Strange

Maryland Jail Officials Release Man Just Convicted of Attempted Murder

by PEP | July 4, 2008 at 03:29 am

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We've all heard of the slips of paper given in school to go to the principal's office or to detention--but slips of paper to route prisoners to jail? Seems like that could be an open invitation to some fiddling around--and sure enough, one convict is now on the lam.

State corrections officers mistakenly released a North Baltimore man from jail a day after he was convicted of attempted murder - an error officials say highlights the perils of a decades-old system in which prisoner release and detention instructions are delivered in handwritten notes.

A city jury convicted Calvin Boswell, 23, of several charges April 21 but found him not guilty of others. He was returned to the Baltimore City Detention Center, where he was supposed to remain until sentencing June 23. Officials didn't realize until then that he had been released in April.

According to court and law enforcement sources, the paper release order on file with the city-run court doesn't match the one on file with the state-run detention center. It's unclear when or why the document - which resembles a receipt - was altered, or by whom. It went through various hands between the court and the jail, but the result was that Boswell was released the day after his conviction.