Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee Bills on Police Accountability and Law Enforcement Reform
JPR 1 Public Safety – Law Enforcement Officers – Use of Force Standards
This draft bill specifies factors for a court to consider in an action in which the plaintiff alleges the improper use of physical or deadly force by a law enforcement officer.
This draft bill requires the compilation of, and specified availability of, records (detailed below) relating to (1) the credibility of law enforcement officers as witnesses and (2) formal complaints filed against officers.
JPR 3 No-Knock Warrants – Elimination
This draft bill establishes that a law enforcement officer who is executing a search warrant may not, for the purpose of executing the warrant, enter the building, apartment, premises, place, or thing specified in the warrant to be searched without giving notice of the officer’s authority or purpose.
JPR 4 Criminal Procedure – Police Officers – Duty to Intervene
This draft bill establishes a duty for a police officer to intervene. Specifically, it requires a police officer to make a reasonable attempt to stop or prevent the use of “excessive force” – defined in the draft bill as force that, under the totality of the circumstances, is objectively unreasonable – if the police officer knows or reasonably should know that another police officer is using or intends to use excessive force.
JPR 5 Criminal Procedure – Police Officers – Duty to Report Misconduct
This draft bill requires a police officer to report misconduct if the police officer has actual knowledge that another police officer has engaged in any of the following types of misconduct in violation of the Criminal Law Article, as specified: • homicide; • a sexual crime; • theft or a related crime; • perjury; • fraud or a related crime; • tampering with physical evidence; or • fabricating physical evidence.
JPR 6 Law Enforcement – Surplus Military Equipment
This draft bill prohibits a law enforcement agency from receiving the following equipment from a surplus program operated by the federal government: (1) an armored or weaponized aircraft, drone, or vehicle; (2) a “destructive device”; (3) a “firearm silencer”; or (4) a grenade launcher.
JPR 7 Public Safety – Law Enforcement Officers – Whistleblower Protections
This draft bill prohibits a supervisor, an appointing authority, or the head of a law enforcement agency from threatening or taking a “retaliatory action” against a law enforcement officer who discloses specified information or, following such a disclosure, seeks a remedy under the draft bill’s provisions
JPR 8. Public Information Act – Police Body-Worn Camera Recordings
This draft bill requires a custodian of a public record to grant inspection under Maryland’s Public Information Act (PIA) of a police body-worn camera recording, data, or related information.
JPR 9. Police Officers – Testimony – Presumptions of Inadmissibility
This draft bill establishes that the knowing and willful failure of a police officer to activate a body-worn camera, in violation of the policy of the officer’s employing law enforcement agency, creates a rebuttable presumption that any testimony of the police officer relating to the incident that was not recorded is inadmissible in a criminal prosecution.
JPR 10. State Prosecutor – Investigation of Crimes Committed by Police Officers
This draft bill authorizes the State Prosecutor to investigate: a criminal offense involving serious physical injury or death resulting from the use of physical force by a police officer; and any criminal offense committed by a police officer while in performance of the police officer’s official duties
JPR 11.Tort Claims Acts – Limits on Liability – Law Enforcement Officers
MTCA limits State liability to $400,000 to a single claimant for injuries arising from a single incident or occurrence. Under the draft bill, this liability limit does not apply to economic damages if liability of the State or its units arises from tortious acts or omissions committed by a law enforcement officer.
JPR 12. Public Safety – Law Enforcement Officers – Required Drug and Alcohol Testing
This draft bill requires a law enforcement agency to direct, as soon as is practicable, a law enforcement officer employed by the agency to submit to drug and alcohol testing if the officer, in the course of the officer’s official duties, (1) engages in conduct that results in the death of or serious bodily injury to another or (2) discharges a firearm.
JPR 13. Maryland Police Psychological Evaluations
This draft bill prohibits the commission from renewing the certification of a police officer or issuing a recertification for a police officer unless that officer has submitted to a psychological evaluation. Accordingly, to retain commission certification, every police officer in Maryland must periodically undergo psychological evaluation – generally at least every three years.
JPR 14. Law Enforcement Accountability and Discipline Act of 2021
The draft bill makes modifications to the complaint process, the investigation and interrogation process, and the hearing board and discipline process. In addition, the draft bill creates administrative charging committees and police accountability boards and defines specified terms.
JPR 15. Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights – Repeal
This draft bill repeals the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights (LEOBR), which provides uniform administrative protections to law enforcement officers in two major components of the disciplinary process: (1) measures for internal investigations of complaints that may lead to a recommendation of disciplinary action against a police officer; and (2) procedures that must be followed once an investigation results in a recommendation that an officer be disciplined.
