La Plata, MD – Every now and then a case comes before a judge in Charles County Circuit Court in La Plata much different from the drug or burglary charges or domestic violence and child abuse cases often shuffling in and out of the courtroom.
Such is the story of Charles Edret Ford, whose murder conviction occurred so long ago most records from his case were destroyed during the long years he was incarcerated for killing a man he still maintains 62 years later he did not murder.
Charles County Circuit Court Judge Helen I. Harrington listened to arguments Friday, Oct. 17 in the case of Ford, convicted of First-Degree Murder in Charles County in 1952 and sentenced to life in prison.
Ford, 81, will find out Dec. 2 if improprieties during his mid-20th century conviction will be enough to allow a new trial when he returns to Charles County Circuit Court.
Defense attorney William Renahan, who is representing Ford pro-bono, aided by Mary Pizzo from the Maryland State Office of the Public Defender, filed a Supplemental Petition for Post-Conviction Relief June 7, 2012 and was before Harrington presenting arguments Friday morning.
Renahan said the state had not responded to the petition.
“I was under the impression we had responded,” said Charles County Assistant State’s Attorney Constance B. Kopelman.
Renahan called Ford to the witness stand and asked him if he would tell the court what happened in 1952.
“I was convicted of First-Degree Murder here in La Plata,” Ford said.
“Did you commit that crime?” Renahan asked.
“No,” the defendant responded.
He testified that he, his girlfriend and his brother, who was on furlough from the Air Force, were at a dance his girlfriend’s mother was having and not anywhere near where the murder took place. “I was at her mother’s dance every Friday and Saturday night,” Ford explained.
“You weren’t there where the murder happened,” Renahan asked.
“No sir,” Ford said. “I wouldn’t have been there.”
He said police “questioned us. Next thing I knew, they done took me to the jailhouse,” Ford said.
Ford testified that both he and his girlfriend were coerced into making a confession to the murder of Vincent Lewis, who had killed Ford’s brother.
“Later on, they called me up to make a statement and this state police officer hit me in the face with his night stick,” Ford said.
He testified that an all-white jury, including “one woman who knew me, but they didn’t kick her off the jury,” convicted him when the two witnesses who testified for the state offered contrary statements. One testified he was wearing a light coat and dark pants and the other that he wore a dark coat and light pants.
Ford maintained he was “poorly represented.”
“Did your lawyer advise you that you could file for a reconsideration of your case?”
“No,” Ford said.
“Did he ask you for a three-judge panel to review your case?” Renahan asked.
“No,” was the reply.
The assistant state’s attorney, during cross-examination, wanted to know if Ford had asked his lawyer to file an appeal on his behalf at the time of his conviction.
“I didn’t know I could apply,” he answered.
Ford told Kopelman that one of the witnesses who testified against him was the brother of the murdered man.
“The person who they said I murdered had murdered my brother in cold blood,” Ford said. “I told my attorney I never shot nobody in my life.”
Renahan asked for motions to proceed, “unless,” he said, “you ask for the state to give us their notes.”
“I don’t think we have any notes,” Harrington pointed out. “The law firm that represented him destroyed the records. Ironically, they had them up until about five years ago.”
The case was intriguing, she admitted, because “he is alive and all of the witnesses and people involved are most likely dead.”
Pizzo called Ford’s request an “undercase,” an older case prosecuted during a time when racial bias may have resulted in the defendant not getting a fair trial, coupled with the fact that proper instructions regarding an appeal and review of his case were not offered and were part of Maryland law at that time.
“Here we’re a little befuddled because we don’t have a transcript,” Pizzo stated. “It’s remarkable given the amount of time in which they tried the case—he was convicted in less than six weeks—the two witnesses had contradictory testimony regarding what they saw; it is astounding to me.”
Kopelman said that to reopen such an old case “when the only evidence are the statements of this witness, it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no evidence that could have been helpful on this case. These things did not happen.”
“Your honor, please allow me to educate this ‘child,’ ” Renahan said of the much younger prosecutor. “During the 1950s in Nanjemoy there were two Catholic churches within eleven miles of each other. Why? One was for the blacks and one was for the whites. Charles County was deeply segregated during this period. Where they put the glass portico out here at the back entrance of the courthouse is where they used to hang people. Here is a man who was convicted by an all-white jury during a time of extreme prejudice on the statements of two witnesses whose testimony contradicted each other.”
Harrington said she would rule on whether the case could be reopened Dec. 2.
When asked why Ford was asking for a new trial after 62 years, Renahan stated, “He has cancer. He doesn’t want to die in prison.”
Contact Joseph Norris at joe.norris@thebaynet.com