March 28, 2024
Annapolis, US 47 F

Wes Adams: I am Wes Adams, State’s Attorney (Guest Column)

Wes Adams
Wes Adams, Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney

My name is Wes Adams, I am a seasoned, innovative, and highly respected prosecutor and 4 years ago I was elected to bring about a fundamental change to the State’s Attorney’s office – an office that I hope you will never need.  Prior to my election, the office was failing the citizens of Anne Arundel County because it was not aggressively prosecuting criminal cases.  Routinely, prosecutors, who had not thoroughly investigated cases, pled cases down to their easiest counts to secure a “conviction” rather than justice and passively asked a judge for “some jail time” rather than advocate for a sentence that would protect our communities.  I know – I saw it and I heard it first hand when I became your State’s Attorney.

On my first day in office, I fired my primary opponent, among others, who were part of the administration that allowed this office to fail our citizens.  Instead, I introduced a philosophy focused on three things – building the strongest cases possible to secure the proper convictions and the fairest sentences, providing the avenues for rehabilitating offenders, so that we could address the root causes of criminal behavior and attempt to solve them, and building a strong education and prevention program in our community so that we can keep people away from the criminal justice system in the first place!

In order to establish this office as a leader in crime fighting, I re-organized personnel, improved the training, hired stronger, trial-hardened prosecutors, involved my office earlier in criminal investigations so that we could build better cases with our police, enlisted a demonstrative evidence specialist to help present these cases to trial, wooed one of the foremost gang experts in the country to join my team and established an intelligence driven prosecution model in order to combat gangs and drug trafficking organizations in our county.

Before the end of my first quarter in office, we had convicted the Craigslist killer, who my opponent was prepared to offer an easy plea agreement, and sent him to jail for the rest of his life.  By the end of October we had concluded the first locally run wire-tap investigation by this office, leading to the largest heroin seizure in County history.  And by the end of my first year, we had successfully, investigated, prosecuted and convicted the man accused of shooting one of our County police officers. But we did not stop there.

My administrations’ focus on developing trial ready prosecutors has led to a decrease in easy plea bargains.  Among homicide and domestic violence cases we have increased the number of trials, decreased the number of cases plea bargained down from the top count, and substantially increased both the number of people held accountable with jail and the length of their sentences.  Finally, my Narcotics unit has lead the charge against the drug dealers securing convictions in over 85% of their cases, and earning the strongest sentences they can – including six, 12-25 year sentences in the first half of 2018 alone.

In addition to fighting crime, I have been a leader in both this County and State in the battle against the opioid epidemic.  I became the first prosecutor in the United States to partner with police, firefighters and county mental health agencies in our Safe Stations program – which to date has helped over 700 people suffering from addiction.  I have appeared at nearly every middle, high and even some elementary schools teaching students about the dangers of drug addiction, cyber safety, and bullying.

As a result of these efforts and the hard work of our police officers and other law enforcement agencies, Anne Arundel County has seen a decrease in crime. By the end of my second year, major violent crimes had decreased by nearly 7%, and in Annapolis, the first quarter of 2018 was the lowest crime rate in over a decade!

I am honored to have the support and endorsement of Governor Larry Hogan.  I am also honored to have the endorsement of our Anne Arundel County Fraternal Order of Police, as well as our Maryland State Firefighters.  Our Police and Firefighters are my office’s closest partners. They have worked with both me and my opponent. You trust them with your safety and they trust me to build strong criminal cases.

We have come so far as your State’s Attorney Office – building better cases, earning stronger convictions and keeping our families safe – Why would we ever go backwards?

I am Wes Adams. I live in Severna Park with my wife, children and in-laws.  It has been my honor to protect you for these past four years and I look forward to continuing to serve you as your State’s Attorney for the next four years.

–Wes Adams

Note: Wes Adams is a candidate for State’s Attorney in Anne Arundel County. We encourage all readers to learn all they can about the candidates that will appear on the ballot. Here is a link to Adams’ website.

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