Changing Times

The Maryland legislature has passed a bill allowing the state Attorney General to prosecute police brutality.

Given that local States Attornies are loath to prosecute even the most egregious police misconduct, and when they have no alternative but prosecution, they try to lose the case, because they do not want to go up against the local police unions, this is a welcome development.

The Maryland House of Delegates voted Thursday to give final approval to legislation that will authorize the state’s Attorney General’s Office to prosecute police for unjustly killing or seriously injuring civilians.

Senate Bill 280, sponsored by Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Chair Will Smith, passed on a vote of 99-37. Because it was not amended in the House chamber, it does not need final approval from the Senate before it is signed into law by Gov. Wes Moore.

The bill builds on 2021 police reform legislation tasking the Independent Investigations Division of the Attorney General’s Office with the responsibility of investigating circumstances where excessive force was potentially exerted by law enforcement.

Under current law, local state’s attorneys decide if officers should be prosecuted after they receive the attorney general report.

House Republicans didn’t pass Smith’s legislation without a fight, lobbing four amendments at the bill. They all failed.

………

[House Judiciary Committee Chair Luke] Clippinger explained that the legislation “takes the next step” to ensure prosecution after the “extensive debates” the General Assembly had regarding police accountability and reform in 2021. The House Chair also argued that giving current Attorney General Anthony Brown the power to pursue these cases — as Marylanders trust him to do with Medicaid fraud and environmental and organized crime — would remove doubt or bias in prosecutorial decisions because the attorney general is elected statewide and his office is an independent agency.

This would never have happened before the George Floyd protests.

There is an increasing recognition by society, and by the political establishment, that when police are allowed to act without restraint, abuse is the inevitable result.