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Selling heroin to someone who later overdoses can rise to the level of manslaughter under certain circumstances, the state’s high court ruled Monday in a case watched by prosecutors around Maryland. The Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, reinstated the ...

Tagged with: Court of Appeals heroin manslaughter opioids

Maryland’s top judge called Monday on the state’s judiciary to consider easing its outdated deference to eyewitnesses’ identification of criminal defendants, saying research and other states’ courts have found such testimony is often flawed regardless of how certain the witness ...

Tagged with: eyewitness identification innocence project Mary Ellen Barbera

The U.S. Supreme Court will not review whether drug-sniffing dog Simon’s failure to give a definitive alert to Ocean City police nevertheless gave the officers probable cause to search a car for illegal contraband. The justices on Monday let stand ...

Tagged with: canine search drug-sniffing dog drugs fourth amendment k9 probable cause

A 40-foot cross erected as a war memorial on public land in Bladensburg does not violate the constitutional separation of church and state and can remain standing, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday. The cross, though associated with Christianity, serves ...

Tagged with: Peace Cross

The U.S. Supreme Court has given counsel for convicted murderer and “Serial” podcast subject Adnan Syed until Aug. 19 to file his request for the justices’ review of a Maryland high court decision that his trial attorney’s deficient representation did ...

Tagged with: Adnan Syed Effective assistance of counsel Serial Strickland v. Washington

Love is not enough when judges must decide whether to terminate a parent’s parental rights, Maryland’s top court has unanimously ruled in holding that the close bond between a father and son was no substitute for the safety and stability ...

Tagged with: termination of parental rights

RICHMOND — Overruling 22 years of precedent, the en banc 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Chapter 13 debtors may divide some undersecured home mortgage loans into secured and unsecured claims and “cram down” the unsecured portion ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals mortgage cramdown

Federal courthouse doors are closed to discrimination claims against Maryland state agencies under the state’s Fair Employment Practices Act, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in dismissing a former prison system budget director’s claim he was fired because he is ...

Tagged with: 11th Amendment disability rights Fair Employment Practices Act gay rights hiv

Maryland’s top court on Tuesday declined to decide whether the prohibition on minor children suing their parents survives the child’s death and bars a youngster’s estate from suing a parent for wrongful death. The Court of Appeals’ refusal to address ...

Tagged with: dismissed as improvidently granted parent-child immunity wrongful death

ANNAPOLIS – Maryland’s top court grappled Friday with whether the prohibition on minor children suing their parents survives the child’s death, thus barring a youngster’s estate from suing a parent for wrongful death. The Court of Appeals addressed the breadth ...

Tagged with: parent-child immunity wrongful death