2015 Developments in Combating “Link Rot”
By Michael Wein
One of the consequences of the greater availability and ubiquity of legal opinions online is that authors can directly hyperlink to sources, including other online decisions, and thus provide immediate access to the source material. This has led to the unintended consequence of “link rot” in appellate decisions — that is, the inclusion of links that are no longer valid. As noted in a 2013 New York Times article, at that time, 49 percent of links in online U.S. Supreme Court decisions were inoperative.
Book Review: Jay Wexler’s “Tuttle in the Balance”
For the second straight year, the American Bar Association’s Ankerwyke imprint is releasing an entertaining novel for the U.S. Supreme Court enthusiast on your holiday shopping list. Last year’s release was David Lat’s Supreme Ambitions, a tale of intrigue among elite federal appellate law clerks competing for Supreme Court clerkships. This year’s treat is Jay Wexler’s Tuttle in the Balance, the story of a Supreme Court justice experiencing a delayed midlife crisis at age 62. Lat’s novel had an irreverent tone but did not play for laughs; in Tuttle in the Balance, however, the laughs come early and often.
COSA: Court of Substantial Agreement
Update (11/11/2015): I figured my “crude, imperfect manual count” would miss something, and, sure enough, I failed to catch a dissent in an unusual per curiam unreported opinion in Spencer v. State, Sept. Term 2014, No. 0493 (Oct. 2, 2015) (Nazarian, J., dissenting). That brings the totals to nine dissents in the 726 cases — which is still a rate of about 1 percent — and six of the 15 judges who wrote a dissent between May and October.
Between May 1, when unreported Court of Special Appeals opinions began being posted online, and the close of October, a half-year of complete decisions of the intermediate appellate court were, for the first time, made available to Maryland court-watchers. That’s a sufficient sample size to do a crude, imperfect manual count and generate some data about the rate of reporting. It’s also useful for a few observations about the infrequency of disagreement among the three-judge panels.
Prepare for Some Changes to the Maryland Appellate Rules
Although the Court of Appeals of Maryland’s Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure meets regularly, and the Court routinely considers proposed changes to the Maryland Rules, their activities impact the appellate rules with less frequency than a blue moon.* In September, however, the Court of Appeals adopted a number of modifications to the appellate rules that will apply to practitioners beginning January 1, 2016.
Gun Control, State Courts, and Federalism
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh and Congressional Representative Christopher Van Hollen recently jointly announced separate but complementary campaigns to encourage other states to enact laws similar to certain Maryland firearms laws.[1] Those laws, among other things, prohibit the sale of particular semiautomatic weapons and require fingerprinting and background checks at the time of a handgun purchase, dealers to forward a regulated firearm’s sample shell casing to the Maryland State Police for inclusion in a ballistics database, private sales of firearms to occur at a State Police barracks, and a license to purchase handguns.[2] According to Attorney General Frosh, despite Maryland’s laws, the state’s efforts to curb gun violence continue, not surprisingly, to be compromised by laxer laws in other jurisdictions.
Court of Special Appeals rejects attempt to make bank account ownership a black-and-white issue
Businesses often desire the certainty and predictability of rules expressed in stark, absolute terms. But as the Court of Special Appeals recently reminded us, some legal questions are not best answered with black‑and‑white tests, but instead must often sort out facts that appear in various shades of gray. In Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc. v. Andrews, Sept. Term 2014, No. 935 (Oct. 1, 2015), the Court rejected a judgment creditor’s effort to garnish a bank account jointly owned by the judgment debtor and refused to adopt the per se rule urged by the creditor.
October 2015 Maryland Certiorari Grants
Yesterday’s conference of the Court of Appeals yielded five cert grants. The grants include two family law cases, plus environmental law, criminal sentencing, and proof of lead paint exposure. The full list is after the jump. Read More…
In Reversing Kulbicki v. State, How Did the U.S. Supreme Court Review the Record?
By Michael Wein
Last week, as noted by Blog Editor-in-Chief Steve Klepper, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short four-page summary reversal of the Maryland Court of Appeals’ decision in Kulbicki v. State. The reversal followed three relists for the case at the end of the last term, a circumstance I covered in a post in June. Both posts noted a likelihood of some written decision being issued, either a summary reversal or an opinion regarding denial of certiorari.
Meet the Newest Applicants for the Court of Special Appeals
As indicated in the applicants list posted on the Maryland Judicial Vacancies website yesterday, more than 25 candidates have lined up to jockey for Judge Zarnoch’s seat on the Court of Special Appeals. As to be expected, there is remarkable variety in the group, from current sitting judges to esteemed public servants to distinguished private practitioners to versatile legal minds who have done a bit of it all. Below is the lineup with the applicants’ web pages and current gigs; from what we could briefly scrape off those pages – which is obviously limited by the availability of public bios and the information on them – we also cobbled some numbers to demonstrate the diversity of experience among this round of bench-seekers.
Public Defender Responds to Cell-Site Info Petition for Rehearing
Back in August, Jonathan Biran posted on this blog regarding the Fourth Circuit’s split decision in United States v. Graham on warrantless requests for cell-site location information. The Government proceeded to petition for en banc rehearing (petition available here) last month, and the Fourth Circuit ordered a response. Read More…
Maryland Appellate Blog 