CRIME

Man accused of killing Wicomico sheriff’s deputy was set free 2 years ago by Baltimore authorities after armed robbery

By Alex Mann
Baltimore Sun • Jun 14, 2022 at 8:33 pm

Austin Jacob Allen Davidson, the man accused of shooting and killing a Wicomico County sheriff’s deputy on Sunday, was set free by Baltimore authorities two years ago after pleading guilty to an armed robbery he committed as a teenager. ... The details of his release have become a flashpoint for politicians and law enforcement officials in the wake of the deputy’s death, with Gov. Larry Hogan and the Wicomico County sheriff criticizing the freeing of Davidson.

The office of Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Marilyn Mosby, a Democrat, issued a statement Tuesday seeking to deflect blame for Davidson’s release. ... “In this case, the prosecutor secured a conviction and made a sentence recommendation of jail time,” said spokeswoman Zy Richardson. “The court imposed a sentence of probation before judgment.”

However, that’s not exactly true. ... While a brief prison sentence was recommended, a city prosecutor said in court that Davidson should be sentenced to time served and given probation, which also would have set him free. ... His public defenders had worked out a deal with city prosecutors, according to their statements in court. If Davidson could get into a juvenile placement program and succeed, prosecutors would agree to a sentence of “probation before judgment.” If he completed probation, such a sentence would result in his guilty plea being vacated and allow him to have a clean record.

But no such program had an opening due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had struck earlier that year. Under the agreement, if a juvenile program was not available, Davidson would be sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but 18 months suspended. ... In court, however, the prosecutor agreed Davidson should be sentenced to no more than the time he had served in pretrial detention, which had been a year. The prosecutor didn’t assent to probation before judgment because of the serious nature of the charge.

{snip}