Last night around 9:00 PM I get a call to represent one of the two people who have warrants for drug possession. The case is over a year old and they did not know they were charged until a letter from the MVA suspending one of their driving privileges for an open warrant arrived yesterdayThe two of them were in an automobile overdosed and a Good Samaritan called 911. The police arrived, Narcaned them and took the drugs in the car for analysis. After analysis they conferred with a prosecutor and brought possession charges. Now all of this happened a year ago. As soon as I heard the facts, I told my co-counsel that the Court of Special Appeals had decided the EXACT case last week and held that based on the Good Samaritan Law involving drug overdoses, the two of them were IMMUNE from prosecution.
I left my laptop at the office so I had to do a new Microsoft Word log-in password madness to prepare my Entry of Appearance. The MDEC system wouldn’t let me upload my Entry of Appearance until I had to use a template. It took forever after I converted it to a PDF to find a place to store it (no desktop option on the IPAD) where I could upload it. All done after midnight. Of course I read the opinion again.
The filing was accepted a little before 9:00 AM so I was able to read the charging document and it was just as the clients described. I sent a copy of the opinion and the case information to the State and got an email back before I had finished my bagel and coffee that she was going to review it. At 12:30 I got an email and a copy of the Motion to Dismiss the cases based on a review of the case I sent.
Now I go the Court’s Opinions website multiple times a day to see when new decisions are filed. They do it all day long.. Then I review every single criminal case and try to read each opinion, so that when a client calls at 9:00 PM and should not have been charged, I can rectify it the next morning. It doesn’t’t always work this way because this was 100% clear cut. The hours I put in last night were rewarded by an equally diligent prosecutor who didn’t wait to review this and did what the law required. One of the reasons why the Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office is as professional and fine an office anywhere. Oh… the clients are very happy.