Killings Put Spotlight on Sentencing

Figure in Probe Served Partial Terms in '91 Killings

Lawrence Banks cut a violent path through Maryland on Nov. 19, 1991, shooting an acquaintance in Pasadena after a night of drinking and then killing his own teenage son in Baltimore. According to a lawyer who prosecuted him, Banks was a "dangerous dude."

But less than a decade after he was found guilty of those murders, Banks was released from prison. Sentenced to 20 years in each killing, he was judged under state law to have completed both terms nine years, four months and 18 days after the second was imposed.

Banks emerged this week as a figure in the investigation of a double slaying at a rooming house in Laurel, drawing new attention to those earlier prosecutions, and to state laws that require "mandatory release" when inmates have served sometimes as little as half of their sentence.

"I think it's horrible, absolutely horrible," Oliver Smith Sr., a member of the board of directors of the Maryland Crime Victims' Resource Center said of the time Banks served. "Where is the justice in that?"

Lisa L. Brown, 22, who was fatally shot Tuesday along with her 9-month-old daughter, had obtained a court order to protect her from Banks -- her mother's boyfriend -- at the time of the murders. Brown alleged in court papers that Banks had argued with her violently. No charges have been filed in the slayings.

Banks was to be supervised by corrections officials for 10 years after his release from prison. He was arrested Wednesday after failing to report that he had changed his address as he is required to do under the terms of his release, authorities said.

In 1992, Banks was sentenced in Baltimore under a plea agreement calling for a 20-year term for the murder of his son, Lawrence Foster, 17, whom he had chased through a house, cornered in a kitchen and shot in the head. The teenager and his younger sister had accused their father of abusing them.

Sharon A.H. May, who prosecuted the case, said she "hated" the agreement but had little choice but to accept it. She said the girl would have been an important witness in establishing the motive -- retaliation for the abuse complaints -- but no one wanted to force her to testify against her father in the murder of her brother.

"The defense had to know we were reluctant to produce her," May said. "It was more important to get him behind bars and get some justice."

May said she believed that Anne Arundel County, where Banks killed Michael J. Chisholm in the presence of another man, had the stronger case. She was surprised, she said, when that case also ended in a term of 20 years, with the sentences to run concurrently. "I remember being extremely upset and disappointed because I thought Banks was such a dangerous guy," she said.

Frank R. Weathersbee, who was then and remains the state's attorney in Anne Arundel County, said yesterday that he could not recall the case; nor could Warren W. Davis III, who prosecuted it. Davis did not return a call seeking comment.

"That's unfortunate," Weathersbee said of Banks's release. "He should be in jail. . . . Obviously, if someone kills two people and you can prove it, then he ought to be in jail for the rest of his life."