Man mistakenly released from prison after getting new murder trial in Baltimore

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services last fall mistakenly released a man from prison who had been awarded a new murder trial in Baltimore, The Banner has learned.

He voluntarily showed up to court about one week later and was taken back into custody.

Theodore Johnson Jr. was found guilty in 2024 in Baltimore Circuit Court and sentenced to 60 years in prison in the deadly shooting of William Christian, which happened on West Caton Avenue in Saint Josephs on July 16, 2022.

In 2025, the Appellate Court of Maryland threw out Johnson’s convictions for second-degree murder and use of a handgun during the commission of a crime of violence. It found that the judge should have instructed the jury that a “substantial battery on a close relative” was enough to reduce the crime of murder to manslaughter.

Johnson, 44, of McElderry Park, testified that he shot Christian “in the heat of the moment” during an argument. He was 49.

The mid-level appeals court upheld Johnson’s convictions for illegal possession of a regulated firearm and wearing, carrying or transporting a handgun without a permit.

Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa K. Copeland on Sept. 2, 2025, ordered Johnson to continue to be held without bond. But the state corrections department released him anyway on Oct. 30, 2025, from the Western Correctional Institution in Cumberland.

In a statement, Keith Martucci, a spokesperson for the state corrections department, said the agency “takes matters of public safety and institutional accountability with the utmost seriousness.”

Johnson, he said, was “inadvertently released before being reapprehended, without incident, a week later.”

Martucci said the department immediately launched a “comprehensive internal investigation” and took disciplinary action “due to the mistaken handling and review of the individual’s file.” The statement did not provide specifics.

“We have since reviewed and strengthened internal protocols — including file verification procedures and staff training — to prevent similar errors,” Martucci said. “As a result, no such error has been replicated since.”

On Nov. 7, 2025, Johnson voluntarily showed up at the Clarence M. Mitchell Jr. Courthouse in Baltimore for a bail review hearing. He provided paperwork to Baltimore Circuit Judge Martin H. Schreiber II that showed he had been released.

Assistant Public Defender Matthew Connell, Johnson’s attorney, said the state corrections department told his client that “his sentence was over.”

Johnson was “trying to handle this responsibly,” Connell said.

“I am impressed with your following what you’ve been told to do, at least in the recent past,” Schreiber told Johnson. “Unfortunately for you, the facts are such I find you have to be detained.”

Schreiber noted there would be a retrial.

“I hope that justice is done,” Schreiber said, “whatever it may be.”

In a statement, James Bentley, a spokesperson for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office, said it “recognizes that this is an issue we are seeing more often in the criminal justice system, and proposes a small tweak that would benefit all parties.”

“If the court that handled the case has an automatic bail review process once a conviction is overturned, it would ensure that cases like this one do not slip through the cracks,” Bentley said.

Earlier this year, another man awarded a new murder trial in Baltimore was also released even though prosecutors intended to retry him.

The circumstances of that case, though, are different. That’s because Copeland, the judge-in-charge of the Criminal Division, did not issue an order in time to hold him without bail.

The Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office later apprehended the man, Dana Davenport, 32, of Reisterstown, after prosecutors learned what had happened and obtained an arrest warrant.