By Jim Moreno
Last month, Cumberland County District Attorney Seán M. McCormack resolved the 2021 killing of Kendell Jerome Cook at a Carlisle barbershop with a plea deal. Michael Anthony Baltimore Jr. admitted guilt and received 15 to 30 years for third-degree murder, plus additional consecutive time for a separate firearms-theft case.
Fifteen to 30 years is a serious sentence. But it is not remotely the same thing as a capital prosecution — the kind of case in which the commonwealth seeks to put a human being to death. And in Baltimore’s case, the commonwealth had, in fact, filed notice of its intent to seek the death penalty.
That contrast should stop Pennsylvanians cold.
When the government can credibly threaten death, it gains leverage unlike anything else in the criminal-legal system. It changes how defendants assess risk, how families weigh outcomes, how lawyers advise clients, and how justice is negotiated. In practice, a death notice can become less a principled judgment about “the worst of the worst” and more a bargaining chip — one that coerces outcomes, distorts the truth-seeking function of trials, and punishes people before any verdict is reached.
