Clemency: Gov. Ehrlich frees a man who spent 36 years behind bars
for his role in a fatal robbery.
By Julie Bykowicz
Sun Staff
December 1, 2004
Walter Arvinger awoke at 7:30 yesterday morning in an attic bedroom of
his brother's large, Victorian house in Ashburton. He kept his day
simple, doing ordinary tasks such as helping his brother fix pipes
under a bathroom sink, playing with the family's dog, Pookie, and
running errands around town.
The day before, he had awakened in a two-man prison cell in Cumberland,
much as he had every morning for the past 36 years while serving a life
sentence for murder.
But Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. granted him and six others clemency the
day after Thanksgiving, and now, wearing a broad smile that he said
even prison couldn't take away, Arvinger compared his release to a new
birth. "I'm taking things real slow," he said. "I'm starting all over."
At age 55, he will spend the next few weeks adjusting to a world vastly
different than it was when he was jailed at the age of 19.
His infant son is now about to become a grandfather. His own
grandmother is 105; his mother, 78. Even the tough West Baltimore
housing project where the Arvingers used to live has been leveled.
Where the George B. Murphy Homes used to stand are now middle-income
townhouses.
Robbery, fatal beating
Arvinger was sentenced to life for his role in a 1968
robbery-turned-fatal beating in Baltimore.
Five young men were present the night James Richard Brown was killed,
but even prosecutors acknowledged that Arvinger never held the murder
weapon, a baseball bat. The man who did was released from prison in the
1990s.
About 18 months ago, Arvinger penned a letter to University of Maryland
law professor Michael Millemann asking for help.
Millemann took the case and, with the help of 30 law students, set out
to free the man they came to believe was innocent of murder.
Monday afternoon, the law professor drove to Western Correctional
Institution to pick up Arvinger and take him home.
"This is what makes practicing law worthwhile," Millemann said of the
experience.
Welcome celebration
Festive Mylar balloons and dozens of elated relatives welcomed
Arvinger when he walked through the door of his brother's home Monday
night. He greeted each of them with a big hug and a big smile and by
saying, "I'm back. Yes, I'm back."
He escorted his grandmother down the staircase. "You're walking with me
today," he told her. "You're walking with your big grandson."
Helen Wilson, who stands 4-feet-9, peered up and realized this was
Walter. "You're home to stay, I hope?" He nodded, and she said, "Oh,
thank God. Thank God."
Ella Ball, the mother of Walter Arvinger's only son, embraced him in a
bear hug. She said she hadn't seen him since Tyrone Arvinger, their
36-year-old son, was 7 or 8.
As a boy, Tyrone would look up information about his father, and the
two have kept in touch through letters and phone calls. Now, Ball said,
she hopes her son can build a relationship with his father.
"I'm happy for them," said Ball, 52, "because they can get together and
talk. They've lost a lot of years."
Only the governor has the power to free a person sentenced to life,
either by approving a parole commission's recommendation for release or
by shortening the sentence to a fixed term.
From 1995 until Ehrlich's inauguration, parole commission
recommendations to the governor's office went unread. The former
governor, Parris N. Glendening, announced shortly after taking office a
policy of "life means life," saying he'd release only lifers who were
near death - a stance praised by victims' rights advocates.
By contrast, Glendening's predecessor, William Donald Schaefer,
approved the parole of 40 lifers and shortened the life sentences of
numerous other prisoners, including those of eight women he believed to
be suffering from battered spouse syndrome.
Ehrlich revived the governor's power to release prisoners serving life
sentences, a move that Millemann said took "political courage and
political integrity."
The governor's legal office reviews about 20 clemency requests each
month and has considered the cases of eight lifers.
"Governor Ehrlich has a principle that each criminal case should be
judged on its merit," Ehrlich's chief legal counsel, Jervis S. Finney,
said yesterday. "He's acting on a Maryland constitutional principle of
law as well as a personal principle of morality."
Ehrlich's first commutation of a life sentence came last fall, for
convicted murderer Karen Lynn Fried. Her prison term was shortened to
45 years, and she is scheduled for a parole hearing next month.
On Friday, Ehrlich commuted Arvinger's sentence to 45 years and the
sentence of Mary Washington Brown to 60 years.
She must successfully complete a year of work release before she can be
paroled, the governor said.
Brown was 15 years old in 1974 when she fatally stabbed an elderly
woman during a botched robbery at Baltimore's old Greyhound bus station.
The victim, Charlotte Ida Lessem, 68, of Fayetteville, N.C., was on her
way to a bridge tournament in Bermuda when Brown and another girl tried
to steal her purse.
Parole commissioners said they're glad their recommendations on lifers
are again being taken seriously.
"It makes us feel like our opinion counts," said David Blumberg,
chairman of the parole commission.
Grateful for review
Arvinger's older brother, Stephen Arvinger, said he was
grateful for the governor's policy of reviewing each parole request on
its own merits.
"Even if he had turned us down, at least he gave it some
consideration," he said.
Walter Arvinger had never been in trouble before the arrest and
flourished in prison, obtaining a general equivalency degree and
becoming a welding instructor.
Now, he said, he just wants to spend time with his family and enjoy his
five grandchildren.
