Slaying Suspect's Words Now Part of Trial

Nearly five years after Leeander J. Blake allegedly admitted involvement in a brutal slaying in the historic district of Annapolis, a federal prosecutor urged jurors to use Blake's own words to hold him accountable as his trial began at U.S. District Court in Baltimore.

That Blake's statements to police will be heard by the jury marks a reversal of legal fortunes. A state effort to prosecute the widely publicized case was abandoned after courts ruled that Blake was improperly interrogated and that his statements were inadmissible in state court.

Yesterday, in federal court, Assistant U.S. Attorney John F. Purcell Jr. told jurors that Blake admitted in October 2002 that he was present when Straughan Lee Griffin, a businessman and sailing enthusiast, was carjacked, shot and killed. Purcell said Blake, while attempting to minimize his involvement by naming an associate as the gunman, admitted selecting Griffin as the target.

On Sept. 19, 2002, Griffin, 51, was unloading his vehicle when two men approached and shot him in the head. The assailants fled in Griffin's Jeep Cherokee, driving over his body and crushing him.

The associate, Terrence Tolbert, was convicted in Circuit Court and sentenced to life in prison.

Blake's attorney, Kenneth Ravenell, urged the jury to consider the circumstances under which Blake's statements were taken, essentially arguing some of the same points that had made the statements inadmissible in state court.

According to court documents, after his arrest, Blake was taken to police headquarters, where he told the lead detective, William Johns, that he would not speak without a lawyer present. Before a lawyer arrived, Johns returned to Blake's holding cell and presented him with a statement of the charges against him.

The papers said Blake faced the death penalty, court documents show, although he was too young for capital punishment to be considered. As Blake held the papers, an officer made a remark that eventually undid the state prosecution's case.

"I bet you want to talk now, huh?" Officer Curtis Reese said. Blake soon asked to speak with detectives.

Yesterday, Ravenell described his client, then 17, as a "scared kid." He suggested that the comment by Reese, and perhaps the error in the charging document, were part of a ploy to coerce Blake into talking.

"You, the jury, decide whether you rely on that statement and what weight you give it, if any," he said.

When that statement was ruled inadmissible in state court, Anne Arundel prosecutors appealed and lost. They were forced, under a law that has since been changed, to drop the charges. Federal prosecutors then filed carjacking and other charges against Blake.