Commentary

Sixteen thousand — year after year, for more than two decades, that’s been the official annual count of vacant houses in Baltimore City, give or take a thousand. The figure has held strong through multiple mayoral administrations and tens of millions of dollars spent razing, rehabbing and reselling the unoccupied properties, which lower surrounding property values, attract crime and put lives in danger: Earlier this year, three firefighters were killed, and another seriously injured, when an empty house on South Stricker street caught fire, then collapsed while they were inside.

It is hardly a stretch to say that a person’s finances should not determine whether they remain incarcerated, presumed innocent, while awaiting a criminal trial. This sentiment even rings true to most people completely outside the parameters of the justice system. After years of calls for change from advocates, the public seems to understand bail reform. In 2017, Maryland took the historic step of changing its Rules of Court (essentially laws) to disfavor the use of cash bail and guide judges toward using the “least onerous” conditions of release during bail hearings.

Just 30 miles apart, Annapolis and Washington are different worlds when it comes to judicial nominations. President Donald Trump appointed 57 judges to the Supreme Court and federal appellate courts, but not one of them was Black. Now, as President Biden follows through on his campaign pledge to appoint the Supreme Court’s first Black woman, the backlash is ugly. On Twitter, a Georgetown law lecturer, Ilya Shapiro, praised an Indian American judge as the “objectively best pick for Biden” but said the judge “doesn’t fit into the latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.” Shapiro apologized for his “inartful” tweet and deleted it.

Baltimore city is now raising concerns about crime after a 70-year-old woman was found shot to death outside of her home early this month. What is wrong with the residents of Baltimore? Who shoots an elderly black woman? It’s cowardly to shoot our seniors, brazen to do it at all. A 49-year-old woman was also killed days ago after she was shot in the chest in West Baltimore.  I ask again:  What is wrong with Baltimore’s residents? I want to scream from the rooftops, THIS IS NOT THE NEW NORMAL!

The federal focus on infrastructure is an incredible opportunity for Maryland to address the needs for communities across our state. Specifically, Maryland can do a better job focusing on locally maintained roads and bridges than it has for the last 12 years. For decades, Maryland carved off a 30% share of revenues from motor fuels and vehicles and sent it to our county and municipal governments. These local governments are responsible for around 83% of our state’s road miles and have no local transportation revenue sources, so this funding share worked out fairly for several decades.

This month, the Maryland General Assembly is debating essential climate legislation in both the House and Senate to chart the state’s path toward net-zero emissions. During this process, it is vital that all clean, emissions-free energy be included and nuclear energy is not taken for granted. The General Assembly should formally recognize the essential role nuclear energy and the continued operation of Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant play in meeting our greenhouse gas reduction targets in a timely and cost-effective manner.

As public defenders, we hear countless stories from our Black clients about interactions with police. We have watched, listened, and read in horror as they are still targeted and terrorized based on their race. This racial terror has deep roots in our country’s history of oppression. A presentation by Will Schwarz of the Maryland Lynching Memorial Project on the lynching of Howard Cooper moved us to take a deeper look into the responsibility of the state’s paper of record at the time.\

The horrors inflicted on the people of Ukraine in the Russian invasion include not only the deaths of loved ones, some of them children, but the loss of their homes, perhaps forever. Imagine the level of fear and stress that arises when you must suddenly pack a suitcase, grab your kids and flee your homeland. The United Nations warns that some 5 million people could leave Ukraine because of the invasion, creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Watching this mass trauma unfold, we wonder what we can do — beyond paying more for gasoline as a price for the sanctions against the Putin regime. We have some suggestions.