Maryland Law Blog

With the recently celebrated Thanksgiving holiday, individuals and families across Maryland are excitedly preparing to celebrate the remainder of the holiday season. In order to ensure the safety of the residents in St. Mary’s County during the holidays, the St. Mary’s County Sherriff’s Office, in cooperation with the Maryland State Police – Leonardtown Barrack, have created various initiatives to prevent holiday-related crimes beginning Thanksgiving Day and continuing through the New Year. The goal of these Holiday Safety and Crime Prevention initiatives is to ensure that everyone has a safe holiday season.

As reported by TheBayNet.com, the prevention initiatives are in place to deter criminal activities likely to take place during the holidays, such as shoplifting, robberies, and thefts from motor vehicles. Local law enforcement is increasing both uniformed and plainclothes foot patrols in shopping centers as well as utilizing marked, unmarked, and covert police vehicles to keep holiday shoppers safe and ensure a safe shopping experience.

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A judge recently found a 35-year-old driver guilty of two counts of vehicular manslaughter for a fatal car accident in Callaway that left two young women dead. According to a SoMDNews.com report, the August 2011 accident took the lives of a 22-year-old woman from Lexington Park and a 22-year-old woman from Leonardtown. The convicted driver’s attorney claimed that the man suffered from a hypoglycemic condition as a result of a lifelong struggle with diabetes and did not know what was happening at the time of the accident.

The Prince George’s County judge stated that the man was not being punished for his medical condition but the reckless driving and speeding that led to the collision.

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Spice, a synthetic drug sold throughout the state of Maryland, has officially been made illegal in the town of Frederick according to an ABC7 news report. The mayor of Frederick recently signed the ban of the sale and use of this “designer drug” into law, and the drug, which also falls under 200 different brand names such as K2 or Zombie World, has all but disappeared from store shelves. Per the new law, any person caught selling or using this synthetic drug can be fined $1,000 per violation or jailed. In addition, penalties can go beyond fines and arrests, as businesses violating the spice ban can also lose their liquor license and the right to sell lottery tickets.

A Frederick store owner who sold the drug believes the new law will create a “black market” in Frederick and a surge in persons buying the dangerous chemicals online. However, the mayor of Frederick declared spice a public health emergency, which is why he and members of the community felt it essential to get spice off the street, and the mayor is now counting on a city free of designer drugs. The Frederick police chief adds that the spice ban is “a relief for our entire community.”

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The Baltimore Sun reports that activists opposed to the building of a new $70 million juvenile detention facility held a rally in downtown Baltimore with the Reverend Jesse Jackson joining the fight. The planned 120-bed facility would hold teens who have been charged as adults. Currently such teens are now held in the Baltimore City Detention Center alongside older inmates charged with felonies. The poor conditions in the facility, such as stifling heat and assaults, were documented in the Sun, and Governor Martin O’ Malley said the plans for the new facility in Baltimore were part of an effort to move the juvenile offenders from the poor conditions.

Youth advocates have agreed that the juveniles in the detention center were not being treated appropriately, but the plans to build the new facility have been panned by a majority of City Council members and a number of state legislators, many of who attended the downtown rally. Activists assert that the current situation could be improved at the existing facility eliminating the need to spend $70 million on a new facility, and that the money could be better used to help steer youth away from crime.

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A 24-year-old resident of Hyattsville, MD charged in two sexual assault cases in Hyattsville and Mount Rainier has pleaded guilty to multiple charges before the Prince George’s County Circuit Court. The Hyattsville Patch reports that the man pled guilty to charges of first-degree rape, a fourth-degree sex offense, and a second-degree assault in two different cases. The May arrest of the defendant came as area police agencies were investigating a series of sexual assaults and rapes in the vicinity of the Northwest Branch Hiker Biker Trail system in the beginning months of this year.

The first-degree rape guilty plea stems from a Jan. 28 attack in Mount Rainier in which a woman claimed she was attacked and raped at the Queenstown Apartments. The guilty pleas from the fourth-degree sex offense and second-degree assault charge stem from a Feb. 23 incident in Hyattsville in which a woman was attacked, but able to escape, near Jamestown Road. These charges were brought by the Hyattsville City Police Department, who later arrested the 24-year-old after he was spotted on the street by the victim from the February attack.

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A trial for two Maryland police officers accused of assaulting a college student with batons during a basketball game resulted in one of the officers being found guilty of second-degree assault. Both law enforcement officers faced first- and second-degree assault and police misconduct charges for the beating, which occurred at the University of Maryland in College Park, and video showed a now 24-year-old student being struck with batons during a fight that broke out at a March 3, 2010 basketball game.

The student suffered several injuries, including a concussion, and was among 33 people arrested at the game for disorderly conduct and assault on a police officer. The Maryland police officers claimed that the college student attacked them and sustained his own injuries when he was kicked by one of their horses, but the charges were dropped against the student when a video was released that contradicted these statements.

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