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Coming Soon To A Court Near You – Convicting The Unrepresented At The Bail Stage: An Autopsy Of A State High Court’S Sua Sponte Rejection Of Indigent Defendants’ Right To Counsel, Douglas L. Colbert Oct 2008

Coming Soon To A Court Near You – Convicting The Unrepresented At The Bail Stage: An Autopsy Of A State High Court’S Sua Sponte Rejection Of Indigent Defendants’ Right To Counsel, Douglas L. Colbert

Douglas L. Colbert

Recently, the Maryland Court of Appeals became the first state court of last resort to reject Gideon v. Wainwright’s guarantee of counsel at the bail stage. In ruling sua sponte that bail is not a critical stage entitling indigent defendants to invoke their constitutional right to counsel, the Fenner Court held that statements offered by an unrepresented and non-Mirandized indigent defendant were admissible at trial. I contend that the Fenner ruling may transform the pretrial fact-gathering process by providing prosecutors with an additional source of evidence against indigent defendants, namely statements made at a judicial proceeding for the purpose of …


Brief Of Amicus Curiae In Support Of Appellants, Quinton Richmond, Et Al., V. The District Court Of Maryland, Et Al., No. 08-54, Brenda Bratton Blom, Robert Rubinson, Phillip J. Closius Sep 2008

Brief Of Amicus Curiae In Support Of Appellants, Quinton Richmond, Et Al., V. The District Court Of Maryland, Et Al., No. 08-54, Brenda Bratton Blom, Robert Rubinson, Phillip J. Closius

Court Briefs

Amici curiae brief filed by 78 faculty members from the University of Maryland School of Law and the University of Baltimore School of Law, on behalf of Appellants Quinton Richmond, et al. Amicus members felt the need to comment on the application and implications of the statutory right to counsel under Maryland law for indigent criminal defendants. The issue before the Court of Appeals was whether the Court’s previous holding in McCarter v. State, 363 Md. 705 (2001), that the plain language of the Maryland Public Defender Act created a right to counsel during all stages of a criminal …