The Supreme Court of Maryland yesterday granted review in six appeals. Again this term, the grant list involves an unusually high proportion of unreported Appellate Court opinions under review (five unreported, no reported).

The other grant, Hunter v. State, involves a bypass petition that the State filed as appellee. That unusual posture explains why, although the case is captioned in the Supreme Court with the criminal defendant listed first, the “question presented” is drafted in a way that suggests the State should win as appellee. In that posture, the State’s framing of the question will not bind the appellant in his brief. See Md. Rule 8-131(b)(2) (“when the Supreme Court issues a writ of certiorari to review a case pending in the Appellate Court before a decision has been rendered by that Court, the Supreme Court will consider those issues that would have been cognizable by the Appellate Court”).

By Steve Klepper

The judiciary’s annual statistical reports give the overall grant rate for civil and criminal certiorari petitions. But, because unrepresented (pro se) parties file the majority of petitions each year, the overall statistics are not terribly helpful for lawyers in advising their clients about the odds of certiorari.

Below are the statistics for the Court’s 2025 Term (petitions docketed 3/1/2025 to 2/28/2026), alongside the statistics for the 2024 Term (petitions docketed 3/1/2024 to 2/29/2025) and the 2023 Term (3/1/2023 to 2/29/2024) for comparison.