Office-supply giant Staples Inc. is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review and strike down Maryland’s tax assessment on fees the Massachusetts-based company collects from its Maryland franchisees, saying such taxation of an out-of-state entity violates the Constitution’s Due Process ...

Tagged with: commerce clause due process franchise fee income tax royalty fee

John Wilson Taylor thought ahead. Seven years before his death, he drafted a will calling for the creation of a marital trust for his wife consisting of 11 parcels of stocks and bonds, the net income of which would be ...

Tagged with: due process estate tax peter franchot qualified terminable interest property

Whether a victim of human trafficking was a minor must be proven and not presumed in order for the convicted trafficker’s name to be placed on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry, the state’s second-highest court has ruled in keeping an ...

Tagged with: beyond a reasonable doubt due process preponderance of the evidence sex offender registry

ANNAPOLIS — A new Maryland law empowering courts to remove firearms from people found to be a threat to others or themselves has prevented violence while preserving the due-process rights of gun owners, law enforcement and judicial officials told a ...

Tagged with: due process mental health public safety red flag

Montgomery County did not violate a developer’s constitutional rights by adopting a water system amendment to a master zoning plan, changes that devalued the planned development, a federal appeals court ruled last week. In its reported 3-0 decision, the 4th ...

Tagged with: drinking water due process environmental protection equal protection land use Takings Clause watershed zoning

Baltimore County did not violate the constitutional rights of hookah-lounge owners by requiring them to close their establishments by midnight each night, Maryland’s second-highest court ruled Wednesday. In its reported 3-0 decision, the Court of Special Appeals called the ordinance ...

Tagged with: Baltimore County due process equal protection hookah Maryland Court of Special Appeals

Maryland’s recently enacted ban on attachments that enable guns to fire more rapidly will remain in effect after a federal judge last week rejected arguments from gun-rights advocates that the law is unconstitutional. Citing a mass slaying at an outdoor ...

Tagged with: bump stocks due process gun rights Maryland Shall Issue Takings Clause

A civil litigant’s right to due process was not violated when she was ordered to pay a punitive damages award 20 times greater than the amount assessed to compensate the victim of her defamatory actions, Maryland’s second-highest court ruled last ...

Tagged with: BMW v. Gore due process punitive damages

An arrest in Austin, Texas, leads news summary including an appeal in Myanmar, a request to leave Pakistan and a judge's effort to ward off political attacks.

Tagged with: due process dwi first amendment monopoly myanmar Parker Brothers

A unanimous Maryland high court Thursday refused to reinstate a first-degree murder conviction in Baltimore, saying the judge violated the defendant’s due-process rights by reopening the trial – on his own motion – so the state could present damaging palm-print ...

Tagged with: due process fair trial first-degree murder judicial discretion palm print