Indict Dixon or clear her
The Baltimore Examiner Newspaper
2008-06-19

BALTIMORE – Anybody surprised by the raid on Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon’s home Tuesday — including her honor herself — must have been in a bubble the past two years. Since at least November 2005, when the state subpoenaed Comcast for records related to Union Technologies, anybody paying attention knew Dixon must cough it up or be searched and seized at some point.

With two Dixon associates already pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate, State Prosecutor Robert Rohrbaugh owed it to Dixon and the public to drop the other shoe quickly or declare she was not a target. Tuesday, he dropped the other shoe.

Now he owes it to the people as well as the former City Council president and currently encumbered mayor to indict her and secure her testimony against others or cut her loose. Do not let us all drag on forever in limbo.

As the chief state investigator of public corruption, Rohrbaugh sought charges in seven of 84 cases last year. Those are grinding through the criminal justice mill.

Public corruption is among the most difficult of crimes to investigate, prosecute and convict. The criminals are powerful, well-connected and have great lawyers.

Plus, no matter how slimy they are, they have a host of supporters, unindicted co-conspirators and uninformed members of the general public backing them.

Another downside of public corruption probes is they distract and disrupt leaders and routine government operations. That is a small price to pay for keeping those who govern us honest, but it is a price prosecutors must keep at a minimum.

That is especially true for beleaguered Baltimore. It is a city in crisis. Even Dixon’s most fervent critics grudgingly concede she is a forceful, dynamic leader who by just about every measure is moving the city forward.

Supporters who claim the cloud around her tenure as council president merits no scrutiny demean themselves. If any raise the cry of racism and sexism over this investigation, they undermine the centuries-old ongoing struggle against those evils. And given the multitude of examples — remember Spiro T. Agnew, Marvin Mandel, Parris Glendening, Nathan A. Chapman Jr. and Tommy Bromwell, to name a few — a stronger case could be made for prejudice against old white guys.

We owe support and thanks to Rohrbaugh and the determined, courageous prosecutors who throughout our nation’s history have taken on the most powerful, elusive criminals.

What they owe us and the defendants is speedy justice.