Consolidation of the Maryland circuit courts into a single circuit court funded by the state and centrally administered is not a new idea; it is time to re-examine this idea. In 1991 Chief Judge Robert C. Murphy testified before the ...

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On Oct. 25, Montgomery County became the 22nd Maryland jurisdiction to implement Maryland Electronic Courts filing in its Circuit and District Courts. MDEC filing began in Anne Arundel County in 2014 and by 2019 all Maryland jurisdictions other than Montgomery ...

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More than a handful of Democrats have called for 83-year-old Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to retire while there is still time to assure that a Democrat will be president when the time comes to appoint his successor, or before ...

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All too often, one litigant or another, sometimes both, play a game of chicken before settling their cases by waiting until a jury has been selected and seated. Seating a jury is costly to the court both in terms of ...

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In a criminal case, every state in the United States allows the government and defendants to use peremptory strikes to remove undesirable jurors in their attempts to mold a jury of the defendant’s “peers.” Few judges and lawyers who have ...

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In a lawsuit to have the last Confederate monument removed from public grounds in Maryland, Talbot County has filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that “mere offense through observation of a statue” does not create an appropriate injury ...

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We have written many editorials over the years regarding the state of Baltimore’s courthouses.  Individual members of the advisory board have discussed the need for a new courthouse and complete rebuilding of the current courthouses with successive governors, mayors, members ...

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Transparency in government. Politicians and officials regularly say they are favor of it, but there remain some surprising limits on such transparency. Take, for example, Maryland’s “broadcast ban” statute. The “ban” prohibits – subject to criminal penalty — recording or ...

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“Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done,” writes Brian Stevenson in his book, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.” And yet the language we use to identify people convicted of crimes—even in The ...

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Mary Ellen Barbera took over at the helm of Maryland’s judiciary eight years ago, in July, 2013. She has steered it well, and deserves the thanks of all Marylanders for having done so. As her tenure as chief judge of ...

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