Upper Marlboro Criminal Defense Law Blog

Some Maryland residents may have seen firsthand the effect that increased incarceration rates can have on a community. Although the incarceration rate in the United States has diminished slightly in recent years, there is no country on the planet that has an incarceration rate as high as the United States.

This has is led to some people questioning why arrest rates have increased in the United States although crime rates have been consistently dropping. For example, only 6.4% of Americans born prior to 1949 have ever been arrested. However, 23% of Americans born between the years of 1979 and 1988 have been arrested. This means that Americans who are currently between the ages of 26 and 35 are 3.6 times more likely to have been arrested by time they reach the age of 26 than Americans who are currently 66 years of age and older.

A Maryland man who had been previously convicted of dealing heroin and fentanyl was sentenced by a United States district judge to nine years in prison. The man is one of the first to be sentenced under a new federal-state initiative in Maryland, which aims to stop the fentanyl crisis.

In April 2018, police pulled the man over after observing him drift between lanes and fail to use a signal when turning. Police said they smelled marijuana when talking with the man and initiated a search of the vehicle. Officers found 49 grams of fentanyl, over $4,000 in cash and a drug ledger that listed the names and dates of people who allegedly purchased drugs. The man was convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.

Prosecutors say that jailhouse informants are a prime source of accurate information that can hold people accountable for the crimes they have committed. However, groups such as the Innocence Project say that the information they provide may not necessarily be credible. Individuals who are in prison in Maryland or elsewhere may receive lighter sentences or other perks for providing what they know. This could create a conflict of interest as an individual could simply tell prosecutors what they want to hear.

A law in Connecticut would keep track of such informants and any benefits that they have received from prosecutors in exchange for their testimony. Connecticut's legislation is the only state requiring that this information be tracked on a statewide level. The law would also require a pretrial hearing to determine if the testimony should be heard at all. In Illinois, similar legislation was passed that would require a judge to determine how credible an informant's testimony was before a trial began.

On Sept. 4, a former Maryland resident pleaded guilty to multiple drug charges for transporting large amounts of marijuana into the state from 2003 until June 2009. He is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 8.

According to media reports, the 43-year-old defendant and a group of co-conspirators created a fake company to transport hundreds of pounds of marijuana from California to warehouses in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Once the drugs arrived, they were distributed to local dealers and sold to consumers. Proceeds ranging from $100,000 to $1 million were then transported back to California to pay for more drugs.