Wentworth v. State

The direct and indirect legal assault upon the Patuxent Institution concept continues like the never ending beating of the surf upon the shore. In this case, we are called upon to decide whether error was committed when certain challenged evidence was admitted into a defective delinquency hearing held in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County.

At a jury trial to determine the defective delinquency vel non of Bruce Edward Wentworth, the State, over objection, was permitted to elicit from a Patuxent staff psychologist, (1) that, in the psychologist’s opinion, Wentworth was a defective…