Judge criticizes Crisfield PD, Team Powell’s handling of evidence

As reported in last Wednesday’s Crisfield County Times, Dan Powell’s office and the Crisfield Police department were recently chastized by Judge Daniel Long, who was fed up with the repeated failure of information to be provided to the defense.

One of the easiest ways for a prosecutor to lose a case is to not turn discovery material over to the defense, yet it appears that Dan Powell’s office is on the verge of losing the case of Mark Laquan Smith, who along with “Bill” Ward was charged with pointing a handgun at six juveniles.

Dan Powell’s assistant, Kendra Hayward, was given until this Wednesday to turn all of the information over to the defense.

The irony is that this is a case where the Crisfield Police Chief criticized Dan Powell for dropping all of the charged against co-defendant Bill Ward, that even allowed him to be on the street in the first place.

Amazingly, when Mark Laquan Smith’s case came up for a hearing, none of the officers that Judge Long wanted to question showed up, including “investigator Stan Harmon”, which raises another question — if Stan Harmon was dismissed as a police officer around the time this blog reported his DUI conviction, then how was he an “investigator” on a case that occurred in January 2012, when he was supposedly no longer a police officer in Crisfield?

It’s no secret that Harmon still has a take home car, still dresses in CPD outfits, but doesn’t have a badge or a gun.  But should he really be the investigator on any case after being stripped of his police powers?