News & Commentary

This Women’s History Month, the ACLU wants to highlight a woman who is making a difference in her community and demanding equality for women entangled in the legal justice system. Qiana Johnson, Executive Director of Life After Release, is a formerly incarcerated person who has been advocating for pre-release centers for women preparing to return to their communities.

Over a hundred people from across the state attended this year’s Lobby Day and demanded action from their state legislators. From Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore, our members demonstrated that one way to make an impact in your community — and our state capital — is through advocating in person by meeting with your elected officials. 

During the height of the protests against the John Hopkins University private police force, many brave students and community members resisted peacefully on campus against a new force that represented a real, unaccountable threat, especially to students and community members of color.

On March 12, the Maryland Judiciary Committee considered HB 1001/ SB 774, which would limit the use of “restrictive housing” – the State’s term for solitary confinement – on children.

This piece originally appeared at The Baltimore Sun

Just one 24 hour period in my work this week showed how dangerously misguided Baltimore leaders continue to be in their efforts to reduce violence. They are looking once again to "tough on crime" policies that lock up more Black residents, for longer periods of time.

When Baltimore City’s chief lawyer Andre Davis reaffirmed several weeks ago that the City would not always agree to pay punitive damages judgments awarded against Baltimore Police Officers who intentionally and flagrantly abuse their authority, many people in Baltimore, including us at the ACLU of Maryland, cheered.  The hope was that holding officers personally accountable for paying those (very rare) punitive damages would help deter that kind of egregious misconduct.  So when the City announced after the verdict in the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) trial that it would not pay any damages awarded against the officers who plead or were found guilty, it is not surprising that some people also saw that as a step forward for individual police accountability.  But it isn’t.  Instead, it is a transparent attempt to again shift the cost of the BPD’s own repeated and systemic failures onto the people who have been victimized.

UPDATE: As this blog post was being sent to press, the court denied the Justice Department's request to delay Thursday's hearing. The court said, "The Government's motion is untimely. To postpone the public hearing at the eleventh hour would be to unduly burden and inconvenience the Court, the other