Opinion: Baltimore County voters have expressed an interest in criminal justice reform: Will their state’s attorney?

In Baltimore County, conventional wisdom has long been that voters wanted a tough-as-nails state’s attorney to, if possible, stand astride the city-county boundary like a Colossus and warn criminals that they aren’t welcome in the suburbs — and that murderers would be put to death. For several decades, this was the role filled by Sandra A. O’Connor, who earned a reputation for seeking the death penalty more often than her counterparts in any jurisdiction in Maryland. It continued to be the philosophy exhibited by her successor Scott D. Shellenberger, who started his career as a law clerk for Ms. O’Connor and took over the state’s attorney role in 2006.