Criminal Justice: McChan's Luck

There he was in the Maryland penitentiary serving 40 years for assault, his tenth sentence in 18 years. For Convict George McChan, 34, it seemed like the end of the line. Suddenly, all the legal breaks went McChan's way. Out went his indictment, because Maryland's top court voided a requirement that grand jurors—including the grand jurors that indicted him—affirm belief in God. The same fate has befallen several hundred other indictments; in many cases the result has been a new indictment and a retrial. But a retrial of McChan was out, because the Supreme Court's new confession rules barred the key evidence against him. To be sure, McChan was also accused of leading a prison riot last July. But a Baltimore jury acquitted him last month, forcing frustrated Judge Joseph L. Carter, as he put it, to "foist a professional holdup man on the public."

Last week, five days after McChan's release, Judge Carter's stock as a prophet went up while McChan's legal luck began to run out. Two gunmen held up a Baltimore bar, shot a barmaid twice and killed the manager as he knelt in front of his safe from which he had just handed over the cash. The barmaid managed to give police a description. Next day police spotted the getaway car, found McChan in it, held him on suspicion of murder.