Court Opinion

ID: 9695391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:18:16.801222+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:11.868455
License: Public Domain

BELL, C.J.
The Majority and I have a fundamental dispute, not with regard to the propriety of the dismissal of the charges against Evelyn Susan Workman, the petitioner, on that we agree that they should not have been, but, rather with respect to authority of the trial court to appoint the Office of the Public Defender, (“OPD ”), once that office had declined to represent the petitioner. With regard to the latter issue, the Majority holds that:
“once [the trial court] determined that the local OPD denied improperly representation to Workman, the Circuit Court possessed the authority to appoint the local OPD as counsel for Workman, we agree with the judgment of the Court of Special Appeals, albeit on different grounds, that the Circuit Court erred by ordering dismissal of the underlying criminal charges.”
*491Workman v. State, 413 Md. 475, 477, 993 A.2d 94, 95, 2010 WL 1507946 (2010).
I emphatically disagree. My reasons are set out in detail in my Dissenting and Concurring Opinion in Office of Public Defender v. State, 413 Md. 411, 993 A.2d 55, 2010 WL 1507944 (2010). Distilled to its essence, I continue to believe that this Court previously, and correctly, resolved this issue in Thompson v. State, 284 Md. 113, 394 A.2d 1190 (1978), when it held that, pursuant Maryland Code (1957, 1976 Replacement Vol.) Article 27A § 6(f), if the OPD declines to represent a defendant, claiming to be indigent, the court has a responsibility to conduct an independent indigency assessment, and appoint counsel if that assessment indicates that the defendant is indeed indigent. To reach its preferred result, as my dissent demonstrates, the majority disregards this and other precedent, identified in my dissent, See OPD, 413 Md. at 444-73, 993 A.2d at 75-93, flaunts separation of powers and rides rough-shod over the applicable statutory text and scheme.
Judges BATTAGLIA and GREENE join in the views herein expressed.