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When an alleged MS-13 gang member pleaded guilty to the 2008 fatal stabbing of a 15-year-old Parkdale High School student, he faced up to 30 years for second-degree murder and another 20 years for participation in gang activity that resulted in death.

Yet Rony Izaguirre-Henriquez, 19, is spending 30 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of Guillermo Medina, serving both sentences concurrently.

Prosecutors around the state say a loophole in the 2007 Maryland Gang Prosecution Act, legislation that allows additional charges based on gang involvement, resulted in the shorter jail time because it does not require the sentences to be served consecutively.

The law, meant to provide an extra tool for prosecutors handling gang-related crimes, was used for the first and only time in the county in the Izaguirre-Henriquez case, said Ramon Korionoff, spokesman for the Prince George's County Office of the State's Attorney.

But prosecutors are hoping new legislation will close the loophole and clarify the law's wording to make it easier to use.

House Bill 756 would make up to 20 years extra prison time mandatory for defendants convicted of criminal activity committed as part of a gang and add several lower-level crimes — including second-degree assault, receiving the earnings of a prostitute and retaliation for testimony — to the list of offenses that could qualify for extra gang sentences. Currently, the extra sentence can be applied to a variety of crimes, from homicide to burglary, but the sentence can be served concurrent with other sentences.

It also would define gangs and gang members, establishing statewide validation criteria to standardize the way gang cases are handled by all law enforcement in the state.

Under the current gang statute, prosecutors need several extra witnesses and a gang expert to prove a defendant's involvement in a gang, said Carlos Acosta, deputy state's attorney for Prince George's County. That standard requires extra time and resources without the assurance the work will result in a longer prison sentence.

"We pretty quickly didn't use it," Acosta said of prosecutors' response to the law.

Testifying March 2 at the House Judiciary Committee in Annapolis in favor of the legislation, Acosta said that since 2007, Prince George's County courts have handled 106 cases police verified as gang-related.

He said if all law-enforcement agencies in the county used standardized criteria to define gangs and gang members, that number would be much higher.

"[The proposed statute] will ask the question, ‘Are you a group of people who have the same criminal mindset?'" said Acosta, adding it will hold gangs and what are sometimes deemed "neighborhood crews" by law enforcement to the same standard.

HB 756 is one of 20 bills proposing anti-gang legislation so far this year. Some of the other proposed legislation seeks to increase communication between school officials and law enforcement about students involved in criminal gang activity criminal and move gang-related criminal cases involving juveniles 16 years and older out of juvenile court.

Critics say some of the legislation too broadly categorizes people as gang members and could inadvertently cause more people sentenced to prison time to join gangs.

"There are plenty of reasons why you might join a gang to get protection [in prison]," said Kelly Casper, a district public defender in Harford County, who testified against the bill.

The longer inmates are in prison, the more protection they may need, Casper said, adding that if young gang members, who may not be heavily involved in the gang, start receiving longer prison sentences, they will likely leave prison even more entrenched in the gang.

However, the bill's sponsor, Del. Gerron S. Levi (D-Dist. 23A) of Woodmore, argues providing prosecutors with the tools to keep criminal gang members behind bars for longer is needed to further prevent the spread of gang violence.

"We wanted to capture those crimes that are most commonly committed by gangs in the state," Levi said.

The legislation is meant to target those who are already well established in a gang rather than new recruits by requiring that individuals must be proven gang members and been convicted of two prior crimes before the gang sentencing statute may be sought, Levi said.

Another proposal, House Bill 609, could also result in harsher sentences by adding to the list of crimes that allow juveniles 16 years or older to be prosecuted as adults, including threatening a person with violence to coerce a person to join or prevent a person from leaving a gang.

However, youth have fewer rehabilitation options in the adult system and should not be stripped of the chance to go through those types of programs, said Cynthia Boersma, executive director of the ACLU of Maryland, who opposed HB 609.

"You are interfering with the ability to provide the kind of intervention and prevention services that youth need," Boersma said.

Another piece of legislation being considered this year would require notification of school officials, including the school principal and security officer, when a student is charged with assault or destruction of property as part of a criminal gang.

Law enforcement is already required to alert schools when students commit some crimes, but any additional information that can be shared between schools and the community will help to prevent gang related crimes or catch the people involved, said Michael Rudinski, past president of Maryland Association of School Resource Officers.

With more information about problems occurring between students in the community, schools may be able to tailor resources, such as mediation programs, to those students, he said.

"What happens in the community spills over into the schools, and what happen in the schools spills over into the community," Rudinski said.

E-mail Andrea Noble at anoble@gazette.net.