Articles Posted in Violation of Probation

The Maryland Assembly has recently passed the Justice Reinvestment Act which is generally aimed at significantly reduces Maryland’s prison population. Our partner, Judge Joe Murphy (ret.) played a key role in formulating much of this legislation. The legislation passed the House by a vote of 122-19 and the Senate 46-0. Gov. Hogan is expected to sign the bill into law this spring.

Many major policy changes are highlighted below in this text but include a unique opportunity for inmates serving mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses an unprecedented opportunity to return to court and ask for a sentence modification.

Some other highlights to the bill include:
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As a Baltimore Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney, I regularly see defendants who are improperly represented in Maryland District Courts by attorneys who do not specialize in the representation of people charged with criminal and serious traffic offenses. I blog about this issue fairly often because it troubles me greatly when I see attorneys who do not specialize in criminal and serious traffic offenses, make mistakes (also known as malpractice) that no specialist would ever make. Sometimes these mistakes go without consequence. Sometimes they cost their client’s dearly. I was recently retained in a case where the latter scenario played out. (To research a Maryland attorney’s qualifications in a particular area of the law and/or jurisdiction go to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Web Site at http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp)

The client was charged with a DWI/DUI about a year ago. This charge represented his first Maryland DWI/DUI offense. Prior to this situation, he had been represented by an attorney in a divorce case. He had never had the need for an attorney prior to his divorce, so this attorney was the only one that he knew. So when he was again in need of an attorney he did what most people in his situation would have. He called his divorce attorney. This attorney, of course, told him that in addition to being a divorce attorney, he was also a criminal/serious traffic attorney and was “more than qualified” to handle this case. While this statement was not an outright falsehood, ( according to Maryland Judiciary Case Search, this attorney handles roughly 20-25 criminal/ serious traffic cases per year) he is hardly a specialist.
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