In miniature, March 20

• Among bad bills that didn’t make it past crossover, massive retroactive levies on oil and gas companies; tipped minimum wage [withdrawn by sponsor]; requiring “cage-free” egg production;
• Good bills that survived crossover: tiny but symbolic retreat on disastrous earlier juvenile justice package; compliance with requirements of federal Electoral Count Reform Act [unanimously passed both houses]; special elections for legislative vacancies [one version passed Senate];
• Bad bills that survived crossover or passed outright: declare guns to be public nuisance, meant to serve as basis for litigation [passed Senate]; SEIU-backed measure to force home health providers into employment status [passed Senate 33-13]; Moore-backed bill forcing owners of buildings with three or fewer units to give tenants time to put together purchase before selling the property to others, a serious incursion on property rights [passed House]; adding military and military-spouse status as protected categories in discrimination law [near-unanimous passage, both chambers]; new anti-gun office within state government, likely to serve as a taxpayer-funded engine of advocacy against Second Amendment rights [passed both chambers]; ban resale of event tickets at more than face price [passed Senate unanimously];
• Another bill that didn’t get out of committee would set up a compulsory royalty scheme and takedown rights for minors featured in some kinds of online family videos on social media, which would extend Maryland’s record of enacting online media laws of dubious constitutionality;
• Can a tax hike result in lower revenue? Consider Montgomery County’s big boost in real estate taxes [Pagnucco]
• “Maryland and Virginia are demographically similar states, but Maryland has long had a much higher crime rate…. The differences in crime rates are especially large for offenses that Virginia punishes most severely compared to Maryland, like robbery.” [Liberty Unyielding]

Juvenile crime and the Maryland General Assembly

Here’s a startling line from a Capital News Service/Maryland Reporter story on juvenile crime on the Eastern Shore: “Cambridge Police Chief Justin Todd and [Cambridge Mayor Stephen] Rideout referred to the case of a child under 13 accused of stealing 11 cars in Dorchester County.”

Stealing 11 cars! And by complete coincidence, a 2022 Maryland law provides that persons under 13 can no longer be charged with nonviolent crimes, even felonies. Instead they and their families get diverted to social services and the like, assuming process is pursued against them at all.

It would be nice to think that was a solution.

In Dorchester County, where police say youth crime has spiked since the law went into effect in June 2022, law enforcement and community leaders are questioning whether the CINS process offers adequate options for interventions to address the reasons for youth crime, while allowing law enforcement to protect the public….

If a CINS case goes to court, a judge can order evaluations or services for youth and families, but courts have no means to enforce their decisions….

“The (Act) really ties the hands of everybody,” Todd said. “…Because you can mandate them to go to services, but if they come back to court a month later. Did you do the services? No. There’s no next step, and that makes it very difficult.”

Another recent Maryland law severely restricts police investigators from asking questions of juveniles without a lawyer present. State’s attorneys such as Charles Smith of Frederick County as well as police have consistently criticized both laws as contributing to a youth crime wave. Supporters of the laws have responded with misleading statistical defenses about how arrest and conviction numbers don’t bear out the popular sense of a wave of youth crime — although much of the point is that the crimes no longer result in conviction, or even to arrest if that seems futile.

Car theft can seriously disrupt the daily life as well as the finances of victims, making it harder to, for example, hold down a job. Pleading with a young criminal’s family to accept social services and counseling doesn’t seem like an adequate substitute for the rule of law.

In miniature, July 22

• Maryland states’ attorneys surveyed say two measures recently passed into law by the General Assembly, the Juvenile Justice Reform Act and Child Interrogation Protection Act, deserve some of the blame for the state’s current wave of juvenile crime [Gary Collins and Maxine Streicher, WBFF]
• Montgomery County’s grave mistake in enacting rent control will damage its tax base [Adam Pagnucco] Apartment development plans already being cut back [same]
• No prizes for guessing which attorney and failed gubernatorial candidate just got his head handed to him yet again by another federal judge (“grandstanding,” “baseless suggestion,” insinuation “with absolutely no basis”) [Frederick News-Post]
• Gov. Wes Moore endorses boycotting state of Florida [Twitter] Bad move: state governors should not be promoting boycotts of other states. And even San Francisco has had reason to think better of these boycotts;
• Flashback: teaming up with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance to allege violations by a family of chicken farmers on the Eastern Shore led to political black eye for U. of Maryland law clinic [me in Baltimore Sun 2012]
• I’m helping sponsor a social event this fall for Marylanders interested in ranked-choice voting. Interested? Contact me at whatmarylandneeds at gmail dot com. Meanwhile, across the Potomac, Arlington used RCV in its June primary but is now retreating for the moment at least; I wrote about that in The Dispatch.

In miniature, July 6

• Thanks Jack Hogan for quoting me on prospects in the coming race to replace Ben Cardin in the U.S. Senate [Daily Record] 
• I actually like the new design for a Frederick County flag pretty well. It’s crisp and distinctive, and conveys “crossroads” through its design and “Maryland” through its colors. If you disagree, take comfort that county flags really don’t get seen or used much [Marwa Barakat, Frederick News-Post]
• “If you are required to attach a Corporate Diversity Addendum to your Annual Report, completing the Affidavit on Page 2 is mandatory.”  From the state of Maryland’s Department of Assessments & Taxation;
• Carjackings in D.C. and environs nearly quintupled between 2018 and 2022, to more than 1,000. “Officials and community leaders” have identified as one culprit “gaps in the social safety net,” the Washington Post explains, while the chief of the District’s public defender service suggests those who favor a crackdown are calling for “mass incarceration of an entire generation.” Not explored as a possible cause is the easing of juvenile justice laws. “Auto thefts surge in Baltimore, with nearly 1,000 in May” [Ryan Little and Cadence Quaranta, Baltimore Banner]
• In March I wrote about a Montgomery County bill that would regulate after-midnight businesses in the name of fighting crime, Adam Pagnucco calls the bill that resulted a “nothingburger;”
• Honored to have been confirmed last month to a three-year term on the Frederick County Ethics Commission. I appreciate the opportunity and the confidence shown me by the nominating committee, County Executive Jessica Fitzwater, and the County Council in a unanimous vote.

In miniature, March 8

All-Montgomery-County edition:

• Under proposed county bill, police could “pick any area in the county which they believe has a crime problem and impose requirements on late night businesses located therein” including requiring submission and county approval of a “late night business plan.” [Adam Pagnucco, Montgomery Perspective]
• Teaming up with private lawyers to chase bucks: county sues consultants McKinsey & Co. seeking damages over opioid overuse [Tadiwos Abedje, WTOP]
• Rockville’s charter review commission recommends ranked-choice voting in municipal elections [Patrick Herron, The MoCo Show; me last month encouraging Frederick to do the same]
• Endlessly stalling on I-270 capacity costs jobs: government contractor will depart Gaithersburg for Fairfax, cites “more convenient access” for D.C.-area employees, customers and other partners [Jeff Clabaugh, WTOP]
• Maryland office of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls on county school system “to amend its new school bathroom guidelines in response to privacy complaints reported to the organization in recent weeks.” [Eugene Volokh]  
• On the question of traffic safety, pending bills before county council pull in opposite directions: “if police cannot stop cars for not using headlights in darkness and bad weather, that is a direct threat to pedestrians.  And if police cannot stop jaywalkers, that’s an obvious road safety problem.” [Pagnucco]

Don’t suspend drivers’ licenses over fines/fees unrelated to road safety

Sometimes the attorney general of this state takes positions I agree with. WTOP:

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh joined state lawmakers in Annapolis to call for an end to the practice of suspending people’s driver’s licenses because they failed to pay a court fee or fine.

Using drivers’ licenses as leverage to collect other moneys owed can be self-defeating as well as harsh, since it will often cut off debtors from holding the jobs by which they could secure the means of repayment. Glad to see Sen. Chris West (R-Baltimore County), as well as several leading Democrats, co-sponsoring this important bill:

Republican Sen. Chris West said drivers who do commit traffic infractions and can’t pay “would not get off scot-free” under the legislation. West said the state could recover the fees with civil action.

“Bail reform falling short of goals”

A Capital News Service series published at Maryland Matters confirms that in Maryland, at least, bail reform has had trouble meeting its intended goals. In particular, while the number held for inability to meet bail has dropped sharply since the adoption of reforms in February 2017, Baltimore in particular has seen an offsetting jump in the rate at which judges hold defendants without making bail available. Statewide, “the number of people held with bail decreased from 29.8 percent to 18.4 percent over the past 18 months, while the number of people held without bail has increased from 13.6 percent to 22.6 percent.” [Alicia Cherem and Carly Taylor with sidebar by Kaitlyn Hopkins and James Crabtree-Hannigan] I reported on the same trend in 2017 and again last year.

A second entry in the series examines the adoption of pretrial risk assessment algorithms which can make up for some of the lost functions of cash bail, a county-by-county process still under way across the state [Angela Roberts and Nora Eckert] A third looks at the “trial penalty”: numbers show that “defendants who reject plea bargains and are convicted when they choose to go to trial for many types of crimes face longer sentences – sometimes substantially longer – than defendants who make a deal.” [Shruti Bhatt, Angela Roberts and Nora Eckert]

It’s worth remembering that state ventures in bail reform can lead to quite different outcomes depending on the strategy tried. New Jersey, which has won praise for its careful development of pretrial services, “is approaching two years operating a bail system where people don’t have to pay money to be free from jail. The crime wave some warned about hasn’t happened.” [Scott Shackford, Reason; Marc Levin, Real Clear Policy] [cross-posted from Overlawyered]

Talking Baltimore crime on the Jerry Rogers show

I joined host Jerry Rogers on WBAL to discuss Baltimore’s dreadful crime statistics, in particular the plunge in clearance of homicide cases discussed in this report (with more here).

For more on the grim report of rising crime on the Johns Hopkins campus, see the university’s eye-opening interim report, or this piece by William F. Zorzi for Maryland Matters.

What if bail reform leads to higher incarceration?

A campaign to get rid of the bail bond industry is currently in full swing across the country, with support from many liberals and libertarians. I’ve got an op-ed in the weekend Wall Street Journal’s “Cross Country” feature warning that Maryland’s experience over the past year should be a cautionary lesson:

Last fall the state’s attorney general, Brian Frosh, issued guidance that suddenly declared past bail methods unlawful, prodding the court system into an unplanned experiment. Judges may not set financial requirements if there is a reason to believe the defendant cannot pay, and unless they hold a suspect without bail, they must impose the “least onerous” conditions.

Now the results are coming in, and they can’t be what Mr. Frosh had in mind. An early report in March by Kelsi Loos in the Frederick News-Post found that since October the share of Maryland defendants held without bail had increased from 10% to 14%. The Washington Post later reported that from September 2016 to May the figure had jumped from 7% to 15%.

Meanwhile, fewer released defendants are showing up for trial. The Post, confirming anecdotal reports, writes that the “failure to appear” rate in January was 14.5%, up five points from October. Failing to show up for court sets up a defendant for more-severe consequences down the road, which can include being held without bail.

While bail reform is supposed to reduce the number of inmates held in jail, the number has instead increased in some places, though the results appear inconsistent.

If bail is taken away, judges need other tools to do the same job. Decades ago, when Congress steered the federal criminal-justice system away from bail bonds, lawmakers provided practical replacements, including systematic help in assessing a defendant’s risk of flight or re-offense, options for pretrial supervision, and methods of home and electronic detention. Several states have done the same. New Jersey now uses a mathematical algorithm to assess a person’s risk of fleeing or committing another crime. But the Maryland legislature, deeply split over Mr. Frosh’s destabilizing changes, has failed to set up such alternatives.

Maryland’s example doesn’t refute the idea of bail reform. But it does suggest state leaders should work to build consensus for comprehensive changes, instead of charging ahead with moralizing experiments.

On the current campaign to end bail bonds, see American Bar Association, Sens. Kamala Harris and Rand Paul and newspaperspraising, Marc Levin (conservative), ACLU (villainizing insurers), Gary Raney.

Other perspectives: Scott Greenfield (“pre-trial incarceration was a huge factor in obtaining guilty pleas from innocent defendants,” but algorithms, used as replacement in places like New Jersey, have problems too), Joshua Page (some families value bond company’s service), Dan Mitchell. On the uncertain stance of constitutional law, see Pugh v. Rainwater (Fifth Circuit 1977) and more (LaFave et al.), Walker v. City of Calhoun, 2016 (Cato amicus: bail must be individualized) and more (James McGehee).

[cross-posted from Overlawyered]

In miniature, August 8

• MoCo Executive Leggett stifles a plan to make county dealings with labor unions more transparent [Bill Turque, Washington Post]
• “Shank: Criminal justice overhaul will lead to better outcomes in Maryland” [Herald-Mail]
• “Why in the world would the P.G. police dept. choose this particular cop to host a ride-along with a reporter?” [Radley Balko]
• Baltimore’s regulatory blockade: lawsuit challenges grip of historic preservation laws [Nick Zaiac, Market Urbanism]
• Been there. “Replacing Maryland E-ZPass transponder is not so easy” [Len Lazarick]
• It’s something [that] shouldn’t be done by either party in any state.” Larry Hogan talks gerrymandering [Danielle Gaines, Frederick News-Post]