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HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - Washington County prosecutors won access Monday to the hospital records of a state prison inmate accused of murdering the correctional officer who was guarding his Hagerstown hospital room.
Assistant State's Attorney Eric A. Reed said the confidential records could shed light on Brandon T. Morris' state of mind, planning and motive for allegedly shooting Jeffery A. Wroten with the officer's own gun Jan. 26 at Washington County Hospital, where the inmate had been admitted for a self-inflicted injury.
Morris' public defenders argued the state was fishing for evidence. ''They're looking for something and they don't know what's there,'' Assistant Public Defender Eric A. Reed told Circuit Judge Frederick C. Wright.
Wright granted the state's request for the hospital records and for Morris' Division of Correction case file - except for his mental health records. The judge also refused to grant access to Morris' Department of Juvenile Services files and public-school school records, ruling that prosecutors hadn't shown that the potential value of those documents to the state's case outweighed Morris' privacy rights.
Deputy State's Attorney Joseph Michael had argued in part that the juvenile and school records would help the state prepare its arguments for sentencing, including the possibility of the death sentence, if Morris, 20, is convicted.
''You've got the cart before the horse,'' Wright said, interrupting Michael. ''You've got the death penalty before conviction.''
State's Attorney Charles P. Strong Jr. filed notice in March that prosecutors will seek the death penalty if Morris is convicted. At the time of the shooting, Morris was an inmate and Wroten an officer at the Roxbury Correctional Institution near Hagerstown. Morris was serving an eight-year sentence for assault, robbery and handgun convictions in Baltimore.
The inmate, now being held at Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, also known as Supermax, in Baltimore, faces 36 counts, including premeditated first-degree murder, kidnapping, assault and weapons violations.
Court documents state that after shooting Wroten, 44, of Martinsburg, W.Va., in the face as he pleaded for his life, Morris tried to steal a visitor's car keys and then forced the woman to accompany him to a hospital entrance, where he forced the cabbie to drive him on a chase into nearby Pennsylvania, where the cab crashed into a concrete barrier.
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