In Zimmerman v. State, the Supreme Court of Maryland Examines the Complex Jurisdictional Mechanics of Appellate Review of District Court Criminal Cases

By John Grimm

A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Maryland confirmed that when a circuit court exercising appellate jurisdiction over the District Court revokes a defendant’s probation, further review is available only in the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari. This holding, in Zimmerman v. State, Sept. Term 2024, No. 19,[1] is no surprise—it results from a very straightforward statutory reading—but the opinion by Justice Killough offers an interesting examination of the basic jurisdictional principles at play when the circuit court enters an order in its appellate capacity.

Circuit court appeals of District Court criminal matters are a procedural oddity (which you can read about in more detail in a post I wrote back in 2016[2]). Unlike the more familiar appellate model—where a court of appeals reviews a trial court decision on a fixed record—District Court appeals occur in the circuit court,[3] and, in criminal cases, take the form of a de novo trial.[4] These de novo trials look and operate exactly like any other trial in circuit court; if you observed one, you would never know that it was an “appeal” unless you were familiar with its procedural history. But a District Court appeal is still an appeal, which affects what kind of subsequent review is available. Ordinarily, the Appellate Court of Maryland has jurisdiction over final judgments of the circuit court.[5] But there is no right to Appellate Court review “from a final judgment of a [circuit] court entered or made in the exercise of appellate jurisdiction in reviewing the decision of the district court . . . .”[6] This leaves certiorari in the Maryland Supreme Court as the only option for review of a circuit court’s judgment in a District Court criminal appeal.[7]

The defendant in Zimmerman was serving three years’ probation for an assault conviction in the District Court. When he violated the terms of his probation, however, the District Court sentenced him to seven years’ incarceration. The defendant appealed, and the circuit court held a de novo violation-of-probation hearing (which was consolidated with a hearing on several separate violations of probation originating in the circuit court). The circuit court imposed the same sentence as the District Court, and the defendant eventually filed a pro se “Motion for Appeal” with the Appellate Court. Recognizing its lack of jurisdiction, the Appellate Court transferred the motion to the Supreme Court.

Everyone in Zimmerman—the State, the defendant, and the Appellate Court—agreed that “any further review must be exclusively by certiorari.”[8] Nevertheless, the Court provided a thorough discussion of the history of appellate review of District Court decisions—starting with the principle that “except as constitutionally authorized,” appellate jurisdiction “is determined entirely by statute and . . . therefore, a right of appeal must be legislatively granted.”[9] And although the predecessor to Courts & Judicial Proceedings § 12-302 “granted the ‘full power and right to appeal’ to any party aggrieved by the judgment of a county court,”[10] the Court had long interpreted that language not to apply “when a court exercises special limited statutory jurisdiction rather than its ordinary common law jurisdiction.”[11]

The Court also addressed an alternative argument that the Appellate Court could exercise discretionary review over the circuit court’s sentence under Courts & Judicial Proceedings § 12-302(g). That statute provides that “[r]eview of an order of a circuit court revoking probation shall be sought be application for leave to appeal,” but as the Supreme Court explained, that language gives the Appellate Court discretion not to consider an appeal of an original violation-of-probation case in circuit court, but has no relevance to the court’s jurisdiction over cases heard in the circuit court’s appellate capacity.

Zimmerman is interesting because in a single case, the Court had the opportunity to examine the jurisdiction of every level of the Maryland judiciary. And while it doesn’t break new jurisprudential ground, it provides a fresh look at some of the foundational principles of appellate jurisdiction, and is likely to be informative to anyone handling criminal cases in District Court.

*Steven M. Klepper was not involved in this post.

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[1] https://www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinions/coa/2025/19a24.pdf.

[2] https://mdappblog.com/2016/05/03/yes-appeal-options-matter-in-state-district-court/.

[3] Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 12-403.

[4]  Md. Rule 7-102(a).

[5] Cts. & Jud. Proc. §§ 12-301, 12-308.

[6] Id. § 12-302(a).

[7] Id. § 12-305 (“The Supreme Court of Maryland shall require by writ of certiorari that a decision be certified to it for review and determination in any case in which a circuit court has rendered a final judgment on appeal from the District Court . . . .”).

[8] Slip Op. at 8.

[9] Id. at 3 (quoting Gisriel v. Ocean City Bd. Of Supervisors of Elections, 345 Md. 477, 485 (1997)).

[10] Id. at 4 (quoting Gisriel, 345 Md. at 487).

[11] Id.