The Maryland General Assembly recently passed strict laws aimed at eradicating street racing and exhibition driving, and now the Governor’s signature is all that is needed for the law to take effect as early as June 1 of this year.  House Bill 601 and Senate Bill 442 add significant penalties for drivers and other participants in organized highway speed contests and spontaneous racing or exhibition driving.  Up to 8 points will be assessed for any driver convicted of either racing or exhibition driving, and this jumps to 12 points if the act results in serious bodily injury.  Dr ..read more

While Maryland lawmakers are busy hamming out new legislation to send to the Governor for a signature two current state laws are under scrutiny in the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit.  These laws have been the subject of numerous headlines over the last few years, and now their Constitutionality is being put to the test.  The first law is the Maryland Handgun Qualification program, which requires all citizens to obtain a license in order to purchase a handgun.  The license, commonly known as an HQL, can only be obtained after a rigorous background check comple ..read more

The 2024 legislative session is about halfway through, and Maryland lawmakers are currently debating dozens of criminal and traffic bills that would become law as early as June 1.   One bill gaining a decent amount of attention is a measure introduced in both houses to criminalize exhibition driving throughout the state.  Exhibition driving is defined as operating a vehicle in a crowd or large gathering in a manner that includes abrupt acceleration or deceleration, skidding, squealing or smoking tires, or swerving a vehicle from side to side.  Those familiar with the Blog a ..read more

Montgomery County Police recently arrested a 31-year-old Hyattsville man after responding to a call for an armed robbery at a Safeway in Kensington.  According to police the man and an 18-year-old co-defendant attempted to steal merchandise from the store but were confronted by a loss prevention officer or LPO.  The LPO apparently tried to recover the merchandise from the thieves when the older male defendant pulled out a knife.  During the scuffle the LPO was cut on his chest and transported to a nearby hospital.  Most large retail stores have at least one loss prevention ..read more

Three men were arrested after Prince George’s County Police executed a search warrant at an apartment in Laurel.  Police seized more than 3,000 fentanyl pills, cash and numerous weapons.  One of the weapons was an AK-47 style semi-automatic machine gun.  The main defendant, was recently charged by the State’s Attorney’s Office in a 20-count Circuit Court indictment, which includes eight felony counts. The charges include possession with intent to distribute narcotics, possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, firearm possession in a drug trafficking crime, CDS possession an ..read more

When recreational marijuana use became legal this past summer police officers were stripped of a major law enforcement tool.  Probable cause vehicle searches based solely on the smell of cannabis has over the years resulted in hundreds if not thousands of arrests in Maryland for crimes ranging from drug trafficking to transporting a firearm.  Many of these searches were suspect, as officers frequently performed them without ever locating actual marijuana.  In cases where police seized other contraband such as guns, narcotics or stolen property from a vehicle an arrest was made ..read more

The Maryland State Police recently announced that its troopers will be out in force this weekend as millions of motorists are expected to hit the road for holiday travel and celebrations.  All 23 trooper barracks from the Eastern Shore to Western Maryland will participate in the increased patrol effort, which is being funded in part by the Maryland Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Administration’s Highway Safety Office.  The State Police will deploy specially trained troopers who have been taught to identify impaired drivers through the use of tactics such as driving patter ..read more

According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland a 19-year-old man from Greenbelt recently received an 8-year prison sentence in a multi count federal indictment.  Following completion of the prison sentence, which is not parole eligible, the young defendant will be on three years of supervised release. Supervised release is the federal terminology for probation, and violation of supervised release can lead to an additional jail sentence.  The case resolved by way of a guilty plea to illegal possession of a machinegun, possession with intent to distr ..read more

The Montgomery County Council is determined to crack down on driving while impaired by cannabis, but the method by which to accomplish this goal is still in still very much up for debate.  This week members of the Montgomery County Council’s Public Safety Committee met to discuss the issue of marijuana induced impaired driving and the meeting offered some insight on the challenges facing police officers who are tasked with enforcing Maryland impaired driving laws. There is currently no valid scientific test for marijuana impairment that compares to a breathalyzer test, which is used to te ..read more

The Maryland State Police recently issued an agency-wide memo instructing its employees to continue to uphold the HQL law, which was just declared unconstitutional by a panel of three federal judges last week in Richmond.  Citing the infamous 2022 Supreme Court decision out of New York, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Maryland’s Handgun Qualification License is overly burdensome and not consistent with historically accepted limitations on firearm purchases.  Gun lobbyists from the NRA hailed the ruling as a major victory, while state officials including the Governo ..read more