Dundalk killer must be returned to Ohio, court rules

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Pending further appeals, a man found not criminally responsible in the stabbing death of his former Dundalk landlord will be heading not to a Maryland psychiatric facility but back to a prison in Ohio, where he is serving an 11-year sentence for assaulting a police officer in a recorded incident that went viral.

Maryland’s intermediate appellate court ruled Wednesday that the state is bound by the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (IAD), which calls for prisoners to be returned to the state where they are already serving a criminal sentence.

In its reported 3-0 decision, the Court of Special Appeals rejected Pablo Aleman’s argument that he falls within the interstate compact’s exception for mentally ill prisoners and should be sent for treatment at a Maryland hospital rather than returned to the Ohio prison.

The appellate court held the exception applies to defendants suffering a current mental illness, not to those – like Aleman – who were found to have been mentally ill at the time of their crime.

“Understandably, Mr. Aleman would prefer to be evaluated and, if necessary, treated for any mental disorders in Maryland rather than be incarcerated in Ohio,” Judge Steven B. Gould wrote for the appellate court.

But Ohio did not surrender its jurisdiction over Aleman when it returned him to Maryland for the limited purpose of resolving his murder charge for the slaying of Victor Serrano, Gould added.

Maryland’s hunt for Aleman ended two weeks after the March 17, 2016, killing when they discovered him in an Ohio hospital.

He had been shot on a highway by a suburban Cincinnati police officer whom he had threatened with a knife while screaming, “Kill me, kill me.” The encounter, captured on Officer Josh Hilling’s body camera, can be seen on the YouTube website.

Aleman pleaded guilty in Ohio to felonious assault and was sentenced. He was subsequently transferred under the IAD to Maryland, where he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder but claimed he was not criminally responsible due to mental illness.

A Baltimore County Circuit Court jury agreed last year and a judge initially ordered him committed to the state Department of Health. But local officials, citing the IAD, held him in a detention center and prepared to return him to Ohio.

Aleman filed a petition seeking enforcement of the order that he be committed to the department. But a judge rejected Aleman’s motion, saying the commitment order was trumped by the interstate compact.

The judge’s order of return has been stayed pending resolution of Aleman’s appeals.

Aleman is being represented by the Maryland public defender’s office.

Brian Saccenti, who heads the office’s appellate division, did not return a telephone message Friday seeking comment on Aleman’s case and any plans to seek review by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Friday that it was “pleased that the Court of Special Appeals agreed with us that, now that the Maryland charging document against Mr. Aleman is resolved, Maryland can honor its obligation to return him to Ohio.”

In upholding Aleman’s ordered return, the Court of Special Appeals said the IAD supersedes Section 3-112 of the Maryland Criminal Procedure Article, which provides for the commitment of people found not criminally responsible.

“Accordingly, before Mr. Aleman’s transfer to Maryland, Ohio had full and exclusive custody of, and jurisdiction over, Mr. Aleman, meaning that the entire bundle of custodial rights and obligations over Mr. Aleman rested with Ohio,” Gould wrote.

“When Maryland received Mr. Aleman under the IAD, it acquired just a single strand from that bundle, namely, the right to prosecute Mr. Aleman for the charges underpinning the detainer,” Gould added. “Once Maryland exercised its lone custodial right over Mr. Aleman, it had none left. In that sense, for any purpose other than Maryland’s prosecution of Mr. Aleman, it was as if Mr. Aleman had never left Ohio.”

Gould was joined in the opinion by Chief Judge Matthew J. Fader and Glenn T. Harrell Jr., a retired jurist sitting by special assignment.

The Court of Special Appeals rendered its decision in Pablo Javier Aleman v. State of Maryland, Nos. 823 and 2021, September Term 2018.