Report validates Baltimore prosecutor’s decision to cut ties with mayor’s safety office

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An independent review by Kramon & Graham lends credibility to Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates’s decision to cut ties with Mayor Brandon Scott’s public safety office.

Bates on Thursday released a report saying his December decision to end his partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, which carries out Scott’s Group Violence Reduction Strategy, was justified.

The GVRS strategy of “focused deterrence” has been seen as one of several reasons for a historic drop in crime in Baltimore. MONSE provides resources and social services to people at high risk of involvement in gun violence; they and their associates are prosecuted if they don’t hold up their end of the bargain and end up committing a crime. GVRS is active in five police precincts.

Baltimore recorded 133 homicides in 2025, the fewest in nearly 50 years. Over the past five years, homicides and nonfatal shootings in the city are down nearly 60%. A January 2024 report by a criminal justice lab at the University of Pennsylvania estimated that GVRS was “responsible” for significant decreases in homicides, shootings and carjackings in the Baltimore Police Department‘s Western District, “with no evidence that these crimes moved to other parts of the city.”

But Bates says MONSE has failed to disclose key information to his office, putting prosecutions and defendants’ constitutional rights at risk. Prosecutors are required to disclose exculpatory information to the defense, including if a witness received financial or other benefits from the mayor’s office.

The report was authored by former Maryland Bar Counsel Lydia Lawless, now a principal at Kramon & Graham. Lawless wrote that judges may assume that the SAO is aware of any exculpatory information that MONSE has and wrote the report assuming that premise to be true.

“If the SAO is not confident that it is disclosing all exculpatory and impeachment information in MONSE’s possession that may be imputed to the State, it should, in the interest of protecting the integrity of its prosecutions and defendants’ constitutional rights, end its formal partnership with MONSE,” Lawless wrote.

In response, a spokesman for Scott said Bates was “politically motivated” in commissioning the report and sought an opinion validating his “predetermined desire to end partnership with MONSE.”

The spokesman said the mayor’s office is seeking its own independent review, and noted Lawless didn’t cite any cases that were endangered by a judge’s decision to impute MONSE’s knowledge of exculpatory evidence to the SAO.

“We maintain that MONSE has always made good faith efforts to meet all requests for information from the SAO,” the spokesperson stated.

“More importantly, the work will continue. If the State’s Attorney is adamant that he would like to separate himself from (this coalition) – that is his prerogative. That entire apparatus will continue to work diligently on a daily basis, and we will continue to welcome the State’s Attorney and his team back to the table when they choose to return.”

The SAO has prosecuted more than 1,300 people during its five-year partnership with MONSE, according to the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. The OPD said it would try to find cases where exculpatory information was withheld.

“OPD will identify affected cases and pursue disclosure with appropriate remedies, including motions to vacate where our clients’ Sixth Amendment rights were compromised,” Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue stated in a news release.

“Ending the partnership is wholly insufficient as our clients are entitled to the exculpatory evidence and impeachment material they should have received before their trials, before their pleas, and before they lost their liberty.”