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Tag: Maryland state government

  • New Maryland provider opening in post-Roe ‘abortion desert’

    New Maryland provider opening in post-Roe ‘abortion desert’

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    CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A new abortion provider is opening this year in Democratic-controlled Maryland — just across from deeply conservative West Virginia, where state lawmakers recently passed a near-total abortion ban.

    The Women’s Health Center of Maryland in Cumberland, roughly 5 miles (8 kilometers) from West Virginia, will open its doors in June — a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections — to provide abortions to patients across central Appalachia, a region clinic operators say is an “abortion desert.”

    “Hours in any direction, there are no other abortion providers here — it’s smack dab in the middle of an absolute abortion desert, and that’s by design,” said Katie Quiñonez, executive director of the Charleston-based Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, the state’s lone abortion clinic until it was forced to stop the procedures after legislators in September passed a ban with narrow exemptions.

    The Cumberland clinic will be the only independent reproductive health care center in the area and the western-most provider of surgical and medical abortion and gender-affirming hormone therapy in Maryland. Quiñonez, who will also serve as the Maryland clinic’s executive director, said the facility will be a more accessible option for patients in northern West Virginia, western Maryland, south central Pennsylvania and Ohio, where an abortion ban is under injunction.

    Independent abortion clinics provide most abortions in the U.S. — especially for people with low-incomes who live in isolated, rural states hostile to abortion access. The clinics are more likely to offer abortion after the first trimester and to provide both surgical and medication abortion options, according to the Abortion Care Network, the national association for independent abortion care providers.

    Dozens of independent clinics across the country have been forced to close their doors since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and in 14 states, there are no abortion clinics at all.

    At least 66 clinics in 15 states have stopped providing abortions since the decision, according the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. The number of clinics providing abortions in those 15 states dropped from 79 to 13 by October of last year, with the remaining clinics in Georgia.

    When West Virginia lawmakers passed their sweeping abortion ban, several members of the Republican majority said they hoped it would force the Women’s Health Center of West Virginia to shut down. Republican Sen. Robert Karnes said he believed shuttering the center was “going to save a lot of babies.” Brandon Steele, a Republican in the state’s House of Delegates, called abortion access “a scar” and “a curse” lawmakers had to “remove from this land.”

    West Virginia patients seeking an abortion now have to take time off work, travel hundreds of miles and pay for lodging and other accommodations, “all to get basic health care,” Quiñonez said.

    “Our communities deserve better — people should be able to access abortion care without delay or barriers,” she said.

    The Women’s Health Center of Maryland will provide abortion services into the second trimester and will accept Maryland Medicaid, which covers abortion. It will also offer annual exams, contraception, testing and treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases, as well as breast and cervical cancer screenings.

    Although no abortions can be provided there, West Virginia’s clinic is still open and offers other reproductive health care and hard-to-find services, like gender-affirming hormone therapy. But Quiñonez said they still get calls from anxious patients who don’t know where to go for an abortion. Until the Maryland clinic opens and can take referrals, her staff has no other option but to send callers to a website to find out-of-state services.

    Since January 2022, the clinic’s abortion fund has distributed $150,000 for more than 800 people, mostly West Virginia residents.

    Maryland has a Democratic governor and a Democratic-controlled General Assembly that has shown commitment to preserving abortion access. Abortion is legal in Maryland until about 24 weeks into pregnancy.

    The nearest independent reproductive health clinic to Cumberland that provides abortion and gender-affirming hormone therapy is a Planned Parenthood 90 miles (145 kilometers) away in Frederick. That facility provides medication abortion only.

    A closer clinic in Hagerstown is open for abortions during limited hours a few times a month. It provides first-trimester abortions only and doesn’t accept Maryland Medicaid — a barrier to low-income patients, Quiñonez said. Otherwise, patients must travel more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) to Pittsburgh or even further, to Baltimore or Washington, D.C.

    Renovations started last week on the Cumberland clinic — crews were installing new medical equipment and signage, deep cleaning, applying fresh paint, replacing floors and patching drywall.

    The cost for the facility, licensing and renovations is roughly $1.17 million. First-year operating costs — to include payroll, building operations — are projected to be around $763,000. Both the West Virginia and Maryland clinics are funded by donations, foundations and organizations in support of expanding abortion access in the U.S.

    The Women’s Health Center of Maryland will have its own finances and, eventually, state-based board of directors. The Women’s Health Center of West Virginia’s directors will act as the board while the organization recruits new, locally-based members.

    “Folks have always needed abortions — since the beginning of time,” Quiñonez said. “And they will always need abortions until the end of time. We are going to keep fighting to get every patient the care they need.”

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  • The AP Interview: Gov. Wes Moore reflects on first 2 months

    The AP Interview: Gov. Wes Moore reflects on first 2 months

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    ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Thursday he’s aiming for “the most full assault on child poverty” to ever happen in Maryland during his first legislative session, touching on a wide variety of topics in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

    The governor, a Democrat, spoke about concerns in the banking industry after the second and third largest bank failures in U.S. history, his support for President Joe Biden, his thoughts on reparations for slavery, expanding the use of electric vehicles and police reform during the interview, among other topics.

    Two months into his tenure, Moore, who is Maryland’s first Black chief executive and the third Black governor ever elected in the nation, noted the historical nature of his landslide November victory. He said his portrait will look “a little bit different” than the ones of white governors on the walls inside Maryland’s Capitol.

    “I received more individual votes for governor than anyone else on these walls,” Moore, a Democrat, said. “But I also know that Marylanders didn’t vote for me because they wanted me to make history. They voted for me because they believed in our vision.”

    His proposal to extend and expand tax credits for low-income residents is moving forward in the Democratic-controlled Legislature. His push for accelerating a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour also is advancing but so far without a provision he proposed to create automatic increases in future years to adjust for inflation.

    Here’s what the governor had to say some key issues facing the nation and the state he is governing:

    BANKING

    In the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, Moore, who is a former investment banker, said Maryland has not had any significant impacts. He said a big reason for that partially was the swift movements of the federal government to be able to ensure that the depositors were not hurt and were covered.

    “You have to make sure that you have supports for your small regional banks,” Moore said. “The second thing, though, is we want to make sure that the depositors are not the ones being hurt by all this.”

    PRESIDENT BIDEN

    Moore said he’s excited about the partnership that the state of Maryland has right now with the White House and Biden.

    “I want that partnership to continue,” Moore said. “And I’m not only supporting President Biden’s reelection; I plan on helping however I can.”

    REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY

    As the city of San Francisco considers how to address the thorny question of how to atone for centuries of slavery and systemic racism, Moore said he understands why people continue to debate the issue “because the consequences that we saw from the transatlantic slave trade still continue to be real in people’s lives now.”

    “I also know that we have to move now to be able to address the issues of housing insecurity and food insecurity, the racial wealth gap, the educational disparities — the things that we know right now we can get done,” Moore said. “We have an obligation to move with a sense of urgency, so we don’t continue watching how families who have often times historically have been disadvantaged continue to be disadvantaged by policies that we still continue to put in place.”

    ABORTION

    Moore has stood in full support with Democrats in the legislature to enshrine abortion rights in the Maryland Constitution and other measures to protect abortion rights in the state.

    “As long as I’m governor, Maryland will be a safe haven for abortion rights,” Moore said.

    ELECTRIC CARS

    The governor announced this week that Maryland will move forward with requiring all new vehicles sold in the state to be electric by 2035, as California has decided.

    “Is it going to be hard? Yes. Is it bold? Yes. Will Maryland get it done? Absolutely, we will,” Moore said. “And it means we are going to focus on things like the electrification of the grid, so we actually have the infrastructure in place to be able to manage it.”

    POLICE REFORM

    Moore said he supports an expansion of police reform laws approved two years ago in Maryland. Part of those reforms requires the Maryland attorney general to investigate police-involved deaths but leaves local prosecutors with the decision to prosecute. Legislation advancing in Maryland would give the attorney general the authority to independently prosecute officers.

    CHILD SEX ABUSE

    The governor said he supports legislation advancing in the state Senate to end the statute of limitations on bringing a civil lawsuit against a public or private entity for child sex abuse.

    “I support the bill, because I believe that in order for us to actually truly be able to work towards making it right for that individual and for that victim, that we have to make sure that there are laws that are responsive to the fact that that pain still continues to endure,” Moore said.

    FBI HEADQUARTERS

    Moore, who met with the General Services Administration last week on Maryland’s intense competition with Virginia to be the location for a new FBI headquarters, said he’s confident the administration will listen to concerns raised by him and members of the state’s congressional delegation that the evaluation process has been unfair to Maryland. Maryland officials contend the Virginia location is more costly and will take longer than either of two Maryland sites under consideration.

    REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

    Moore emphasized that he has already appointed the most diverse Cabinet of secretaries to ever lead state agencies in Maryland.

    “I think Maryland is on America’s mind right now, because I think what we’re able to do inside of the state of Maryland and show that democracy can be not just participatory, but inclusive,” Moore said. “And that’s what makes it strong.”

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  • Some Democratic-led states seek to bolster voter protections

    Some Democratic-led states seek to bolster voter protections

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers in several Democratic-controlled states are advocating sweeping voter protections this year, reacting to what they view as a broad undermining of voting rights by the Supreme Court and Republican-led states as well as a failed effort in Congress to bolster access to the polls.

    Legislators in Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico have introduced voting rights measures, while Michigan’s secretary of state is preparing a plan.

    Among other things, the proposals would require state approval for local governments to change redistricting or voting procedures, ban voter suppression and intimidation, mandate that ballots are printed in more languages, increase protections for voters with disabilities, ensure the right to vote for those with previous felony convictions and instruct judges to prioritize voter access when hearing election-related challenges.

    The measures are taking a much wider approach than legislation targeting a single aspect of voting or elections law. They seek to implement on a statewide basis many of the protections under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, a law that many Democrats and voting rights groups say is being stripped of its most important elements.

    If the legislation is enacted, the states would join California, New York, Oregon, Washington and Virginia in having comprehensive voting rights laws.

    “It’s up to states now to ensure that the right to vote is protected,” said Janai Nelson, president of the the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

    Maryland’s proposal includes a requirement for local voting changes to receive preapproval, mirroring core provisions of the federal law that was struck down by the Supreme Court a decade ago.

    Maryland was not among the states, mostly in the South, that was covered under the provision known as preclearance before the court ended it. But lawmakers there saw it as important because of persistent concerns over how districts for local governing bodies have been drawn, said Morgan Drayton, policy and engagement manager at Common Cause Maryland.

    “A lot of our maps here are drawn behind closed doors, and there’s not a lot of input from the public that’s able to be given,” she said. “So this would do a lot to make these processes more transparent.”

    In Maryland’s Baltimore County, a lawsuit claimed the county council’s map packed most Black voters into a single district. The state legislation would require jurisdictions in Maryland with a history of voter discrimination to have redistricting and election changes cleared by the state attorney general.

    Democratic state Del. Stephanie Smith, a co-sponsor of the legislation, said that despite Maryland’s racial diversity and history of diversity in its political leadership, “access to the ballot and equitable representation is uneven.”

    “This bill strengthens our commitment to voting access and protections at a time of great stress on our democratic institutions,” she said.

    Proposals in Michigan and New Mexico address harassment against election workers and voters, especially those in minority communities. One of several bills in New Mexico would protect election officials, from the secretary of state to county and municipal elections clerks, from intimidation. That would be defined as inducing or attempting to induce fear, and a violation would be punishable as a fourth-degree felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison.

    Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said she will seek similar protections for voters, including prohibiting firearms within a certain distance of polling places.

    “We need an explicit ban on voter suppression and intimidation,” she said.

    Connecticut’s legislation would expand language assistance for voters who speak, read or understand languages other than English. Language assistance is covered under the federal law, but only specifies protections for Spanish-speakers and for Asian, Native American and Alaska Native language minorities.

    Ballots offered in Arabic, Haitian Creole and other languages also are needed, said Steven Lance, policy counsel at the national NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

    A language would be covered if the group speaking it is more than 2% of the citizens of voting age in a particular municipality or the group includes more than 4,000 citizens of voting age, under Connecticut’s legislative proposal.

    Residents also would have the right to ask the secretary of state to review whether a certain language should be covered, Lance said.

    In New Jersey, advocacy organizations are pushing to expand voting rights legislation to include more groups that would be specifically protected from discrimination, including the state’s sizable Arab American population.

    “A reality is the federal VRA was originally crafted in 1965, and while there have been other bills in the decade since, the VRA doesn’t reflect the diversity of the population of New Jersey in 2023,” said Henal Patel, law & policy director at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.

    Some state voting rights bills also seek to create databases for information that has not always been readily available, such as polling place locations, voting rules and redistricting maps. The bills also would specify that state judges interpret voting laws in a way that ensures people maintain their right to vote.

    Democrats in Minnesota are pushing numerous voting changes, including restoring voting rights to felons as soon as they are released from prison, allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister so they are ready to vote as soon as they turn 18 and automatically registering people to vote when they obtain or renew their driver’s licenses.

    Passing state voting rights legislation is only half the battle, said state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, a Virginia Democrat who introduced a state voting rights act that passed in 2021 when Democrats controlled both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office.

    McClellan noted that ensuring voting rights historically was a bipartisan issue, but said Republicans are now focused on “fighting phantom voter fraud” — making this year’s Virginia legislative elections all the more important.

    “The entire General Assembly is up for election this year, and I think that’s going to be a big theme in the election — that if we want to protect our progress on voting rights, we’re going to need to make sure that Democrats keep the Senate and regain the majority in the House,” McClellan said.

    McClellan won a special election this past week to fill an open seat in the U.S. House, where she will make history as the first Black woman to represent the state in Congress.

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Adnan Syed hired by Georgetown’s prison reform initiative

    Adnan Syed hired by Georgetown’s prison reform initiative

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    ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Adnan Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, the university said.

    Syed started working this month for the initiative, which advocates for others in the criminal legal system, the university tweeted Wednesday.

    In his new role, Syed will support Georgetown’s “Making an Exoneree” class, in which students reinvestigate decades-old wrongful convictions, create short documentaries about the cases and work to help bring innocent people home from prison, the university wrote in an online announcement.

    “PJI’s team and programming has so much to gain from Adnan’s experience, insight, and commitment to serving incarcerated people and returning citizens,” the organization tweeted.

    Syed had been one of 25 incarcerated students at Georgetown’s inaugural Bachelor of Liberal Arts program at the Patuxent Institute in Jessup, Maryland, during the year leading up to his release, the university said.

    “To go from prison to being a Georgetown student and then to actually be on campus on a pathway to work for Georgetown at the Prisons and Justice Initiative, it’s a full circle moment,” Syed said in the university’s announcement. “PJI changed my life. It changed my family’s life. Hopefully I can have the same kind of impact on others.”

    Syed, 41, hopes to continue his Georgetown education and eventually go to law school.

    After spending 23 years in prison, he walked out of a Baltimore courthouse in September after a judge overturned his conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee, Syed’s ex-girlfriend.

    Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ordered his release at the behest of prosecutors who said they had recently uncovered new evidence.

    Prosecutors said a reinvestigation of the case revealed evidence regarding the possible involvement of two alternate suspects. The two suspects may have been involved individually or together, the state’s attorney’s office said.

    The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation and were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense, prosecutors said.

    Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby’s office also cited new results from DNA testing that was conducted using a more modern technique than when evidence in the case was first tested. The recent testing excluded Syed as a suspect, prosecutors said.

    Syed always maintained his innocence. His case captured the attention of millions in 2014 when the debut season of “Serial” focused on Lee’s killing and raised doubts about some of the evidence prosecutors had used. The program shattered podcast-streaming and downloading records.

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  • Free ride: DC unveils bold plan to boost public transit

    Free ride: DC unveils bold plan to boost public transit

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    WASHINGTON — The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare for the District of Columbia and other major cities that public transit was a lifeline for essential workers and that even modest fares could be a burden to them. So the nation’s capital is introducing a groundbreaking plan: It will begin offering free bus fares to residents next summer.

    Other cities, including Los Angeles and Kansas City, Missouri, suspended fare collection during the height of the pandemic to minimize human contact and ensure that residents with no other travel options could reach jobs and services at hospitals, grocery stores and offices.

    But D.C.‘s permanent free fare plan will be by far the biggest, coming at a time when major cities including Boston and Denver and states such as Connecticut are considering broader zero-fare policies to improve equity and help regain ridership that was lost with the rise of remote and hybrid work. Los Angeles instituted free fares in 2020 before recently resuming charging riders. Lately LA Metro has been testing a fare-capping plan under which transit riders pay for trips until they hit a fixed dollar amount and then ride free after that, though new Mayor Karen Bass has suggested support for permanently abolishing the fares.

    Analysts say D.C.’s free fare system offers a good test case on how public transit can be reshaped for a post-pandemic future.

    “If D.C. demonstrates that it increases ridership, it reduces the cost burden for people who are lower income and it improves the quality of transit service in terms of speed of bus service, and reduces cars on the road, this could be a roaring success,” said Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute. “We just don’t know yet whether that would happen.”

    The $2 fares will be waived for riders boarding Metrobuses within the city limits beginning around July 1. In unanimously approving the plan last week, the D.C. Council also agreed to expand bus service to 24 hours on 12 major routes downtown, benefiting nightlife and service workers who typically had to rely on costly ride-share to get home after the Metro subway and bus system closed at night.

    A new $10 million fund devoted to annual investments in D.C. bus lanes, shelters and other improvements was also approved to make rides faster and more reliable.

    “The District is ready to be a national leader in the future of public transit,” said D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen, who first proposed free fares in 2019 and says the program can be fully paid-for with surplus D.C. tax revenue. Roughly 85% of bus riders are D.C. residents. The Metro system also serves neighboring suburbs in Maryland and Virginia.

    About 68% of D.C. residents who take the bus have household incomes below $50,000, and riders are disproportionately Black and Latino compared with Metrorail passengers, according to the council’s budget analysis.

    Not everyone is a fan.

    Peter Van Doren, a senior fellow at the D.C.-based Cato Institute, said the plan risks high costs and mixed results, noting that the opportunity to improve ridership may be limited because bus passengers have been quicker to return to near pre-pandemic levels. He said government subsidies to help lower-income people buy cars would go farther because not everyone has easy access to public transit, which operates on fixed routes.

    “The beauty of automobiles is they can go anywhere and everywhere in a way that transit does not,” he said. “We don’t know the subset of low-income people in D.C. where transit is a wonderful option as opposed to not such a wonderful option.”

    The council’s move, which will be finalized in a second vote later this month, came over the concerns of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who supports the concept of free fares but raised questions about the $42 million annual cost over the long term. “District residents and taxpayers will have to pay for this program,” she wrote in a letter to council members. “Our neighbors, Virginia and Maryland, should absorb some of these costs as their residents will benefit from this program as well.”

    Allen also had proposed a $100 monthly transit benefit for D.C. residents to access the Metrorail system, but shelved the plan until at least fall 2024 due to the $150 million annual estimated cost. He described free bus fares as a “win-win-win” for the District because they will help the transit system recover and offer affordable, green-friendly travel while boosting economic activity downtown.

    The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which currently faces a budget deficit of $185 million, part of which it attributes to fare evasion, praised the plan as “bold.” It said it looked forward to working with the city council, mayor and regional stakeholders “toward our goal of providing more accessible and equitable service for our customers.”

    Nationwide, while transit ridership has returned to about 79% of pre-pandemic levels, that figure varies widely by region. In New York City, for instance, MTA chief executive Janno Lieber has suggested that city and state government step up to pay for trains and buses more like essential public services, such as a fire department, citing millions of transit riders he believes may never come back. In 2019, fares made up over 40% of total transit revenue there but have since slid to 25%, leading to an anticipated $2.5 billion deficit in 2025 along with the risk of soon using up the transportation authority’s federal COVID relief funds.

    In D.C., where bus fares amount to a modest 7% of total transit operating revenues, the transit agency may be able to more easily absorb losses from zero fares, said Art Guzzetti, the American Public Transportation Association’s vice president of mobility initiatives and public policy. He noted savings for city taxpayers from speeding up boarding, which could allow for more routes and stops, as well as reducing traffic congestion and eliminating the need for transit enforcement against fare evaders.

    Currently, D.C. bus ridership stands at about 74% of pre-pandemic levels on weekdays compared to 40% for Metrorail.

    Still, free fares can be a tough choice for cities. “If the consequence of a zero-fare program is you have less funds to invest in frequent service, then you’re going backwards,” Guzzetti said.

    In Kansas City, which began offering zero-fares for its buses in March 2020 and has no planned end date, officials said the program has helped boost ridership, which has risen by 13% in 2022 so far compared with the previous year. The free fares amount to an $8 million revenue loss, with the city paying for more than half of that and federal COVID aid covering the rest through 2023, said Cindy Baker, interim vice president for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, who describes the program as a success.

    The program has eliminated altercations between passengers and bus drivers over fares, although there have been more instances of passenger disputes due to an increase in homeless riders, according to the agency. Baker said the transit agency has been adding security in response to some rider complaints.

    Ché Ruddell-Tabisola, director of government affairs for the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, cheered free fares as a much-needed economic boost, showing D.C.’s commitment to the well-being of late-night bartenders and restaurant workers needing an affordable way home.

    “A lot of industries have moved on from the pandemic, but for D.C.’s bars and restaurants, the pandemic is still happening everyday,” he said, citing the effects of hybrid work, inflation, gun violence and other factors that have hollowed out the downtown. “Anything that helps encourage diners to get to downtown D.C. and enjoy the world-class dining and entertainment we have is a great thing.”

    ———

    Associated Press writer Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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  • Maryland AG joins family’s appeal in ‘Serial’ murder case

    Maryland AG joins family’s appeal in ‘Serial’ murder case

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    FILE – Adnan Syed, center right, leaves the courthouse after a hearing on Sept. 19, 2022, in Baltimore. Hae Min Lee’s brother, Young Lee, has asked the Maryland Court of Special Appeals to halt court proceedings for Syed, whose conviction in Lee’s 1999 killing was reversed by Baltimore Circuit Judge Melissa Phinn in September 2022. Now, the office of Maryland’s attorney general is supporting the brother’s appeal. (Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File)

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