Criminal justice

Baltimore Circuit Judge John Addison Howard said it would be a “miscarriage of justice” to impose a harsh sentence for Tracie Minor, 36, of Mondawmin, a former educator who accidentally dropped her bag containing a loaded handgun at KIPP Harmony Academy in West Baltimore on Dec. 21, 2023.

The largely unexplained decision has left Ridgely residents skeptical and on edge.

The killing of a Maryland judge and a rise in threats against the state’s judges necessitated the passage of legislation to better protect them, the president and president-elect of the Maryland State Bar Association say.

Howard County Police have not released many new details about the recent Ellicott City fatal crash.

In court documents filed on Monday, Deborah Katz Levi and James Dills, David Linthicum’s attorneys, asked a judge to throw out the charges against their client or bar all witnesses from the Baltimore County Police Department from testifying at trial.

A Maryland labor attorney is set to become the first openly gay judge on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after winning final confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Howard County Police have arrested a 41-year-old man in the Feb. 8 fatal shooting of 67-year-old Perry Comeau inside his home on the 9500 block of Half Dollar Court in Columbia.

The federal court’s decision, depending on which way and how aggressively it rules, could have serious implications for any laws restricting gun ownership.

Maryland automatically charges more teens as adults than almost any other state. An analysis of recent decisions found that some judges rely on what juvenile justice advocates say is unfair reasoning to keep those young people in adult court.

New mothers face a lot of challenges, and in Baltimore one of them is serving jury duty.

A Baltimore County music shop is trying to find the man who stole a $2,200 electric guitar from them last weekend.

Brice Boots was found dead on Jan. 10 inside a 2003 Toyota Sequoia in a field about 650 feet off the road in Frederick County. He was 65. The Frederick County State's Attorney's Office alleges that his estranged wife, Frances Hamilton, and one of her nephews, Keon Wilson-Hawkins, conspired to kill him.

While shootings victimizing teens between ages 13 and 18 remain above pre-pandemic levels, they have fallen sharply this year compared to the same time period in 2023, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis of police data.

Louis Maurice Mason, 67, died recently in the Baltimore Central Booking and Intake Center. He struggled with homelessness and substance use issues.

Police and the FBI on Monday identified Donald Willard, a former Montgomery County resident who died in 2010, as the second suspect in the killing of 16-year-old Pamela Lynn Conyers in 1970. An initial suspect, also deceased, was named a year ago. DNA tests helped solve a case that had gone cold for decades.

Most of the proposals on the long wish list Gov. Wes Moore sent to lawmakers are moving forward ahead of a key deadline Monday.

More and more, Glock switches — tiny devices that turn a handgun fully automatic — are appearing on city streets.

A 21-year-old student was found dead Saturday near a parking garage at Towson University, and police were investigating the circumstances.

An inmate at Jessup Correctional Institution set a fire Friday night that prompted the evacuation of a housing unit at the maximum-security prison, a Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services spokesperson said.

James Michael Harris, 46, stole $29,000 tied to the chocolate sale organized by the parent teacher student association for Stemmers Run Middle School in Essex, Baltimore County.