Maryland

Despite the prompt apology issued by the Vice President's press office to the University of Maryland journalism school for deleting the photographs of a journalism student covering an event with Joe Biden earlier this week, the White House News Photographers Association fired off an admonishing letter Thursday to the press office and sought a meeting to ensure that it does “not ever happen again.”

The Department of Justice issued a rare letter supporting the constitutional rights of a photojournalist suing Montgomery County, Md., police officers who arrested him for taking their pictures while on duty.

The Justice’s Statement of Interest issued Monday urges the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland to uphold citizens’ constitutional rights to record police officers in their public capacity without being arrested or having the recordings unlawfully seized.

Maryland's highest court today ruled that redacted state police records of racial profiling complaints can be made public under the state’s Public Information Act in Maryland Department of State Police v. Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches.

A bill that would have substantially reformed Maryland's law against strategic lawsuits against public participation, or "SLAPPs," was defeated in the state Senate yesterday by a 25-21 vote.

S.B. 221 would have provided a number of substantial revisions to the law, including removing the requirement that lawsuits be brought in "bad faith" to qualify as SLAPPs, creating clear procedural rules for how to dispose of SLAPPs, and clearly defining what kind of conduct is protected by the law.

The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled this week that the Baltimore City Paper was protected by reporting privileges when it published information from the court record of a grisly, local murder trial -- information not used during the trial and potentially implicating another person not tried for the crime.