Maryland

Afternoon Briefs: Female topless ban upheld; is requiring stamp on mail-in ballot a poll tax?

Judge upholds beach town’s female topless ban U.S. District Judge James Bredar has upheld a ban in Ocean City, Maryland, on women exposing their breasts in public. Bredar, an appointee of President Barack Obama, found no equal-protection violation. “Whether or not society should differentiate between male and female breasts is…

Apr 9, 2020 4:48 PM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: Political climate motivates would-be lawyers; Avenatti trial begins

Is the ‘Trump Bump’ still a thing? Politics continue to play a role in law school applicants’ decision-making processes, according to recent surveys from Kaplan Test Prep, but less so than it did last year. Out of 421 people who took the company’s LSAT course, 41% indicated that the country’s…

Jan 29, 2020 3:07 PM CST

Man is charged for allegedly throwing metal water pitcher at sentencing judge, hitting her in the head

A Baltimore man accused of throwing a metal water pitcher at his sentencing judge, hitting her in the forehead, has been charged in the incident.

Dec 12, 2019 12:28 PM CST

Afternoon Briefs: Subpoenas reportedly seek Giuliani-related information; 3 exonerated after 36 years in prison

Subpoenas reportedly seek information related to Giuliani and his consulting firm Federal prosecutors who are investigating two associates of lawyer Rudy Giuliani have issued subpoenas seeking documents relating to the lawyer and his consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, according to anonymous sources who spoke with multiple publications. The investigation also reportedly…

Nov 26, 2019 4:45 PM CST

Afternoon Briefs: Judge refuses to step down from opioid litigation; BigLaw joins law profs in climate change fight

Judge overseeing nationwide opioid litigation refuses to step down The federal judge overseeing more than 2,000 lawsuits over alleged opioid addictions and overdoses refused to remove himself from a bellwether trial scheduled to begin Oct. 21 in Cleveland. Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the U.S. District Court for the Northern…

Sep 27, 2019 4:30 PM CDT

‘Gate money’ for released prisoners is usually chump change

Some formerly incarcerated people say it’s often not enough to meet their basic needs

Sep 11, 2019 2:49 PM CDT

Lawyer’s hip-hop defense fails in case involving ‘an overarching pattern of misconduct’

Maryland’s highest court has disbarred a lawyer for a “myriad of rule violations” that included calling a social worker who testified in one of his cases a “bitch.” The Maryland Court of Appeals explained why it disbarred Garland Montgomery Jarrat Sanderson in a July 23 opinion noted by the Legal…

Aug 1, 2019 10:13 AM CDT

Stun belts are intended to keep control in courtroom, but some judges use them to inflict punishment

James Calvert had been a difficult defendant. On trial in 2015 on charges of murdering his wife and kidnapping his son, Calvert had chosen to represent himself, but was having trouble following the judge’s instructions to stand up when addressing the Smith County court in East Texas.

Jul 30, 2019 9:27 AM CDT

Afternoon Briefs: James Comey’s daughter prosecutes Epstein; cop accused of planting drugs in cars

• A daughter of former FBI Director James Comey is one of the lead prosecutors in the federal sex trafficking case against billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Maurene Comey is an assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton were both acquaintances of Epstein, leading some conspiracy…

Jul 11, 2019 4:30 PM CDT

Lawyer charged after smuggling binders of drugs to client in prison

A Baltimore lawyer has been arrested and charged with smuggling drugs to a client in a Maryland prison. Steven Thurman Mitchell brought two binders to his client, Mandel Brown, during a visit to the Roxbury Correctional Institution on Friday and attempted to leave without them, according to a Maryland Department…

Jul 2, 2019 3:01 PM CDT

4th Circuit allows trial judge to consider new evidence in challenge to census citizenship question

A federal appeals court is allowing a Maryland federal judge to consider new evidence of an alleged discriminatory motive in the Commerce Department’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

Jun 25, 2019 4:31 PM CDT

Lawyers accused of misconduct for offensive, inappropriate emails about colleagues, minorities

Two lawyers should be disciplined or subjected to remedial action for participating in an email chain with a group of people calling themselves the “Forum of Hate,” according to the Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland. One of the lawyers, James Markey, was an administrative law judge at the Board of…

Jun 19, 2019 6:30 AM CDT

GOP lawmakers in Michigan and Ohio win SCOTUS stay in political gerrymandering cases

On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed court rulings ordering Michigan and Ohio to create new electoral maps because they were drawn to benefit Republicans. The Supreme Court granted the stays as it considers partisan gerrymandering cases in North Carolina and Maryland, report Courthouse News Service, the New York Times…

May 28, 2019 9:15 AM CDT

NYC judges have drastically cut back on bail and jail in criminal cases, study says

Like many states, New York has a bail law that is half a century old. The legal rules that in 2010 made it possible for 16-year-old Kalief Browder to be jailed on Rikers Island for three years for allegedly stealing a backpack—just because his family couldn’t pay $3,000 in bail to get him out—all remain on the books.

Mar 18, 2019 7:05 AM CDT

Top state court reinstates murder conviction of Adnan Syed; his case was chronicled in ‘Serial’ podcast

On Friday, Maryland’s top court reinstated the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, whose case gained prominence after it was examined in the Serial podcast.

Mar 8, 2019 5:17 PM CST