Maryland Criminal Attorney Blog

Videotaping of Maryland DUI/DWI Cases Should become Standard Procedure for All Police Agencies

September 16, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney. I blogged several months ago about a Maryland DUI Case that I handled in the District Court for Anne Arundel County in which my client claimed to have performed the field sobriety tests far better than was indicated by the officer in the Statement of Charges. In that case I subpoenaed the video tape from the Maryland State Police Department and it turned out that my client was correct. The officer had exaggerated or outright fabricated poor performance on the field sobriety tests. I introduced the video into evidence at his trial and he was found not guilty.

Today I had a similar case in the District Court for Baltimore City. My client had the misfortune of passing a late model Chevy Malibu at approximately 1:00 AM on Interstate 95 N. just South of the Harbor Tunnel. About the time he pulled even with the Malibu (doing approximately 85MPH) he realized that it was an undercover Maryland Transportation Authority Police car. He was then pulled over and ultimately arrested for DUI, speeding and negligent driving.
Continue reading ›

Where You Read Your Rights? Miranda Rights in a Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Impaired Case

September 12, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney. In many Maryland Driving Under the Influence (DUI), Driving While Impaired (DWI) cases the issue of a person’s Miranda Rights, that is when or if the rights were read, is central to the outcome of the case. In almost every DUI/DWI case, including one that I had this week in Baltimore County Maryland, the person makes incriminating statements throughout the arrest and booking process. In my initial meetings with both DUI/DWI clients as well as clients charged with more serious criminal cases, the issue of Miranda is very frequently raised by the clients. It is also an subject about which nearly everyone is misinformed about when and under what circumstances the police are required to read a person their Miranda Rights.

So, when and under what circumstances are the police required to read a person their Miranda rights? Most people wrongly believe that as soon as a person is placed under arrest, which they almost invariably define as the point at which they are handcuffed, the police are required to read them thier Miranda Rights. Although this is the common procedure on television, it is simply not how it is done in the real world. The police are only required to read a person their Miranda Rights in the context of a custodial interrogation. That means that the person must both be under arrest (or at least in custody) AND be under interrogation by the police. A common question that I get from my clients in DUI/DWI cases is why are the State is allowed to use incriminating statements that they made to the police prior being read their rights.
Continue reading ›

Child Abuse and the Parental Discipline Privilege – Baltimore County Maryland Attorney Discusses Recent Case

September 4, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

A Maryland Lawyer Referral Service refers many cases to silvermanthompson.com. As a Maryland Criminal Attorney or Maryland Criminal Lawyer I regularly handle cases involving allegations of both sexual child abuse and physical child abuse. In most physical child abuse cases, the issue of the parental discipline privilege is central to the defense. I had a case last week in Baltimore County in which my client was charged with child abuse as well as misdemeanor assault but before I get to that particular case I think an overview of the law on child abuse as well as the parent discipline privilege will be helpful.

The Child Abuse Section of Maryland Criminal Code was last Amended in 2002. In this Amendment the Legislature separated child abuse into two degrees, first and second degree. First degree child abuse states that a parent or any other person with permanent or temporary custody of a child may not cause the death or “severe physical injury” of a child. Severe physical injury is defined by the Code to mean brain injury or bleeding within the skull, starvation, or physical injury that creates a substantial risk of death or causes permanent or protracted serious disfigurement or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ. First degree child abuse is a felony and any person convicted under this section is subject to imprisonment of up to 25 years.
Continue reading ›

Drug Asset Forfeiture under Maryland State Law – A Discussion By A Baltimore Criminal Attorney

August 26, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

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 ›

Maryland Criminal Attorney discusses the frisk component of the Terry stop based upon reasonable articulable suspicion

August 18, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Maryland Criminal Lawyer 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 ›

Repeat Offender in Maryland DUI/DWI Case Held Without Bail

August 14, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Any Experienced, Aggressive Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney will tell you that courts in Maryland and throughout the nation are getting tougher and tougher on people convicted or even charged with multiple offenses for Driving Under the Influence or Driving While Impaired by Alcohol. People in this situation are increasingly being hit with significant bails and ultimately increasing long prison terms. No longer are the days that a person charged with his or her second or third offense can count on being released on their personal recognizance and receiving probation.

A particularly shocking example of this trend is the DUI/DWI case that I was hired for on Tuesday. The client was picked up for DUI/DWI on Sunday night. He allegedly made a right turn on red at an intersection where doing so was prohibited. He pulled over immediately and was totally cooperative and polite throughout the investigation. After not performing the field sobriety tests to the satisfaction of the officer he was arrested and taken to Central Booking. Sometime on Monday morning he saw a court commission who set his bail at $10,000.

At this point his wife attempted to post their home for the bail but was told by the commissioner that they had insufficient equity. The reason for this is that the court calculates the equity in a home by subtracting the outstanding mortgage from the tax assessment value of the home. The tax assessment value is almost always substantially less than the market value of the home.
Continue reading ›

Update of Possession with Intent to Distribute Marijuana Case involving Confidential Informant

August 13, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

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 ›

Defendant charge with Domestic Violence Assault in Baltimore City Maryland is ordered to be held without bail

August 12, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

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.

Baltimore Criminal Attorney Discusses Defense of Coercion and Duress also called The Necessity Defense

July 23, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

An experienced Maryland Criminal Attorney must have a thorough understanding of the defense of coercion and duress which is also called a necessity defense. I represented a defendant in the Circuit Court for Baltimore County Maryland today in which I investigated a necessity defense but ultimately concluded that such a defense was not viable under the particular facts of this case. Before going into the facts of my case today, here is a synopsis of the coercion and duress or necessity defense.

It is a defense to all crimes other than the taking of a life of an innocent person that the defendant acted under coercion or duress. The most common defense of this type is self-defense or its cousin, defense of others. It also applies to situtions where a person is coerced into committing a crime by an imminent and impending threat of death or serious bodily injury if the act is not committed. There also must not have been an opportunity to escape. If there was a legitmate opportunity to escape that is not acted upon, then the defense is not available. This is essentially the situation that I was faced with in my case and why I was unable to use the duress and coercion or necessity defense.
Continue reading ›

Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney on proof of notice requirement in Driving While Suspended or Driving While Revoked cases

July 22, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

As a Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney I represent many individuals who receive a DUI or DWI and as a result have to deal with a suspension or revocation of their privilege to drive, although this is certainly not the only reason why the MVA would suspend one’s license.

When a person receives a DUI or DWI in Maryland, that person faces two possible suspensions of his or her driver’s license. The person will first face a suspension of his driver’s license, depending upon whether or not he took the breathalyzer. The defendant will also face suspension if he is ultimately convicted of the DUI or DWI when the matters proceeds to court. In addition to suspensions resulting from DWI’s and DUI’s a person may have his license suspended for several other reasons. By far the most frequent cause of a license suspension is that a person fails to appear in court for a minor traffic citation or fails to pay the fine after appearing. These so called “H” violations make up the vast majority of suspended license cases. A person may also have his privilege suspended or revoked due to an accumulation of points, for not paying child support, for receiving three moving violations within a a six month period, and for several other reasons.
Continue reading ›

Mandatory Sentences in Maryland for Possession with Intent to Distribute Controlled Dangerous Substance Offenses

July 21, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

As an experienced and aggressive Maryland Criminal Attorney I regularly represent defendants in Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County and throughout the State of Maryland who are charged with violating state laws criminalizing the manufacture of controlled dangerous substances (CDS), distribution of CDS or with possessing these substances in sufficient quantities and/or under certain circumstances which would lead to conclusion that the defendant possessed the substance with the intent to distribute it. The CDS’s mostly commonly involved in these cases in Maryland are cocaine, heroin and marijuana although an increasingly large percentage of these cases involve prescription pain killers such as Percocet, Oxycontin, Hydrocodone and others. A small percentage of cases involve so called “club drugs” such as MDNA also known as ecstasy, ketamine and others. Occasionally a Maryland criminal lawyer will run into a case involving PCP or methamphetamines.

Under certain circumstances, individuals charged with violating these Maryland laws, primarily dealing with schedule 2 and 3 narcotics as well as marijuana, are subject to mandatory prison terms that may not be suspended and must be served without parole.
In Maryland there are two classifications of offenders who qualify for mandatory prison terms. The first involves defendants who have been previously convicted of distribution or possession with the intent to distribute CDS. These defendants are commonly termed repeat offenders or subsequent offenders. The second classification deals with defendants who are charged with possessing large quantities of CDS, so called “weight counts” and situations where in addition to possessing large amounts of CDS, the defendant is charged with being an organizer or leader of a particular drug organization; so called “kingpins”.
Continue reading ›

Preliminary Hearings in Maryland Criminal Cases

July 16, 2008 | Steven D. Silverman

As an experienced Maryland Criminal lawyer at Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White, LLC who has personally represented thousands of clients at the preliminary hearing stage, I am often asked by clients to explain exactly what is a preliminary hearing in Maryland?

In the Maryland criminal justice system, a preliminary hearing may occur when a defendant is charged with one or more felonies. In criminal cases in Baltimore City, preliminary hearings are automatically scheduled in all criminal cases. The practice in all other Maryland counties is to only schedule a preliminary hearing upon request of the defendant. Criminal defendants must make the request within ten days of the arrest or file a motion for good cause with a judge.

Preliminary hearings are conducted in the Maryland District Courts. If a judge finds probable cause, the case is sent (held over) to the Circuit Court for arraignment and possible trial. If the judge does not find probable cause that a felony has been committed by the defendant, then felony is dismissed. If a defendant is also charged with one or more misdemeanor, those charges remain and will be set for trial on another day at the District Court level.

Simply put, a District Court judge must find some link between the felony and the defendant. In most preliminary hearings in Maryland, the arresting officer will take the stand and read from his/her police report. The standard of review in a preliminary hearing is in the “light most favorable to the state”. In simple terms, the judge will give the prosecuting attorney the benefit of the doubt when determining if the defendant has committed the crime.
Continue reading ›

Video Taping of Maryland DUI/DWI Cases by Maryland Transportation Authority Police and Maryland State Troopers

July 16, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Maryland Criminal and /DUI/DWI Attorneys frequently represent individuals who are charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, DUI, or driving while impaired by alcohol, DWI, by Maryland Transportation Authority Police or Maryland State Troopers. In many of these cases the entire stop is videotaped by the State Trooper or MTA Officer and this video tape can be subpoenaed by the Maryland Criminal/DUI/DWI Attorney. In a recent DWI case that I had in Baltimore County District Court, my client had blown just a .07 and insisted that he had not failed the field sobriety tests as the MTA Officer who stopped him had claimed in his report. To be fair to the officer, he did not claim that my client had done terribly on the field sobriety tests but had nonetheless concluded that he had failed. After being retained by my client I immediately issued a subpeona decus tecum for not only the video tape but for the MTA’s General Orders regarding the operation of dash board video cameras known as MVR equipment.
Continue reading ›

Possession of Controlled Dangerous Substances and Confidential Informants

July 15, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

Maryand Criminal Attorneys or Criminal Lawyers in Baltimore and around the State deal with a high volume of cases involving the possession of controlled dangerous substance (CDS) such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, ecstasy, methamphetamine, etc., and cases dealing with possession with intent to distribute these substances. Confidential informants are one of the primary sources of information for narcotics detectives and are regularly utilized by them in narcotics investigations. In some instances the informants are registered and paid, in others they are facing charges themselves and are seeking leniency with the authorities also known as “working off their charge”. Other informants are simply concerned citizens who are reporting criminal activity but are unwilling to testify in open court. Typically in these investigations, narcotics detectives will use information provided by the confidential informant either to secure a search warrant for a particular place or to establish probable cause to stop a particular individual, usually in the context of a car stop. These warrantless encounters are more frequently litigated than are cases involving warrants. The reason for this is that searches based upon warrants that are duly signed by a judge or magistrate are afforded a presumption of reasonableness. In challenging a search warrant the defense attorney has to get over the additional hump that is the “Leon” good faith exception. The good faith exception basically states that even if the probable cause for a search warrant is found to be deficient or some of the information contained in the statement of probable cause is found to be incorrect, the court will still uphold the constitutional validity of the search so long as the police officers acted in good faith. In other words a defense attorney basically has to show that either the police intentionally lied in order to get the warrant or that the warrant application is so completely devoid of probable cause that no police officer acting in good faith could have believed it to be sufficient. Obviously, this is a very difficult standard.
Continue reading ›

Confidential Informants – When the Government must disclose their identity?

July 15, 2008 | Brian G. Thompson

For a Maryland Criminal Attorney it is imperative to understand the law regarding the use of confidential informants by police and prosecutors. There are generally two issues when dealing with confidential informants: The first issue is does the confidential informant provide sufficiently detailed information about which he or she can demonstrate a basis of knowledge to justify probable cause for a search or at least reasonable articulable suspicion for an investigatory stop. The second issue is whether or not the government must disclose the identity of the informant. I will discuss this second issue in this blog and leave the first issue for another day. The issue of whether or not the government must disclose the identity of the confidential informant issue turns on whether the informant is a “mere tipster” or an actually participant in the transaction. I have a case that I am currently working on where I intend to request the disclosure of the identity of the confidential informant. Here is my memorandum of law in support of that motion. I have deleted the last names and other identifying information of the participants including my client for privacy reasons.
Continue reading ›