Posted on December 18, 2009 in Divorce

Maryland’s second highest court filed an opinion in the case of Guzman Cruz v. Clemencia Silva on November 25, 2009, which held that a spouse can be awarded alimony absent a divorce. The idea of alimony disconnected from a divorce, although a strange scenario for most to imagine, has long been a reality in Maryland. For more information regarding alimony see our October 2, 2009 and October 13, 2009 blog posts.

The Cruz’s came to the Circuit Court for Princes George’s County on January 9, 2008, both seeking a divorce but did not prove legally sufficient grounds for the divorce. However, the Judge awarded custody of the two minor children to Clemencia, ordered Guzman to pay her $764.00 per month in child support, and $1,500.00 per month in alimony. Guzman appealed to the Court of Special Appeals contending that the trial court erred in awarding alimony to Clemencia without granting a divorce and without properly determining the type and amount of alimony. The Court stated that Maryland has long recognized that the common law obligation of alimony was the obligation of husband to provide support to wife (or wife to husband). This is evidenced by Maryland Code, Family Law Section 11-101(a)(1), which provides that a court may award alimony not only in a decree of divorce, but also in a bill of complaint for alimony. The Court of Special Appeals held that while a spouse can be awarded alimony absent a divorce, that in this case the award was an error as a spouse still has to prove a case that would entitle him or her to alimony.

For more information on alimony with our without a divorce, contact an experienced family law attorney.

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 Posted on December 14, 2009 in Personal Injury

A Baltimore man was tragically killed on Saturday night in a hit and run accident on the 4700 block of Greenspring Avenue. A recent Baltimore Sun article reports that James Little, Jr. was struck by a Jeep Cherokee traveling northbound on Greenspring Valley Road which left the scene following the accident. According to the article, the police located the vehicle and its driver a short while later and noticed the vehicle to have a smashed and bloodstained windshield. The vehicle’s driver, a 20 year old woman, was taken into custody for questioning and toxicology tests and later released.
Every year, pedestrians throught Maryland are injured in motor vehicle-pedestrian accidents. Experienced auto accident attorneys can help victims and their families recover for their injuries.

If you or someone you know has been injured in an automobile accident or while a pedestrian, please contact Maryland’s best personal injury lawyers at 410-385-2225 or czissel@silvermanthompson.com

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 Posted on December 07, 2009 in Divorce

When disclosing or researching your marital property in a Maryland divorce action, it is important that clients are informed that any portion of a retirement account accrued during the marriage is marital property. For more information on marital property in Maryland, see Maryland Code, Family Law 8-203 and see August 19, 2009 blog. The courts in Maryland have the authority to transfer any percentage of the martial portion of the retirement account whether it be a pension, profit sharing plan, deferred compensation plan, thrift savings account, 401k or IRA from one spouse to the other, Maryland Code, Family Law §8-205. The court may apply one of several methods when valuing the marital portion of the retirement account, all of which an attorney would be able to advise you.

In order for a portion of the retirement benefit to be transferred a Qualified Domestic Relations Order, otherwise known as a QDRO, must be signed by a Judge and submitted to the plan administrator. The QDRO is an order by the court to modify the payee of all or a portion of the retirement plan. Each plan administrator may require a different type of QDRO and QDRO’s must comply with the ERISA (The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) laws, so it may be important to hire an attorney to assist you in this drafting process.

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 Posted on December 03, 2009 in Family Law

With the holidays approaching many parents in divided households may be facing uncertainty or conflicts as to where their child(ren) will be spending the holiday. The Maryland Court system in years past has implemented specific instructions for what is known as "holiday court," or the process that takes place in order to resolve these holiday access disputes. We have collected information from a few of the surrounding venues to find out how they will be handling this year’s (2009) holiday disputes.

Baltimore County Circuit Court
Baltimore County Circuit Court will consider holiday visitation disputes from November 23, 2009-December 19, 2009, and all disputes shall be submitted to Judge Dugan, who will assign each matter to a particular Judge on a rotating basis. When the case is assigned to the Judge who will hear the holiday dispute, the party should contact the Judge’s chambers with the name and contact information for all parties involved, the details of any efforts to reach an agreement between the parties, what relief each party is requesting, and what each party is proposing the holiday access schedule be.

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 Posted on December 01, 2009 in Criminal Defense

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon Convicted of Fraudulent Misappropriation. Maryland Criminal Attorney discusses whether this count is a Misdemeanor or a Felony and whether or not the Mayor is subject to a mandatory minimum jail term of one year.

As many have now heard Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted by a jury today of count four of the indictment that she was facing. This count was Embezzlement – Fraudulent Misappropriation by Fiduciary is a Misdemeanor although one that carries a maximum prison term of Five years in prison. The jury apparently acquitted her of all other counts including count one – Felony Theft which is a felony that carries a maximum penalty of fifteen years in prison. So what conduct constitutes Embezzlement – Fraudulent Misappropriation by Fiduciary?

Pursuant to Maryland Criminal Laws Annotated, Criminal Law Section 7-113 – A fiduciary may not:

1) Fraudulently and willfully appropriate money or a thing of value that the fiduciary holds in a fiduciary capacity contrary to the requirements of the fiduciary’s trust responsibility: Or
2) Secrete money or a thing of value that the fiduciary holds in a fiduciary capacity with a fraudulent intent to use the money or thing of value contrary to the requirements of the fiduciary’s trust responsibility.

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 Posted on December 01, 2009 in Administrative Law/Defense of Professionals

I have recently received a number of inquiries from persons who have either been denied a security clearance or have had their clearances revoked by government officials on installations across the United States. The tenor of the conversations is almost always one of defeat. Persons who lose their clearances almost always believe that they have no power to fight back. Read on to learn about your rights when the government tries to take your clearance away.

Few things can be more intimidating than the prospect of fighting the United States Government regarding your security clearance. Contractors and federal employees who work for Government agencies depend on their security clearances for their livelihood. Loss of a clearance – or refusal to grant one in the first instance – can be a devastating and life-altering event. For most people, the prospect of taking on a federal agency about the revocation of a security clearance is a daunting one. Many believe that because an agency has revoked or denied a clearance, there is nothing they can do to fight back. After all, the agency knows best . . . right? WRONG!

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 Posted on November 27, 2009 in Family Law

The Daily Record reports that the Maryland Court of Special Appeals has decided to vacate the Baltimore County Circuit Court’s decision to allow Larissa S. to visit with her ex-partner Melissa B.’s eight year old son. The couple dated for seven years, before deciding to have a child in 2001, through the help of a friend. After the couple broke up in 2002, Melissa gave birth to a second child. Larissa never adopted either child, but visited with both boys from 2002-2005 until she was denied access, which triggered her to file for visitation rights.

The Baltimore County Circuit Court, namely Judge Daniels, after much back and forth with Maryland’s higher court, found that the third party exceptional circumstances standard was met in this case, and therefore, ordered that there should be visitation between Larissa and the eldest child. For more information regarding third party custody and the exceptional circumstances standard see the August 11, 2009 blog. The Court of Special Appeals found that the lower court erred in finding exceptional circumstances because the Judge improperly refused to hear evidence from Melissa about the potential effects that this visitation with Larissa could have on her eldest son. Such new evidence could include the time that Larissa has been absent from the child’s life, due to this ongoing litigation. The case will return to Baltimore County Circuit Court where a judge will have to listen to all evidence to determine whether exceptional circumstances exist to order visitation between Larissa and the child.

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 Posted on November 25, 2009 in Driving Under the Influence

As a Baltimore Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney, I regularly see defendants who are improperly represented in Maryland District Courts by attorneys who do not specialize in the representation of people charged with criminal and serious traffic offenses. I blog about this issue fairly often because it troubles me greatly when I see attorneys who do not specialize in criminal and serious traffic offenses, make mistakes (also known as malpractice) that no specialist would ever make. Sometimes these mistakes go without consequence. Sometimes they cost their client’s dearly. I was recently retained in a case where the latter scenario played out. (To research a Maryland attorney’s qualifications in a particular area of the law and/or jurisdiction go to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Web Site at http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp)

The client was charged with a DWI/DUI about a year ago. This charge represented his first Maryland DWI/DUI offense. Prior to this situation, he had been represented by an attorney in a divorce case. He had never had the need for an attorney prior to his divorce, so this attorney was the only one that he knew. So when he was again in need of an attorney he did what most people in his situation would have. He called his divorce attorney. This attorney, of course, told him that in addition to being a divorce attorney, he was also a criminal/serious traffic attorney and was "more than qualified" to handle this case. While this statement was not an outright falsehood, ( according to Maryland Judiciary Case Search, this attorney handles roughly 20-25 criminal/ serious traffic cases per year) he is hardly a specialist.

From the client’s perspective, and probably from the attorney’s perspective, his representation of the client appeared to have gone quite well. The case was scheduled in the District Court for Baltimore City in Patapsco. The case proceeded by way of a guilty plea because the attorney had correctly determined (in my estimation) that there was not a viable defense to the charge. As a sentence, the client received probation before judgement with 18 months of supervised probation. He was minimally fined and would not get any points on his license as a result of this case. GREAT JOB by the attorney, right? Not so fast.

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 Posted on November 25, 2009 in Family Law

Clients often ask if their soon to be ex-spouse, ex-spouse or co-parent of their child(ren) will be able to change a custody order after it is entered at their free will whenever they want to? The answer is that the other parent may file with the Court to modify the existing order at anytime. Meeting the two-prong test required to change and/or modify custody is however not an easy task. First, the moving party must show a material change in circumstances. That begs the question, what is a material change in circumstance? There are a number of cases which assist us in defining it, but generally speaking it is one or a combination of the following: a significant change that occurred since the entry of the initial order; something material that was unknown at the time the initial order was passed has since come to light; and/or something since the entry of the Order is adversely impacting or could adversely impact the welfare of the child(ren).

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 Posted on November 20, 2009 in Driving Under the Influence

As a Maryland DUI/DWI Attorney/lawyer I represent many individuals who are charged with DUI or DWI while they are on probation for another crime. That person may be on probation for a prior Maryland DUI or DWI case or they may be on probation for a criminal case. The latter situation was what I was confronted with in Baltimore County Circuit Court last week. In this case my client was on probation for domestic violence and was facing up to six years in prision if he were to violate his probation. There is no easier way to violate one’s probation than to receive a subsequent conviction, even for a serious traffic matter (generally speaking court’s will not violate probation for non-jailable traffic offenses such as speeding). In this case the stakes were even higher than normal because the client was very much on the domestic violence team’s radar and they were chomping at the bit to request a violation of probation if he were to be convicted of the DUI and had let me know that they intended to seek the entire 6 year sentence on the violation. Needless to say, a plea bargain was not an option in this case.

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