Maryland Criminal Attorney Blog

Maryland Criminal/Civil Appeals Attorney discusses new opinion by the Maryland Court of Appeals dealing with Miranda Warnings.

A new case was decided by Judge Barbera of the Maryland Court of Appeals on April 14, 2010 dealing with Miranda. The State alleged that Mr. Luckett believed his wife was having an affair with his son's football coach. Mr. Luckett was alleged to have killed his wife and then went to the football coach's place of business, a barber shop, and killed him.

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As a Maryland Criminal Attorney I am often confronted with cases in which a white police officer stops an African American (usally a man). In many, if not most, of these cases the person stopped believes that he was racially profiled or that at the very least, his race played a part in the officer's decision to stop and/or arrest him.

Baltimore Maryland Criminal Attorney - Lawyers for the ACLU filed a report with the United Nations Committee to end Racial Discrimination yesterday stating that despite efforts by senior law enforcement and government officials to stop it, racial profiling still persists in this country. The Boston Globe reported on the story in today's edition.

The report claims that Asian Immigrants and immigrants from North Africa have been the targets of much of the racial profiling the latter group because they may be suspected of being Islamic terrorist. Latin Americans have also been targeted for possible immigration violations and African Americans were targeted because of suspected narcotics trafficking, according to the report. The Obama administration stated that it is opposed to racial profiling with exceptions for national security and border investigations.

The answer to the question, at least according to this Maryland Criminal Attorney, is, I don't know yet but what I have seen over the past few weeks has sure made me suspicious. Racial Profiling Cases, also known as "Driving While Black" cases occur when police officers stop citizens based on innate characteristics such as race and age as well as factors such as clothing and the type of vehicle the person is driving. These stops typically occur on I-95 and involve young black males driving rental cars or cars with out of state plates, especially cars bearing Florida or New York plates.

As some may be aware, Maryland has a bit of a sordid past with this issue. In fact the State Police settled a lawsuit just last year that was filed on behalf of several men who claimed that they had been "profiled" after fighting the ACLU for 12 years. The State Police paid out over $400,000 and agreed to hire an independent monitor to make sure this behavior is not repeated. So why am I suspicious that the MTA Police are engaged in racial profiling so soon after the State Police settlement? Here is why:

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Maryland Criminal Attorney - Does a sentence of life without the possibility of parole for a 13 year old constitute cruel and unusual punishment and therefore violate the 8th Amendment to the Constitution? That is exactly the question that the United State's Supreme Court may consider in a 20 year old case from Florida. There was an article about this case in the New York Times today explaining the basic facts as well as the possibility that the Supreme Court will hear the case. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/us/03bar.html?em.

Although the facts of the case are not technically relevant to the 8th Amendment issue, I think they are worth a brief description. The Defendant in the case, Joe Sullivan, was one of three boys who admitted to burglarizing a 72 year old Florida Woman's home in 1989. Several hours after the burglary, someone entered the home and raped the 72 year old owner. At trial the woman could not identify him but after the court made the defendant repeat something that the rapist had sad to her she testified that "it's been six months. It's hard but it [ his voice] sounds similar". One of his co-defendants also testified against him but it is not clear from the Times' story what exactly he testified to since he did not claim to have been present during the rape. Additionally, Mr. Sullivan's attorney did not give an opening statement in the one day trial and his closing argument apparently lasted only a few minutes. The attorney was later disbarred and is still ineligible to practice in Florida. Biological evidence was recovered but was apparently destroyed prior to the advent of DNA evidence. The judge sentenced Mr. Sullivan to life without the possibility of parole and he has now served 20 years of that sentence. The Florida Court of Appeals just rejected a request to review the case and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court.

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