutting and renovating the old Admiral’s Cup Cafe.

Qayum and Pat Karzai
The Karzais, along with son Helmand, didn’t stop with their success at The Helmand, Baltimore’s go-to place for delicious, authentic Afghan food. The couple added Tapas Teatro and b bistro to their restaurant roster and are planning to open a tapas place at the reinvigorated Senator Theatre. They’re also eyeing the long-shuttered and once esteemed Chesapeake Restaurant on North Charles Street as a location for a seafood venue.

Patrick Russell
When Russell opened Kooper¹s Tavern in Fells Point, naming it after his yellow Lab, he had no idea he was embarking on a mini restaurant conglomerate. Now, he and his wife, Katie, operate Sláinte Irish Pub and Restaurant, Woody¹s Rum Bar and Island Grill, and Kooper¹s Chowhound Burger Wagon. Patrick Russell has also joined forces with Bill Irvin, the restaurants¹ director of operations, to form the Fells Point Hospitality Management group. So far, they have acquired Celie¹s Waterfront Inn in Fells Point and plan to open a wine bar in Fells Point and another restaurant in Baltimore County in the future. They also brought in a top-notch chef, Bill Crouse, to deliver the best possible cuisine at the current restaurants.

And don’t count out:

• Although the Food Network has announced that this will be Ace of Cake’s final season, they’re already looking to develop new shows for Duff Goldman, who has brought national attention to our fair city.
• Spike Gjerde‘s three-year-old Woodberry Kitchen has raised the bar for everyone else in the field.
• The Vitales—Aldo and Regina and sons Sergio and Alessandro—exert their influence at Aldo’s Ristorante Italiano in Little Italy by entertaining local bigwigs and hosting political fundraisers. The younger Vitales plan to open an upscale pizzeria in Harbor East.

Society

Two couples rule the gala scene with their philanthropy——and their rolodexes.

Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown
The generous Browns could neatly fit into several of the power categories on this list, but they most conspicuously wield their power in the social arena. They were feted at galas at MICA and The Reginald F. Lewis Museum and have been coveted guests and honorees at nearly every big society event in town, including the Arthritis Foundation and the Living Classrooms Foundation.
“They’re the most influential African American couple in the state of Maryland,” says talk show host Anthony McCarthy. “Everyone is knocking on their door. White, black, and in between.”
And when the Browns chair a party—or, even more often, are honored guests at one—the A-list of Baltimore is at their beck and call.
“They go to the right parties, they chair the right galas, they show up at the right dinner parties,” says McCarthy.
“They are the quintessential power couple,” agrees Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr.
Says McCarthy: “Their legend continues to grow.”

Art and Pat Modell
The Modells are the 3 Rs: Rich, retired, and revered. In a relatively short period of time (by Baltimore standards at least), they have become significant patrons of both the arts and local charities.
“They have given so many wonderful philanthropic gifts to so many institutions around town,” says Sandy Richmond, the executive director of the newly renamed The Patricia and Arthur Modell Performing Arts Center at The Lyric. “There’s no way to say thanks.”
And when the Modells chair a party, “people show up,” says one high-ranking society observer.
“Art and Pat Modell do not take their commitments lightly,” says Lori D. Mulligan, director of development and marketing for Gilchrist Hospice Care. (The Modells recently chaired its
Holly Ball.) “Their name alone is associated with good judgment and impeccable taste.”

And don’t count out:

• Look out for David and Michel Modell. After chairing parties for Pam Shriver and MAP, the couple are clearly following in Art and Pat’s (gilded) footsteps.
• Rising stars Jennifer and George Reynolds recently chaired the Walters Gala and are big contributors to St. Joseph Medical Center. She’s also the next National Aquarium board chair. “They cut a wide swath among all sectors,” says one insider.
• Aris Melissaratos, the former DBED secretary (now at Hopkins), has become a serious player on the social scene, chairing galas for Cystic Fibrosis and the American Heart Association.

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The Power Vacuum

How Baltimore’s power has shifted—and why that may not be such a bad thing.

By Max Weiss

Once was, it was easy to identify the powerful people. They were the CEOs of local firms like Alex. Brown, the Maryland Jockey Club, and Mercantile Safe Deposit. They were the political apparatchiks of William Donald Schaefer and later, Kurt Schmoke. They were graduates of the big urban public schools—like City or Poly—or the big private ones, like Gilman, Boys’ Latin, and Calvert School.

But now, as more local headquarters are closing (or being bought out), and as the old guard is retiring (or dead), there’s a bit of confusion in this town.

Who’s running Baltimore?

John Willis, the former Secretary of State of Maryland under Parris Glendening, now the director of the government and public policy program at the University of Baltimore, puts it like this: “No one knows who to call anymore.”

The Irv Kovens of this world—he was famously the kingmaker behind Schaefer—are gone, as are likes of H. Furlong Baldwin (the former Mercantile chief), Joe DeFrancis (from the Maryland Jockey Club), and Buzzy Krongard (of Alex. Brown). And while H&S’s John Paterakis and Orioles owner/superlawyer Peter Angelos are still enormously powerful, they have become less hands-on with time.

“We’ve run out of the kind of people who used to sit on the board of the GBC [Greater Baltimore Committee],” says Aris Melissaratos, the former head of the Department of Business and Economic Development (DBED) and now an adviser to the president of Hopkins.

And while Larry Gibson, the political adviser who helped put Kurt Schmoke in office, still has some measure of power, he wasn’t able to mobilize the vote behind the candidate he most recently supported, Pat Jessamy. (She lost her city State’s Attorney seat to newcomer Gregg Bernstein, largely because voter turnout was historically low.)

“Large groups of people just aren’t being controlled like they used to,” says WEAA talk show host Anthony McCarthy, the former spokesperson for Mayor Sheila Dixon. “It used to be easier to turn out voters.”

And that’s at least partly because of the waning influence of The Baltimore Sun.

“The media market is fractured,” notes Willis. “Makes it that much more difficult to reach large numbers of people.”

Of course, there are people who have power—the mayor, the governor, the county executives—just by virtue of their postions. But elected power isn’t the same as personal power. And everyone agrees that the personal power in this town has become splintered. But here’s the rub: Most feel that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

“There’s been a generational shift,” says Del. Keiffer Mitchell Jr., who himself hails from a long-serving political family. “Power these days can be influenced by the number of friends you have on Facebook.”

Adds Kathy Sher, the deputy director for external affairs at the National Aquarium, “It feels like the thirtysomething and fortysomethings have as much cachet as the old guard. And that seems like a very healthy and positive dynamic.”

As for the notion that you had to have been born and raised in this town to rise to power? Not necessarily true, our observers say, but Baltimoreans are still wary of outsiders.

“You can’t just fly in and have a Tea Party member [as CEO] and expect it to work,” chuckles Willis. “There has to be a certain amount of awareness.”

“You have to get involved with your community,” adds Mitchell. He points to Atwood “Woody” Collins, the high-ranking M&T Bank exec, who has become a local leader. “He doesn’t drive around in a limo. He walks to M&T. People like that.”

Worshipping at the right churches is still a factor, as is knowing the right opinion makers, what Mitchell calls the “chattering class.” But Melissaratos points out that even those folks are less easy to identify. “Who’s calling the shots right now?” he muses.

All agree that the best part of this power shortage is that it gives an opportunity for new leadership to emerge in rising populations, like the Latino community, the green community, and both the new technology and health care sectors. And power is also materializing from increasingly diverse pockets (which is why we broke up our larger feature into categories).

“Now it seems like there are different segments of power and they’re all very unique,” says Kathy Sher. “And they reflect the business and social complexities that are going on in Baltimore.”

For now, we have shifted from what Willis calls an “elite” power structure to a “pluralistic” one. But he’s not sure it’s going to last.

“Politics abhors a vacuum,” he says. “The question is, who’s going to emerge?”

Anna Sowers knew something was wrong when her husband didn’t respond to news that she’d just spotted Scottie Pippen in a bar. She’d planned this all-girls weekend in Chicago for months. During a break between the spring and summer terms in Sowers’ graduate school schedule, the group—four Baltimore friends, all professionals in their 20s and 30s—would relax and enjoy each other’s company in the Windy City.

Sowers’ husband, Zach, had been on her mind all weekend: In 2005, on another trip to Chicago, he surprised her by proposing during a walk near Lake Michigan.

Now, almost two years to the day later, in Chicago again, Sowers was desperately trying to contact him. At a nightclub with her girlfriends, she had spotted Pippen, the former Chicago Bulls basketball star. Zach was a huge basketball fan. Anytime she went to D.C. to visit the Smithsonian, he would go with family to catch the Washington Wizards. Sowers dialed Zach’s cell phone several times and sent text messages that she’d seen Pippen, but he wasn’t replying.

“Scottie Pippen would be a big deal to him,” she says. “Zach always had his cell phone on, we both did. So it was strange he wasn’t replying. It was already 1 a.m. in Chicago, though, so I thought maybe he was in bed.”

Zach, she’d learn late the next day, was lying in the street in front of their rowhouse, his body wrenched between the curb and a parked car, less than 10 feet from the front door of their Patterson Park home. Her husband of eight months had been robbed, severely beaten, and left unconscious. He was eventually found and taken to Johns Hopkins Hospital as a John Doe.

Over the next 297 days, as Zach lay in a coma, and after he finally succumbed to his catastrophic injuries in March of 2008, Anna Sowers’ outrage at the violent attack and the criminal justice system would transform her from a young newlywed into a powerful victims’ rights advocate. She organized “Neighbors’ Night Out” campaigns to raise awareness around violence; she led rallies and made countless TV and radio appearances, questioning public officials over the plea deal given to her husband’s attackers; she wrote a scathing op-ed about Baltimore’s criminal justice system; and she drafted “Zach’s Law,” a package of legislative proposals aimed to correct the injustices that she found in the handling of her husband’s case.

“I never thought I’d be a quasi-public figure with a bullhorn at rallies, talking to the mayor or city council—that was never a part of me,” says Sowers, who, since the attack, has moved back to Frederick where she and Zach grew up as childhood friends. “As much as I hate the city, I love the city. It’s where Zach and I started our lives together. I want to make sure it never happens again to anybody else.”

In fact, immediately after completing her MBA at Johns Hopkins last year—soon after Zach’s death—she dramatically changed course and decided to pursue law school. She recently took the LSATs and went through the application process, intending to become a prosecutor to, as she puts it, “lock up bad guys.”

Sowers never anticipated that her heartfelt effort to create something positive out of her husband’s death would plant her in the middle of a racially charged debate over the causes and effects of violence in Baltimore City. She may not have changed anything yet, but Sowers’ tragic story and her activist campaign are likely to have a lasting impact on the city that she both loves and hates.

Kristie Callander, one of Anna Sowers’ pals on the Chicago trip, said that, though her girlfriends didn’t want to say it, they knew something was wrong the afternoon following their brush with Scottie Pippen.

“Anna kept trying to reach him,” Callander recalls. “Someone would say, ‘I’m sure he left his phone in the car’ or something like that to calm her down. It got worse as the day went on. He’s just not the type not to call.”

Meanwhile, Sowers’ brother, William Cheng, the last person to see Zach, went to their house. Nothing was amiss, except the alarm hadn’t been set the night before and their dog Mia, the pug they’d bought together five years earlier, really needed to go to the bathroom—the first clear sign her husband hadn’t made it home.

When Zach, a Johns Hopkins financial analyst and part-time D.J., didn’t show up to meet a friend for a concert that evening, worry turned to panic.

“We grabbed the last plane back to Baltimore,” Callander says.

Sowers watched her husband nearly die three times that night. “I wanted to know [if he would] come out of the coma,” she recalls. “Doctors would say it was one out of a thousand [but] we held out hope. We wanted to be optimistic. I knew it was likely going to be very sad.”

Anna Sowers began putting in long hours at the hospital, tracking Zach’s every surgery, medical procedure, and reaction, posting e-mail updates on a website (zachsowers.com) created by his college pal from Towson, Justin Bright. In the aftermath of her husband’s attack, the 27-year-old was quickly forced to deal with hospital administrators, insurance regulations, doctors, nurses, family and in-laws, credit card companies, banks, bills, and decisions about Zach’s will and estate.

“His mother was not handling it well, his father was in Ohio, and English is not my parents’ first language,” says Sowers, whose father and step-mother are Taiwanese immigrants. “I had to be the glue that held everything together.” Sowers’ mother died when she was young and she says Zach’s murder caused her to reflect on that tragedy too, which only compounded the pain.

Sowers, who grew up taking violin and piano lessons, describes herself as “a typical Asian-American overachiever” and still has trouble understanding how, if she has done everything right, her life was devastated by such violence and tragedy.

“I’m young, I have a half-dozen married friends,” she says. “I don’t know anyone who had lost anyone significant—not to murder. I can’t believe this happened to me.”

A few days after the attack, police obtained evidence from a surveillance video where Zach Sowers’ credit cards were used and arrested four teenagers, Trayvon Ramos, 16, Arthur Jeter, 17, Eric Price, 16, and Wilburt Martin, 18. Sowers began following the prosecution’s case very diligently.

“I could feel sorry for myself, ‘Oh, cry me a river, I lost my mom, now my husband, and I’m being screwed by Baltimore City justice,’ but what good would that have done?” she says. “I wanted to keep the focus on Zach and the issues.”

In the first two months after the attack, Sowers continued to be encouraged by her husband’s recovery. On the morning of July 3, 2007 she posted an e-mail on zachsowers.com: “The best thing that happened today was that Zach ‘localized’ for the doctors, meaning that when they stimulated (hurt) him, he brought his arms/hands up to where they were stimulating (hurting) him. This is a huge step neurologically!! Before, he would just move his arms inward a little to show that he felt pain but never touched where it was. So now he’s showing that his brain is thinking at the higher level. The nurses and doctors were very excited, as were we. I’m so excited as I’m typing this.”

Zach, however, never did wake from the coma. Around this time, Sowers began taking her first steps as a community organizer, putting together “Neighbors Night Out” with friends to raise awareness of the attack and funds for Zach’s medical bills. Some 30 bars in Patterson Park, Fells Point, Federal Hill, Canton, the Inner Harbor, and Locust Point donated a percentage of their sales, garnering $13,000.

Continuing her Hopkins MBA classes and channeling her anger into activism, she recognizes, helped stave off depression. “I didn’t want to become like a hermit and drown in sorrow,” she says.

Later, Sowers, then a Hopkins marketing project manager, spoke at a Take Back the Streets Rally organized by former city councilman and then-mayoral candidate Keiffer Mitchell, telling the crowd how crime touches everyone in Baltimore and stressing the need for awareness and holding public officials accountable.

The sympathetic young wife, delicately featured and attractive—almost fragile in physical appearance—may not have envisioned herself as “a quasi-public figure with a bullhorn at rallies,” but the former CNN intern proved confident in front of a microphone and camera. Fueled by anger, she was never intimidated about calling on top city and state elected leaders.

With the assistance of an acquaintance, Hopkins Medicine magazine editor Ramsey Flynn (a former editor at Baltimore magazine), Sowers continued to generate media attention for her husband’s case and her crusade against violence. Her initial objective was to ensure Zach’s attackers were charged as adults, and then to get to a jury that would listen to the evidence. She sought and received encouragement from Mitchell and other local leaders.

Marvin ‘Doc’ Cheatham, head of the Baltimore chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, met with her several times and proved an especially eager supporter. He accompanied her to the courthouse for Zach’s attackers’ hearings and later hosted Sowers, Flynn, and Examiner reporter Luke Broadwater on the NAACP Report cable show.

The tipping point in the story, both in terms of Sowers’ activism and media attention, came after Baltimore state’s attorney Patricia Jessamy’s office accepted pleas from the attackers in December 2007. With Zach still in a coma, Ramos plead guilty to first-degree attempted murder and robbery and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, though he would be eligible for parole in 20 years. His co-defendants, Price, Jeter, and Martin each received eight years in prison. For Sowers, justice was far from served.

Accepting a plea from Ramos after the other three had agreed to testify against him was a clear sign, Sowers felt, that the state’s attorney general’s office feared taking the case—any case—to a Baltimore jury. When prosecutors explained why they wanted to cut a plea deal with the attackers, Sowers says they explicitly described “the harsh realities of Baltimore City jurors,” i.e., that they tend to be lenient on African-American defendants.

Later, when an Abell Foundation study reported that city juries are overwhelmingly less likely than county juries to convict defendants on the most serious charges brought before them (see sidebar), Sowers responded with a strongly-worded op-ed in The Examiner that attacked Pat Jessamy for dismissing the report—which had been commissioned by her deputy prosecutors.

“It’s no secret that Baltimore City juries are notoriously biased against prosecutors and cops,” she wrote. “The notion is that the mostly black jury pool distrusts the mostly nonblack justice system, and freeing black defendants is their way of settling old scores. . . . Pat Jessamy’s rejection of the Abell Foundation’s report on the city’s jury problems exposes her self-defeating ‘leadership’ style in a way that should frighten every city taxpayer.”

While city leaders, elected officials, and law enforcement officials maintain that addressing issues of education, health care, and poverty are crucial to reducing the cycle of violence, Sowers, who says she supports measures aimed at preventing youth from turning to crime, has definitively chosen to focus her attention on legal and judicial issues.

She put together a series of legal proposals called “Zach’s Law.” The piece most directly tied to Zach’s case calls for murder charges when a victim has fallen into a persistent, vegetative state. University of Baltimore criminal and constitutional law professor Byron Warnken said a new law could make it possible to retry a defendant who had been offered a plea if the victim dies after the agreement has been reached.

Other sections of “Zach’s Law” seek to open juvenile records to law enforcement agencies across state lines and to keep juvenile records from being wiped clean after offenders’ 22nd birthday, as is current policy. Patrick Dooley, legislative aid to Delegate Peter Hammen, who has met with Sowers, said prior to the 2009 General Assembly that, while “Zach’s Law” has been discussed, “nothing like ink to paper has been done.”

The most controversial aspect of Sowers’ efforts has been challenging what she and others perceive as jury bias in the city.

Earlier this year, with Flynn’s encouragement, she sought to organize the “Black 25,” a group of black leaders in the city who would publicly denounce Baltimore’s “Stop Snitching” culture that, they believed, not only hindered investigations, but frightened juries. “Stop Snitching” has become a mantra in hip-hop songs, on T-shirts, and on an infamous underground DVD featuring Baltimore-born NBA star Carmelo Anthony. The idea is to discourage people from informing on or testifying against people committing crimes. Most urban activists decry the sentiment. But by bringing race into the equation, Sowers alienated many black community leaders who had been among her staunchest allies and demonstrated her inexperience as an activist.

Sowers and Flynn approached Baltimore NAACP leader Cheatham, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County Freeman Hrabowski, pastor Frank Reid III of the Bethel AME Church, Rep. Elijah Cummings, pastor Heber Brown III of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, and Marcus Dent, chapter commander of the Baltimore Guardian Angels. All soundly rejected the idea.

Pastor Brown, who is also second vice president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and founder of Young Clergy for Social Change, met with Sowers and Flynn to hear their proposal for the “Black 25” and said that while he believed Sowers and Flynn to be “pure in intent,” their idea struck him as naïve. “If all it took to abolish and do away with [the ‘Stop Snitching’ culture] was for 25 black leaders to make a pronouncement, that would have been done a long time ago,” he says. Brown says that, like many in the black community, he sees the crime issue from several perspectives: He lost a cousin to murder and has another family member incarcerated on drug charges.

Of the 282 Baltimore homicides in 2007, only a dozen of the victims were white, like Zach. Brown, while expressing deep sympathy for Sowers, says he finds it “remarkable” that after another 220-plus murders in 2008 “we are still talking about this one.” Few of the victims’ families, he says, have the resources that Sowers, with the aid of friends in Hopkins’s communications department, can match to keep their loved ones and their issue in the media spotlight.

Sowers agrees that she and Brown didn’t see “eye to eye.” “I’m not a social reformer,” she says. “I’m a victims’ rights activist. I’m about holding people who commit crimes accountable.” Although she admits to frustration, she also vows to push forward. “Sometimes, I think, why is this even my problem, I’m not a public official. I’m not the mayor. I have no idea what it takes to make a difference, to make the city safer,” she says. “The homicide rate might be lower, but I don’t feel safe, nor do my friends.”

At least for now, her outspoken and passionate activism in raising community-awareness remains Anna Sowers’ greatest memorial to her husband. “I can tell you that a few months after Anna’s husband was attacked, a lady carrying a purse in Canton and was attacked and mugged and we had 120 people at our next community relations meeting,” says Melissa Techentin, president of the Southeast Police Community Relations Council. “That’s because of her.”

Anna Sowers never actually took her husband’s last name. Her name is Anna Cheng. When the media began referring to her as “Anna Sowers” she realized it was better not to correct anyone—it would afford her more anonymity at work and in grad school, which it did.

Now, beyond deciding which law school to attend, she is trying to figure out the rest of her life. She remains friends with members of her tight-knit Patterson Park/Canton/Fells Point community, although those days are gone.

“This has been the longest and shortest year of my life—sometimes I forget that I turned 28 years old,” she says. “The shortest year because everyday was the same. I’d go to work and then the hospital. No difference between Monday and Thursday. Weekends, the same thing, except I didn’t go to work. All day long, I’d worry if Zach was okay, if he was going to survive until I got to the hospital. The longest year of my life because so much has happened. There was never time to digest it. I never felt the shock.”

Though she intends to become a prosecutor, Anna doesn’t think she can stomach violent crime cases, adding she can’t watch television programs like Law and Order or CSI without thinking of her husband. She imagines working in white-collar crime.

She remembers being fearful at first, taking Krav Maga self-defense classes, buying mace, and considering purchasing a gun (she never did). When Zach was still in a coma, she remembers seeing his stuff around the house, like his Towson ID card, and putting his laundry away and wondering if he’d ever wear those clothes again.

She got mad at herself for washing his pillow because it had smelled like him, and vowed not to wash any more of his clothes. They had talked about kids down the road, about moving west, to Chicago or San Francisco. She doesn’t believe, as some people have told her, “that everything happens for a reason.”

“Anybody who tells you that is happy,” she says. She hasn’t found God or forgiveness. “I will hate the people who did this all my life.”

But she does badly want something meaningful to come from her husband’s murder—a law that will provide a sense of justice in his name and, hopefully, prevent other families from experiencing such devastating pain. For herself, she says she found strength in recalling how the Sept. 11 families managed to handle their grief. And, in the cap of a Snapple bottle from a lunch shared with a friend four months after the attack on her husband, she found words to live by.

“There was a quote and it said, ‘If you are going through hell, keep on going,'” she recalls. “It’s from Winston Churchill. I didn’t get it. I was like, ‘Who wants to stay in hell?’ Then, I realized what it meant. If you keep going, eventually you’ll get out. I’m just not there yet.”

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City Juries vs. County Juries

Explaining the glaring differences in verdicts

Anna Sowers and other activists frequently cite a September 2008 study by the Baltimore-based Abell Foundation, which reported a major disparity in jury verdicts for defendants in Baltimore City versus those in three surrounding counties.

The most remarkable finding, based on 293 selected cases from July 1, 2005, to June 30, 2006, was that Baltimore City jurors convicted defendants on the most serious charges against them only 2 percent of the time. By comparison, Baltimore, Anne Arundel, and Howard County juries convicted defendants of the most serious charges in 63 percent of the cases brought to trial.

That dramatic finding was somewhat offset by the fact that City juries were more likely than county juries to convict defendants of lesser charges, 61 percent to 28 percent. But city juries’ hesitancy to convict defendants of the most serious charges got wide play in local print media and talk radio.
Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy questioned the study’s methodology, results, conclusions, and proposed remedies, which included the creation of regional jury pools.

“To bring people in from Howard, Baltimore, and Anne Arundel Counties does not promote the cause of equal justice, and, I believe, is unconstitutional,” said Jessamy. She says the central problem remains the issue of trust between city police and citizens.

University of Baltimore law professor Byron L. Warnken says the findings affirm what was learned more than a decade ago during the O. J. Simpson murder trial—predominantly black juries and predominantly white juries will look at the same evidence and reach different conclusions based on their personal experiences.

“My observation is that the more rural, white juries tend to trust police and prosecutors too much, and urban juries, not enough,” Warnken said.

Baltimore City Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a former defense attorney, acknowledged a troubling reality: “Defendants know they’ll get a better deal in Baltimore City than in the counties.”