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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 …


Sentence Reduction As A Remedy For Prosecutorial Misconduct, Sonja Starr Sep 2008

Sentence Reduction As A Remedy For Prosecutorial Misconduct, Sonja Starr

Faculty Scholarship

Current remedies for prosecutorial misconduct, such as reversal of conviction or dismissal of charges, are rarely granted by courts and thus do not deter prosecutors effectively. Further, such all-or-nothing remedial schemes are often problematic from corrective and expressive perspectives, especially when misconduct has not affected the trial verdict. When granted, such remedies produce windfalls to guilty defendants and provoke public re-sentment, undermining their expressive value in condemning misconduct. To avoid such windfalls, courts must refuse to grant any remedy at all, either re-fusing to recognize violations or deeming them harmless. This often leaves significant non-conviction-related harms unremedied and egregious prosecu-torial …