Urging judges to give police the benefit of the doubt, Maryland’s second-highest court has overturned a trial judge’s conclusion that a routine inventory of an impounded car’s contents violated the vehicle owner’s constitutional right against unreasonable searches. In its reported ...

Tagged with: fourth amendment impounded car inventory search

An El Salvadoran living in Maryland can proceed with her civil rights lawsuit alleging a Baltimore County traffic officer pulled her over because she looked to be Latina and subsequently detained her when a federal database erroneously listed her as ...

Tagged with: equal protection ethnic profiling fourth amendment unreasonable seizure

A strong smell of raw, unsmoked marijuana emanating from a car still justifies police frisking the vehicle’s passengers for weapons despite the increasing societal and legal acceptance of marijuana possession, Maryland’s attorney general stated in papers filed recently with the ...

Tagged with: fourth amendment frisking marijuana traffic stop

ANNAPOLIS – In a case addressing if canines need resumes, Maryland’s top court will consider the extent to which appellate courts can review a trial judge’s determination that a drug-sniffing dog was qualified to alert traffic police to an illegal ...

Tagged with: drug-sniffing dogs fourth amendment traffic stop

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland’s top court grappled Wednesday with just how crime-ridden a neighborhood must be to justify police officers giving chase and frisking for weapons an individual who runs away upon seeing them. The defense lawyer and prosecutor arguing before ...

Tagged with: fourth amendment Illinois v. Wardlow

Maryland’s top court on Wednesday opens the public sessions of its 2017-2018 term in which it will consider among its approximately 150 appeals the constitutional rights of individuals who flee from the police and of convicted criminals at sentencing. On ...

Tagged with: Court of Appeals due process fourth amendment Illinois v. Wardlow Payne v. Tennessee victims' rights

Maryland’s top court Thursday upheld warrants to search suspected criminals’ cellphones based on the training and experience of police officers who said evidence related to drug and violent activities are often found on the devices. In a pair of 5-2 ...

Tagged with: Cell phones fourth amendment search warrant

The Maryland public defender’s office has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the state’s request that it review a Maryland high-court decision that the pungent smell of raw, unsmoked marijuana emanating from a car during a traffic stop does ...

Tagged with: fourth amendment frisk marijuana Supreme Court traffic stop

Baltimore detectives did not violate a suspected killer’s constitutional rights by essentially erecting a cellphone tower to find him, a sharply divided Maryland high court ruled Friday. The detectives relied in “good faith” on what they believed was a valid ...

Tagged with: cell tower simulator fourth amendment good faith exception

Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby is asking a federal appellate court to recognize one or several kinds of immunity afforded to her as a prosecutor, which would prevent five of the six officers charged in connection with the death ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defamation fourth amendment Freddie Gray Freddie Gray Marilyn Mosby