Md. inmate gets life for killing guard

A judge sentenced a state prison inmate Monday to life without parole for murdering a correctional officer while escaping from a hospital two years ago.

Brandon T. Morris, 22, of Baltimore, was convicted this month of murder for killing prison guard Jeffery A. Wroten, 44, at Washington County Hospital in Hagerstown. After shooting Wroten in the head with the guard's own gun as he pleaded for his life early on Jan. 26, 2006, Morris briefly took a hospital visitor hostage and then carjacked a taxi.

Morris forced the cabbie at gunpoint to drive him to nearby Pennsylvania, where the driver deliberately crashed into a concrete barrier. Morris fled back into Maryland, where he was captured in an industrial park.

He had been taken to the hospital from nearby Roxbury Correctional Institution for removal of a sewing needle that he had jabbed so deeply into his abdomen that it pierced his liver.

Prosecutors pushed for the death penalty, but the judge rejected the request. Washington County State's Attorney Charles Strong said he has a continuing concern about the safety of correctional officers guarding Morris because "he has shown he is violent."

Judge Joseph P. Manck said factors including Morris' emotional immaturity and his history of "staggering" childhood abuse outweighed the state's arguments for execution, but he told Morris: "You are an evil man."

Morris also was sentenced to 301 years for his conviction on other charges.

"I think it was the appropriate outcome, given the evidence," defense attorney Arcangelo Tuminelli said.

Wroten's ex-wife Tracey, with whom he had four daughters ages 7 to 13, told reporters afterward that she was "disappointed and probably a little angry" that Manck hadn't sentenced Morris to death.

"There is nothing I could say that would express the anger I have toward him. I have no mercy for him," Tracey Wroten said.