Timing is Everything: Palmer v. State, Reported Opinion by the ACM
On August 28, 2025, the Appellate Court of Maryland published Marconi Palmer, Jr. v. State (No. 1728, September Term, 2023, reported opinion by Beachley), addressing the sufficiency of the evidence in a DUI case. Specifically, the ACM held, as a matter of first impression, that a temporal connection is needed between a defendant’s last operation of a vehicle and his observed intoxication to support a conviction for driving under the influence or impaired by alcohol. Because there was insufficient evidence to prove that Palmer was under the influence at the time of the accident, the ACM reversed the convictions for DUI and DWI. The dissent (Judge Zic) disagrees with the majority’s reliance on the “temporal connection” which comes from out-of-state case law and would have affirmed the convictions because the circumstantial inferences were sufficient for a jury to find that Palmer drove under the influence of alcohol. Stay tuned, this case may go up.
Read More…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]
Read More…Panel Splits on Stops for “Security Checks”
By: Chris Mincher
Police officers on the lookout for crime know that people with illegal things usually try to conceal them. If the object is big and bulky enough, sometimes that isn’t so easy. People who carry illicit items under their clothes might have to take some extra measures to make sure they stay there.
On the other hand, while concealing a firearm is typically a crime, generally shoving things into one’s pants is not. As such, Maryland courts have decided that mere adjustments and manipulations of the waistline don’t create a reasonable suspicion of illegal activity without some other indication that a gun is involved. But what if the police officer describes those adjustments and manipulations as specific “security checks” consistent with a potential concealed firearm? Does that pass muster for Fourth Amendment purposes?
Read More…The AI Apocalypse has Likely Already Hit Maryland’s Appellate Courts—What Mischief Can Be Expected, And What if Any Rules Should Apply?
Claude Monet, was considered the Father of the Impressionist movement, beginning in the latter half of the 1800s.[i] Impressionism went against “classic” principles of painting in many renaissance and baroque style works, usually by painters with academy training. Artists of the caliber of Michelangelo or Peter Paul Rubens, would begin art projects, taking years if necessary to painstakingly captured them with full details. Impressionism was on some level, the opposite. The best impressionists like Monet, could do a painting quickly onto a canvas, and without the level of detail that, at least through the end of the 19th Century, was necessary to be considered a masterpiece.
Well, good or bad, (mostly bad), impressionism, to use a metaphor, has come to appellate litigation, in the form of “Generative” AI. And with that sea-change on the horizon, at least without time-sensitive concerns of specific applicable Rules, Maryland appellate courts should expect a rapid increase in the number of appeals, potentially rising to a level reminiscent of the increase in appeals from the 1960s, and overall decrease in quality of appellate briefing. (It was this increase on expanded application of Federal Constitutional rights, that lead to the intermediate appellate courts in the United States, including the Appellate Court of Maryland being formed, to address the upsurge in criminal and post-conviction appeals.)
Read More…ACM Holding: Omitting “Against You” Won’t Be Held Against You
By: Chris Mincher
When it comes to the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), words matter. Although the law is clear that there is no specific mandatory Miranda language, straying from the traditional mantra raises questions. For example, is the notice that “everything that you say can be used on the court day” the same as “anything you say can be used against you in a court of law”? While the former ultimately passed muster in Alvarez-Garcia v. State, the Appellate Court panel split on the significance of omitting the phrase “against you.”
Read More…Coyle v. State: Ineffective Certiorari Counsel is Inconsequential
By: Chris Mincher
The murder of William Porter has been a bit of a wellspring for appellate criminal-law questions (many of which have been covered here already) and they’re still popping up 14 years later. Porter v. State produced judicial ink on self-defense, battered-spouse syndrome, the standard for jury instructions, and other wide-ranging topics. Now, earlier this year, Coyle v. State split the Appellate Court as to whether a defendant can, on the basis of ineffective assistance of counsel, file an untimely petition for writ of certiorari after his attorney — who was appointed by the Office of the Public Defender — botched the initial deadline. (Practice note: If you leave Bethesda at 3 p.m. in standstill beltway rush-hour traffic you may face difficulty getting to the Clerk’s Office in Annapolis by 4:30 close. Just a heads-up.)
Read More…Maryland Courts Ponder Preemption with Puzzling Results
By: Chris Mincher
Bonnie Campbell and her husband, Michael Campbell, got a divorce. As part of that, they executed an agreement in which Mr. Campbell expressly waived any right that he had to the proceeds of a “Federal Thrift Savings” retirement plan that was held by Ms. Campbell. The agreement further provided that if, for any reason, Ms. Campbell failed to change the plan’s beneficiary from Mr. Campbell to someone else, Mr. Campbell would either “disclaim … any entitlement to any benefits” from the Plan, “assign all rights” to receive Plan benefits to the Ms. Campbell’s estate, or directly pay the benefits to Ms. Campbell’s estate.
Ms. Campbell ultimately failed to change the beneficiary from Mr. Campbell to someone else. When she died, Mr. Campbell — rather than disclaiming entitlement to the proceeds, or assigning the rights to or directly paying the proceeds to the estate — applied for and received, without disclosing his previous agreement to the contrary, approximately $717,000 in proceeds from the plan.
Does that sound right? Might it be the correct result anyway?
Read More…Why Maryland Should Allow 28 Days for Post-Trial Motions
What attracts many lawyers to appellate practice—besides an unusual appetite for legal writing and a general distaste for contentious discovery—is the confidence that fire drills and surprises rarely occur. Appellate briefing deadlines and oral arguments are normally set months in advance, and extensions are liberally granted. Appellate lawyers often seem to be nicer (albeit nerdier) people. And everyone on appeal is bound by the trial-court record. No juries and no witnesses. Just the lawyers and a panel of judges applying the law to the settled facts on record.
This dynamic of unharried research and rules-driven deliberation often yields superior legal analysis, not because appellate lawyers are smarter than other litigators but because they usually have the time to reflect on an issue and get it right. They also know that opposing counsel and reviewing judges will have time to carefully consider whatever they write and say. Any missteps or misrepresentations will most likely be noticed and exposed.
Read More…Rules or Rulings: When Can an Agency Decide?
Regulatory agencies are often presented with the big issues of the day in different ways. A matter of policy — and controversy — may arise when an agency is requested to make a new regulation or rule, asked to award grants or funding, tasked with overseeing government projects, or resolving administrative complaints. Modern advocates see numerous potential paths to the desired outcome and employ multi-pronged strategies to try to get there.
Obviously, to those advocates, and the stakeholders and public affected, the policy that eventually results matters a lot. To the agencies — and the administrative lawyers who deal with them — how they consider the policy, and what procedures are used, also matter a lot. What power an agency has to pick the posture, forum, and mechanisms in which to consider disputed issues recently generated a split Appellate Court decision in In the Matter of Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, et al., that establishes some limitations on that discretion.
Read More…Denial of Right to Public Trial or De Minimis Violation?
In March 2024, the Supreme Court of Maryland (SCM) granted the State’s petition for certiorari in State v. Scarboro, ACM No. 1646 (Sept. Term 2022), SCM No. 4 (Sept. Term 2024), an unreported decision by Chief Judge Wells. The State’s petition presented the following question: when an appellant claims a Sixth Amendment violation of the right to a public trial based on the trial court’s ostensible denial of courtroom access, does the burden lie with appellant to establish preliminarily that the courtroom closure is significant enough (i.e. not “de minimis”) that it implicates the constitutional right and requires analysis under the four-part test articulated in Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 48 (1984)?
It is the first time in over 30 years that the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the right to a public trial, since its 1992 decision in Watters v. State, 328 Md. 38 (1992). In Watters, the SCM found a violation of the right to a public trial after a deputy sheriff, citing an overcrowded courtroom, prevented the public, the press, and members of the defendant’s family, from entering the courtroom for an entire morning during which voir dire and jury selection occurred. The SCM held that this was not a de minimis violation.
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