Brief filed: 11/22/2022
Documents
Smith v. Maryland
Court of Appeals of Maryland; Case No. COA-PET-0290-2022
Prior Decision
See: www.nacdl.org/brief/Smith-v-Maryland.
Question Presented
David B. Smith, NACDL, Washington, DC; Jonathan M. Cohen, John Longstreth, Tre A. Holloway, K&L Gates LLP, Washington, DC.
Argument(s)
In this extraordinary case, the State conceded that it engaged in “intentional, willful, and/or reckless misconduct” to secure the conviction of Jonathan Smith when it suppressed exculpatory evidence, concealed an agreement involving a key witness who closely assisted in the State’s investigation, and repeatedly lied about this misconduct. On remand from this Court, the Attorney General agreed that this egregious and willful misconduct warranted dismissing the charges against Mr. Smith. Giving little if any weight to these concessions, the Court of Special Appeals applied an impossibly high constitutional bar for due process dismissals that is contrary to this Court’s prior opinion in this matter and to standards in other jurisdictions whose rulings the court purported to survey. Rather than sanctioning the State for its misconduct, the ruling allowed the State to retry Mr. Smith as if its misconduct never occurred and gravely minimized the resulting prejudice to Mr. Smith on any retrial. This is not a meaningful sanction to deter prosecutions, such as this one, that are pervaded from their inception by admittedly egregious and willful prosecutorial misconduct. This Court should grant certiorari to address this issue of first impression, and to devise a standard that adequately deters future prosecutorial misconduct.
Author(s)
David B. Smith, NACDL, Washington, DC; Jonathan M. Cohen, John Longstreth, Tre A. Holloway, K&L Gates LLP, Washington, DC.
