Maryland Criminal Attorney Blog

As a Maryland Criminal Attorney I am often confronted with cases in which a person is charged with possession with the intent to distribute cocaine, heroin, marijuana or some other controlled dangerous substance (CDS) or even simple misdemeanor possession of CDS, where in addition to being charged criminally, the police also seize the person's property, usually automobiles, weapons and/or currency pursuant to the drug asset forfeiture laws. Most people are surprised to learn that, unlike in a criminal case where the State has the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a person is guilty of the offenses with which he is charged, under drug asset forfeiture law, once property or money is seized by the police pursuant to a narcotics arrest or even a narcotics investigation, it is presumed that the property or money is subject to forfeiture and the owner bears the burden of proving otherwise. Not only that but the government maintains possession of the asset throughout what can be a long and expensive legal battle to have the property or money returned.

I was retained yesterday in a case in Baltimore County Maryland District Court that is troubling to me as a Maryland Criminal Attorney and as a citizen of this state on several levels. The facts are that an anonymous caller contacted 911 and advised that he had just witnessed two black males try to rob a white male (my client) as he attempted to enter his apartment. The caller went on to say that the black males beat the white male with a handgun and that during the scuffle one of the black males was knocked down the steps. The caller went on to say that during the scuffle, a bag of marijuana had fallen from one of the three men's pocket and had spilled down the steps and on the ground. He noted to 911 that as they spoke the white male was sweeping the marijuana up.

Continue reading " Drug Asset Forfeiture under Maryland State Law - A Discussion By A Baltimore Criminal Attorney " »

Maryland Criminal Lawyerhttp:// Maryland Criminal Attorney - Baltimore Criminal Lawyer - Baltimore Criminal Attorney. I had an interesting stop and frisk case today in the Baltimore City Circuit Court. I was prepared for trial today but unfortunately the case was postponed because the Assistant State's Attorney was in trial on another case. In this case I will be moving to suppress the evidence because although I believe that the State has a reasonable argument that the police officer who stopped my client had reasonable articulable suspicion to do so, I do not believe that the officer had reasonable articulable suspicion to believe that my client was armed and dangerous and conduct a pat down of my client which led to the recovery of illegal narcotics.

The facts of the case are simple. The police allege that they observed my client drive up to an apartment complex in area of town with a high volume of drug activity. They claim that they watched as my client beeped his horn a few times signalling a women to come out of an apartment. The women then allegedly gets into my client's car for just a few seconds and the police claim to see some sort of exchange take place. The women then exits the car and is allegedly examining small objects in her hand that the police claim are consistent in size and shape of controlled dangerous substances such as cocaine or heroin. Based solely on these observations the police pull my client over, order him out of the car and pat him down, supposedly looking for weapons to ensure officer safety, and recover 40 capsules containing cocaine.

Continue reading " Maryland Criminal Attorney discusses the frisk component of the Terry stop based upon reasonable articulable suspicion " »

Maryland Criminal Attorney Last month I blogged about a Possession with Intent to Distribute Marijuana Case that I was handling in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City that involved a Confidential Informant. I wrote that in many cases involving the Possession with Intent to Distribute Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroin or other controlled dangerous substances, the police have utilized a confidential informant known in the street vernacular as a snitch. In the case I was handling I believed that I could force the disclosure of the informant's identity because I believed that the person may have been the brother of the person whom my client was with when he was arrested. I filed a written motion based on the facts as laid out in the statement of charges. Unfortunately, a Criminal Defense Attorney never really knows what the facts will be in their entirety until the police officers get on the stand and testify because they invariably add facts that were not in the charging document. This makes it somewhat difficult to prepare for these cases because, again the attorney doesn't know the complete factual scenario until the court date when the motion has to be argued. As a reminder, the facts as laid out in the statement of charges is a follows:

Continue reading " Update of Possession with Intent to Distribute Marijuana Case involving Confidential Informant " »

As a Maryland Criminal Lawyer/Attorney I frequently handle cases involving Domestic Violence Assaults. I was hired yesterday to represent an individual who is charged with a domestic violence second degree assault. He was arrested on Monday and then taken to the Court Commission who set the bail at $25,000. Unfortunately, his family did not get him bailed out prior to his bail review the next morning. Many people are not aware but a Judge can not only decrease a person's bail at the bail review, the judge can also INCREASE THE BAIL.

This is exactly what happened in this particular case. The judge not only increased his bail, she ordered him to be held without bail. This is the second time that I have seen this happen in the last few weeks on relatively minor cases. I blogged about a client who was ordered to be held without bail by a judge in a DUI/DWI case last week in Baltimore City District Court. As in that case the client's only option is to file a petition for habeas corpus bail review in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County and try to convince a Circuit Court Judge that holding a person who is charged with a misdemeanor assault without bail is unreasonable and amounted to an abuse of the District Court Judge's discretion, which I certainly think is the case here.

However, these motions take at least a week to get into court so even if we are successful in getting the bail reduced, which I believe we will be, the client will have to remain in jail for that week. This may cause him to lose his job or have other serious consequences for him. This case is yet another example of why people who are charged with criminal or serious traffic charges need to get representation as soon as they are arrested so their rights can be protected. An experienced Maryland Criminal Lawyer would likely have been able to have prevented the bail from being revoked in this case which would have saved this individual from spending a week or more in prison on a case in which he is unlikely to be incarcerated even if convicted.