Criminal Defense Lawyer Blog
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concertina-wire-1031773_960_720Lawmakers in both houses and from both sides of the aisle are currently working on one of the most comprehensive criminal justice reform bills in recent memory. Senate Bill 1005, known at the Justice Reinvestment Act, is an 84-page behemoth of a bill that aims to revamp multiple areas of the current criminal justice system. The act’s two major areas of focus are reducing the state prison population, and then establishing specific avenues for allocating the savings. Maryland taxpayers are currently picking up a $1.3 billion yearly corrections tab, which is astonishingly high as a result of roughly 20,000 people being incarcerated in state and local jail facilities at any given time. For years lawmakers have wrestled with the conundrum of reducing the number of inmates without reducing the safety of our streets, and now it appears as if a reasonable solution is in the works.

Lawmakers want to reduce the prison population by up to 14 percent over the next ten years, thus saving almost $250 million per year. Since 14% of criminals are not simply going to take the next 10 years off, the only way to reduce the prison population is to release some offenders and to not incarcerate others in the first place. Maryland has not devised a revolutionary and unique system of selecting which offenders to release, but rather it is joining the federal government and numerous other states with the goal of reforming criminal drug laws. The bottom line is that lawmakers are finally realizing that society is not best served by spending $100,000+ per year to incarcerate a non-violent drug offender. We can lower maximum jail sentences and eliminate minimum mandatory prison sentences in non-violent drug cases without putting the public in harms way, and we can save millions in the process.

The Justice Reinvestment Act touches on three main ways to accomplish this, including lowering the maximum punishment for possession of narcotics such as heroin and oxycodone and stimulants such as cocaine, from four years to one year for a first offense. Second, the act and other legislation that is already in the works will also effectively do away with ineffective minimum mandatory prison sentences for certain drug felonies such as possession with intent to deliver, manufacturing, and distribution. Repeat drug felony offenders currently face parole ineligible 10-year mandatory sentences, while repeat offenders of violent crimes such as assault and robbery face no increased penalties. The contrast is simply illogical. Finally the act will place limitations on the penalties for certain violations of probation, which especially in the case of drug charges are responsible for hundreds of lengthy prison sentences each year. Reducing penalties for technical violations, or violations that do not involve additional criminal law violations, are the main focus of the act. There is language that would keep litigation of technical violations out of court, and in the alternative would allow probation officers to levy their own punishments. These changes will probably be met with some pushback, and may invoke constitutional law challenges, but it is hard to argue that technical violations are often blown out of proportion in court.

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money-941228__340A 27-year old man from Linthicum has been charged with first degree assault, robbery, and theft after stealing tip jar money from a Glen Burnie restaurant, and the problems for the defendant go way beyond this recent arrest. Ann Arundel police responded to the restaurant around 8 p.m., and after obtaining a physical description of the suspect they began to canvass the area. It didn’t take long before he was located on Ritchie Highway, not far from the scene of the alleged crime. Officers detained the man and took him back to the restaurant where employees made a positive identification. While taking cash from a tip jar is more akin to shoplifting than robbery, the charges do appear to be legally justified not because of the man’s actions, but rather because of his words.

Chances are high that one or more of the charges will be dropped when the case goes to court, though the alleged facts did rise to the level of a robbery and perhaps a first degree assault. As the defendant took the cash he told an employee that if the police were called he would take out his gun and use it. Had he remained silent while looting the jar, the only justifiable charge would have been theft. And based on the fact that there was less than $100 taken it would have been a petty theft with a 90-day maximum jail sentence. But a robbery, generally defined as a theft with force, occurred the second he mentioned the gun. Under Maryland law a verbal threat to cause harm is legally the same as actually causing physical harm with respect to robbery. While a robber who physically hurt someone during his or her crime would in theory face a harsher sentence from the judge, physical harm is irrelevant at the trial stage. It is also irrelevant whether the defendant actually possessed a gun and could carry out the threat, as the issue is whether the victim reasonably felt in danger. The suspect probably never had a gun based on the fact that he was not not arrested with any type of firearm and was not charged with armed robbery.

This robbery arrest is hardly the extent of the defendant’s legal issues because it turns out that he was recently released from jail after serving nearly six months for a sexual offense. Upon his release from the Anne Arundel County detention center the defendant was placed on supervised probation, and faces a lengthy prison sentence should he be found to have violated his probation. The arrest is enough to initiate the violation of probation process, but he can’t be punished unless the state proves that he committed the offense at trial or after a plea. While the state will likely be asking for major prison time if a violation is proven, a reasonable judge should factor in that the defendant never had a gun, and was probably penniless and perhaps even homeless after just getting out of jail.  On the other hand, theft while mentioning the use of a firearm is not something that even the most lenient judge will take lightly.

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car-991635_960_720The 2016 Maryland legislative session is officially heating up, and numerous new criminal law bills are being discussed in the House and the Senate each day. There are a handful of criminal law bills that are slowly advancing, while many others have already received unfavorable reports by the Judiciary and have been withdrawn. But one bill that seems destined for the governor’s desk is a proposal that smoking marijuana in a car officially be declared illegal. Regular readers will remember the ongoing saga where the governor vetoed a necessary marijuana paraphernalia decriminalization bill because is contained no provision allowing officers to stop a car after observing the occupants smoking pot. Giving officers this power may have been totally reasonable, but it had absolutely nothing to do curing the immense confusion in the state’s marijuana policy by decriminalizing paraphernalia. The governor was simply trying to flex is legislative muscle, though luckily the lawmakers in Annapolis overrode the veto. Pot paraphernalia is no longer a crime and now the natural legislative process has brought us a bill that would achieve what the governor stubbornly tried to do through veto power last summer. At the risk of being too harsh on our governor, we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that the veto may merely have been a tool to motivate and remind the legislature to make toking in the car a no no.

House Bill 183, which is has moved to the Senate after unanimous approval in the House, will add a provision to the transportation article that already addresses drinking alcohol in a car. This law currently makes it illegal to consume any alcoholic beverage in a car or truck on a public highway regardless of whether the car is parked or moving. If the new bill becomes law it will modify the statute to include smoking or consuming marijuana in a parked or moving automobile on a public highway. Violation of this provision is not currently a criminal offense, but rather a traffic citation punishable by a $500 fine. The proposed bill keeps it that way, as its main utility is giving officers the legal authority to conduct a traffic stop based solely on observing marijuana use. This is exactly what the governor and some elected prosecutors publicly wanted last summer, but prosing new legislation and allowing the process to play out is the right way to achieve it. The Bill will most likely pass unmodified, although there could be some minor changes after the Senate is through with it. And when it hits the governor’s desk you can bet it will be one of the first he signs. Look for smoking pot in a car to be illegal and punishable by a $500 fine to be illegal starting in October of 2016.

We will continue to follow this bill and other criminal law bills at they progress through the legislature. One bill that is of particular interest is House Bill 307, which lowers the maximum penalty for possession of drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and narcotic painkillers from 4 years to 1 year. This is a proposal that is a long time coming considering the changes in marijuana possession policy. A 4-year maximum sentence for simple possession is unnecessarily high, as 1 year in jail is more than enough to deter and punish drug possession.

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drug-1070943__340While decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in Maryland was a major victory for drug reform, some state lawmakers are far from satisfied. The last year has been productive, with medical marijuana perhaps less than a year away from going live, and marijuana paraphernalia being decriminalized. But arcane drug laws have done little to reduce the availability and abuse of controlled substances, and incarcerations for non-violent drug offenses continues to cost state and local governments millions of taxpayer dollars. In an effort to take drug reform to new heights one state delegate has introduced a package of bills, which focuses on prevention and treatment instead of punishment. This common sense approach acknowledges that eradication of controlled substance use is not a realistic goal, and as a result advocates expending government resources on mitigating the effects of inevitable drug use. As of now there are three bills that will hit the House floor this legislative season, with the perhaps the most controversial scheduled for a hearing in early March.

House Bill 1119 represents an unequivocal effort to decriminalize the simple possession of virtually all common street drugs. Simple possession, which is referred to as de minimis possession in the bill, is the same benchmark that was used to decriminalize marijuana. The legislature chose the arbitrary amount of ten grams as their benchmark for de minimis pot possession. This amount was likely a compromise between lawmakers searching for a line that could separate personal use with intent to distribute, but other than the fact that ten is a nice round number it makes absolutely no sense. Many marijuana users prefer to buy larger amounts at a time to minimize the number of purchases they need to make. It would hardly be out of the ordinary for a moderate user to buy an ounce (28 grams) or more at a time, and this amount would in no way indicate a desire to distribute for profit. Further, marijuana is rarely sold by ten-gram increments, especially not in America. Still though, setting the bar at ten grams is better than the alternative of initiating criminal charges for anyone possessing as little as one tiny bud.

The proposed house bill expands upon de minimis exception for marijuana to include benchmarks of two grams of cocaine, one gram of heroin, ten tablets of meth, .0015 grams of LSD or acid, and 1 gram of methadone / amphetamine. Possession of less than these amounts of each drug would not be a crime under Maryland law if the bill were to pass. These amounts are more realistic as indicative of personal use than the ten-gram cutoff for pot because they have not been watered down by endless debate and so called compromise. The bill would eliminate a large burden on the criminal justice system of prosecuting drug users who need help rather than jail time, but sadly it has little chance of becoming law in the next couple of years. Maryland has not shown a willingness to be ultra progressive with respect to drug policy and it is highly unlikely that Annapolis lawmakers would be the first to decriminalize cocaine and heroin possession. On the other hand, this bill could generate enough attention to start the discussion, which at this point is the best we can hope for this year.

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lift-81373_960_720While millions cursed the record breaking January blizzard for canceling travel plans, court dates and business meetings, the local ski resorts celebrated every second of it. What started out as a miserable ski season for Maryland and Pennsylvania resorts quickly turned into a moneymaking windfall thanks to the infamous Jonas. But it wasn’t all happy times up in the mountains as two Harford County teens were recently charged with theft at Ski Roundtop. Local police alleged that the two Bel Air boys took rental snowboards from the mountain shop without paying and then rode the ski lifts sans lift tickets. After mountain employees, also known as lifties, caught on to the scam police were notified and reported to the scene. In the past this type of violation would usually result in being kicked off the mountain and possibly banned for the season, but the cops were called to send a message that skiing without a pass is theft, and will be treated as such.

This recent theft is certainly not the crime of the century, or even the crime of the day, but it does call attention to some legal issues that are important to understand. It is clear that nothing was actually stolen in the traditional, non-legal sense of the word, as the boys did not remove the snowboards from the resort and likely never intended to do so. If taking the boards was their intention, they certainly would not have stayed on scene to try them out. Rather, the Bel Air teens were charged under the principals of unlawful control of property and theft of services. This case took place in Pennsylvania, but the Maryland theft laws are quite similar in that they criminalize both theft of property and theft of services under the same statute. Had this incident taken place at Wisp for example, the act of skiing without a lift ticket and using a rental snowboard without paying would have violated section 7-104 of our state’s criminal code. This section makes it a crime to use the property of another without permission, and also to obtain the services of another by deception. Sneaking on to the lift without buying a ticket would qualify as the act of deception, and a theft occurred despite the fact that the ski resort didn’t actually lose anything tangible.

Under Maryland law obtaining services by deception or fraud is treated the exact same way as a theft of another’s property. The maximum penalty depends on the value of the services that were unlawfully obtained. In this particular case the total value of the board rental and the lift ticket came up to $105, which would be a misdemeanor theft with a maximum penalty of 18 months in jail. A charge of illegally obtaining services with a value under $100 carries a maximum penalty of 90 days, while unlawfully obtaining services over $1,000 is a felony that starts with a 10-year maximum punishment. Services often do not have a definite value, so police and the prosecution will typically use whatever evidence they get from the victim of the theft. Unfortunately they tend to round up, but a good lawyer should be able to move the arrow in the other direction when the case goes to court.

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drugs-908533_960_720The Baltimore Police recently announced the completion of a fairly large heroin bust, which led to two arrests and the recovery of drugs, cash, and a firearm. This particular bust was not the product of a long-term police investigation, but rather it was based on a tip from a concerned Greenspring Avenue neighbor in the northwest part of the city. Metro Crime Stoppers received the tip and relayed it over to the police for further investigation. Officers staked out the home of the alleged drug dealer, and then followed him as he drove away. A short time later cops made a traffic stop of the suspect’s vehicle, and conveniently had the K-9 unit on standby ready to conduct a drug sniff. After the dog hit a positive on the car the man was taken into custody while the police sought a search warrant for his home. The warrant was signed and upon executing the search police found 4 kilograms of heroin valued at upwards of $400,000. State and local police officers typically use the street value of the drugs in their reports and press releases, which is based on the optimum profitability achieved by selling small quantities. City police officers also seized $80,000 cash and a stolen handgun from out of state. There is no final word on whether the dealer will be charged in Baltimore City, or whether the feds will take on the prosecution.

This recent drug bust comes at an interesting time for crime fighting in Baltimore City. The police department has consistently stated a desire to focus their efforts on combatting violent crimes such as robbery, assault, and murder. The violent crime rates in the city are alarmingly high and have shown little signs of improving. On the other hand there is no chance the police would fail to act on a large-scale drug tip. These busts generally create positive news headlines for the department, while at the same time taking well funded and often well armed criminals off the street.

Anonymous tips do not always pan out and are sometimes an invitation for the police to violate a person’s rights, but it seems that this particular case was handled by the book. It is always suspicious when cops are performing surveillance one minute and the next are conducting a traffic stop with a K-9 unit on hand. But these so called pretextual stops, where a driver is stopped for a minor (or made up) traffic violation for the sole purpose of advancing an unrelated criminal investigation, are legal under the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution. The only requirement is that the traffic stop be legitimate, which obviously gives police way too much leeway to see things like a suspected drug dealer “rolling through” a stop sign, making a right on a red arrow, or going 11 over the speed limit. But challenges to the traffic stop will usually fall on deaf ears on the bench, and as long as cops wait for a search warrant the evidence will usually be held admissible. Police are well aware that suspects are most vulnerable when they are on the road due to numerous automobile exceptions to search and seizure rights. This is why many of the largest drug busts begin as a simple traffic stop.

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snow-storm-926233_960_720Although crime and calls to service were down throughout Maryland during the historic snowstorm, police and firefighters in Baltimore City were still well prepared to respond if called upon during the blizzard. The National Guard supplied both agencies with military style Humvees, and as it turned out they were put to good use. The city fire department was called to assist with a deadly residential blaze, and was aided by a snowplow in arriving on scene. In addition to patrolling the snow packed streets in marked and unmarked SUVs and the occasional Humvee, the police department was also forced to respond to a few crime scenes. During the early morning hours last Saturday, right in the heart of the record-breaking storm, there were multiple break ins including five reported pharmacy burglaries in the Baltimore area. Police made one arrest in a food store burglary, as officers allegedly observed two suspects climbing out of a store window through the blinding snow while on patrol at 3:30 a.m. One of the suspects vanished into the whiteout, but the other was arrested and charged. Unfortunately for the local business owners there were some who saw the epic blizzard conditions as an opportunity to carry out a quick score, which would theoretically be met with less resistance. Police currently have not made arrests in the pharmacy burglaries, and it is unknown whether they have any suspects at this point.

Pharmacy burglaries have become increasingly common around the state, and especially in the Baltimore area. The pharmacies are not targeted for their cash, as it is rarely stored on the premises. Many transactions are paid with credit card or billed directly to the insurance companies, which is the reason why we rarely see a pharmacy being help up in a robbery. Rather, burglars target pharmacies for their valuable inventory. The pills kept in even the smallest independent pharmacies often have aggregate values exceeding $250,000. And while there is little street value for much of the inventory, the narcotics and anti anxiety medications such as Xanax can sell for thousands on the street. The chain pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens are more secure, and the pharmacy is typically located in the back of a larger storefront. Some are open 24 hours and have security on site. But many of the smaller, independent pharmacies are not protected in the same manner. These shops are susceptible to break ins, and can have their narcotics targeted even if they are placed in safes or locked cabinets during the night. The drugs can be hard to identify though, and unless it’s an inside job the burglar will typically need extra the time to sort through the inventory. This is probably why the snowstorm produced five pharmacy burglaries in just one night, as the perpetrators assumed the weather would give them the necessary time cushion to locate their plunder. We will follow these snowstorm burglaries and may post a follow up article if the cops happen to make an arrest.

Benjamin Herbst is a Maryland burglary defense attorney who handles cases in all counties and in Baltimore City. Contact The Herbst Firm at 410-207-2598 for a free consultation about your case.

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jointLast spring we wrote about the illogical decision of our governor to veto a bill that cured a glaring inconsistency from last year’s marijuana decriminalization law. The now famous decriminalization statute failed to address the possession of marijuana paraphernalia, which until today remained a criminal offense despite the fact that possession of the pot smoked with it became a civil infraction. Senate Bill 517 attempted to fix that inconsistency by specifically stating that the drug paraphernalia criminal laws do not apply to marijuana drug paraphernalia. This bill also raised the fines for smoking pot in public and while driving to $1,000, up from $500. But the governor, clearly unhappy that the legislature failed to make smoking in public and while driving a criminal offense, vetoed the bill and thus the paraphernalia inconsistency remained. Those in support of the veto, such as the Baltimore County State’s Attorney, urged the legislature not to override it by invoking the classic “it puts your children at risk” argument. The county prosecutor hypothesized about a Maryland where smoking pot on playgrounds and while driving on the beltway could become commonplace. But the legislature saw through these agenda driven arguments, and did the right thing by overriding the veto.

As a result of today’s Annapolis override small amounts of marijuana plus the plastic bags, glass pipes, or rolling papers used with it are officially decriminalized. Police will still be able to charge public pot smokers with a hefty $1,000 fine, and they will also be able to conduct a traffic stop for the purpose of writing one of these tickets to the ever so scarce non-impaired pot-smoking driver. For now the mudslinging between the governor and some pro cannabis lawmakers will cool down, but this should in no way be considered a truce. The governor and the few socially conservative politicians left in the state will still likely attempt to push laws criminalizing public pot smoking. But these efforts will be met with an increased amount of opposition, as polling shows that the majority of Maryland residents now prefer additional relaxing of state marijuana laws not making them stricter again. Local politicians will be reluctant to focus much attention on making pot laws stricter; especially considering the developing political story on the Eastern Shore where a congressman may have jeopardized his political career by crusading against legalized marijuana in Washington D.C.  This being a story that may warrant a post in the near future.

The Blog will continue to follow new criminal law and marijuana proposals coming out of Annapolis as the legislative session begins to ramp up. In the early stages of the session the topics generating the most attention are the veto overrides, but we do not expect any to be as newsworthy as the paraphernalia veto. Yesterday the house voted to override a veto on a law that gave convicted felons their voting rights back after being released from prison, and a vote to override the governor’s veto of a long overdue criminal forfeiture reform bill will take place sometime in the near future. Readers should expect an article on this issue within the next few weeks.

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hammer-719066_960_720The Special Court of Appeals has agreed to hear arguments on a major 5th Amendment issue stemming from the Baltimore City trial of the main defendant in the Freddie Gray case. In doing so, Maryland’s second highest court also ordered that the circuit court postpone the trial just hours before jury selection was set to commence. Oral arguments are set for the first week in March, allowing the Attorney General and the defense attorneys time to respond to each other’s legal briefs. The issue up for debate is whether the first defendant, whose case is still pending after a mistrial was declared, will be compelled to testify against one or more of the co-defendants. Under normal circumstances a defendant with pending charges would never be required to testify in any matter related to those pending charges. But the government is attempting to argue that their case is far from ordinary, and that the first defendant should be forced to take the stand against his former fellow officer.

The right to be protected from self-incrimination is one of the foundations of our criminal justice system, and “pleading the 5th” is one of the few legal concepts that comes to life as often in real cases as it does in Hollywood courtroom dramas. But in the case of the first officer, whose case resulted in a mistrial, the government is arguing there would be no self-incrimination implications should he be forced to testify against the other defendants. The government offered use immunity to the first officer, which means that they promised in writing to refrain from using any of the testimony against him at later time. Therefore the Attorney General will argue that there is no possibility that the officer’s testimony could get him into more trouble. This argument was compelling enough at least for the Baltimore City Circuit Court judge to buy, but don’t expect the appeals courts to be convinced as easily.

The defense introduced two main rebuttals to the government’s immunity argument. The attorneys argued that if the officer’s testimony is even slightly different the second and third time around he could face perjury charges, and they called attention to the numerous times that prosecutors called the first officer a liar during the December trial in support of this argument. The defense lawyers also suggested that even if the officer is eventually acquitted in the city circuit court he could still face federal charges. Per Department of Justice orders, federal prosecutors have been monitoring this case and were seen in court throughout the trial. The feds have made no such offer of immunity, and theoretically could use every bit of compelled state court testimony in a federal prosecution. While this seems like the stronger argument of the two, the shear historical strength of the 5th Amendment is perhaps the government’s greatest challenge to compelling the officer’s testimony. Ordering a defendant with a pending criminal case to testify against a co-defendant would be a direct shot at the 5th Amendment, and the implications would run contrary to decades of case law upholding the right to remain silent. The circuit court judge has a valid desire to move theses cases along, but the appeals courts will look at the bigger picture, and a ruling that undermines the constitutional protections afforded by the 5th Amendment is unlikely.

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income-tax-491626_960_720This past week a former juvenile justice worker from Bowie pled guilty to three felony offenses in connection with a $42 million scheme to defraud the government. The scam involved the theft of personal identification information that was used to file fraudulent tax returns for profit. The leader of the ring, a former barber shop owner from Capital Heights Maryland, pled guilty back in 2013, and the United States Attorney’s Office is still in the process of prosecuting an estimated 130 participants. Those involved with this enormous scam filed over 12,000 fake federal tax refunds that generated tens of millions of dollars of illegal plunder. The Bowie man who pled guilty on Tuesday was accused of stealing the personal identifying information of over 600 young adults. The man obtained this information through his employment with the Washington D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Service, where he worked from 2005 to 2013.

Federal prosecutors filed charging documents a few months ago, and it didn’t take long before a plea agreement was reached. The former employee entered guilty pleas for defrauding the government in count 1, filing a fictitious or false claim in count 2, and identity fraud in count 3. In addition he admitted to attempting to cause the government to lose upwards of $4.4 million, of which about $2.4 was actually paid out. Sentencing is set for this spring, where the defendant faces a maximum of 30 years in prison if all counts are run consecutive. Identity fraud is the most serious of the three charges, carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years. Based on the fact that the former D.C. employee entered a plea with the government he will likely be sentenced to much less than the maximum, and he will pay an agreed upon restitution value of about $2 million. But the federal judge will have the ultimate say at sentencing, and there is no doubt that the court will pay specific attention to the fact that the defendant stole personal information from the young people he was hired to help. While the IRS may not be the most sympathetic victim, the juveniles and young adults that were targeted by the defendant face the possibility of financial harm that could be extremely difficult to overcome.

This case should be a cause of concern for all government agencies that have personal identifying information readily available to employees. This is especially true with respect to agencies that deal with the criminal justice system. Almost every police report or booking report has a defendant’s social security number in addition to other personal identification information easily visible. While this information is redacted in the public record, the inter agency files rarely take such measures. These government agencies must be vigilant when it comes to monitoring their records and their employees.

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