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Administration revocations and suspensions; and involuntary psychiatric admissions.

With the OAH in existence for over 33 years, the legal community is much more aware of the broad spectrum of administrative matters of original jurisdiction the OAH adjudicates in primarily final appeals from the State agencies. Hearings run the gamut from cases with self-represented litigants to complex, multi-day, and multi-party hearings litigated by senior counsel. ALJs rule upon pre-trial motions, including discovery disputes, evidentiary and procedural issues, and posttrial motions. The judges also conduct mediations. The OAH began in 1990 with a complement of over 70 ALJs. With the new judges listed above, the OAH employs 58 ALJs, including the Chief Judge and four management judges.

Under the leadership of the first Chief Administrative Law Judge, John W. Hardwicke, the OAH completed the daunting task of consolidating and streamlining the State’s administrative hearing function. Chief Judge Thomas E. Dewberry, who served from 2002 to 2019, and current Chief Judge Pak have continued to forge OAH’s role as a national leader among state administrative judiciaries. OAH Director of Operations John Leidig described OAH’s national position as follows:

As one of the early adopters of a central panel, Maryland has sometimes served as a model for central panels in other states. In particular, Maryland’s ALJ training program has been a highlight. New ALJs undergo a months-long training process to prepare them for the variety of case types handled by OAH. In addition, the entire ALJ corps participates in monthly training programs to keep abreast of developments in administrative law and discuss best practices for conducting hearings and writing decisions. The newest ALJs come to the OAH with considerable legal skills and experience. They have already embarked on an intensive training regimen to prepare them to hear a broad spectrum of case types. I can confidently say that their workdays (and occasional evenings and weekends) will be challenging and rewarding but never dull.

For more information on the Maryland OAH, go to oah.maryland.gov

– Hon. Louis N. Hurwitz (Ret.) Editor’s Note- The author, now retired, was among the inaugural group of ALJs hired by the Maryland OAH, serving from 1990 to 2018 and, as a special appointee, in 2022.

For this issue, I decided to read the full text and summarize the case of Sheila Caldwell v. Marquita Sharrice Sutton, a case the Court of Special Appeals heard during the September Term and filed in November 2022. (before the name change!) The Honorable Kathryn Grill Graeff wrote the opinion: Full text - https://mdcourts.gov/data/ opinions/cosa/2022/0424s22.pdf

On December 12, 2013, when her son (the “Child”) was 21 months old Marquita Sutton (“Mother”) fatally stabbed the father of her son. She took the Child to her mother’s home (“Grandmother”) before turning herself in to the police. The court held her without bail on firstdegree murder charges. Subsequently, Grandmother filed an emergency complaint for custody of the Child, which was granted on December 30, 2013. Nine months later, Mother signed a form consenting to Grandmother having sole legal and physical custody of the Child, stating that it was in the Child’s best interest for Grandmother to become his custodian. The circuit court held a custody hearing that Mother did not attend and granted Grandmother sole legal and physical custody of the Child. Mother was to have reasonable access to the Child within Grandmother’s discretion.

In September 2015, Mother entered an Alford plea to second-degree murder and was sentenced to thirty (30) years of incarceration with all but ten (10) suspended. While imprisoned, Mother maintained contact with the Child and took numerous parenting and therapeutic classes. In 2019, after hearing evidence from witnesses and domestic violence experts, the circuit court modified Mother’s sentence. She was released from prison on August 16, 2019, when the Child was seven years old. Initially, Mother was allowed access to the Child, but within months, Grandmother began to limit access, conditioned on proof of Mother’s completing community service hours under the terms of her probation, seeking employment, and receiving appropriate mental health therapy. Six months after her release, Mother moved to modify custody, seeking shared legal custody and a visitation schedule. She subsequently amended her complaint to see sole legal custody and shared physical custody of the Child, with increasing access until Mother regained sole physical custody. She alleged that Grandmother was limiting her access to the Child significantly and that her release from incarceration restored her ability to parent the Child and constituted a material change in circumstances. After an extensive trial on the merits, the trial court issued a 36page memorandum option granting Mother sole legal and physical custody of the Child. The court found that:

(1) Mother’s release from incarceration and other facts demonstrated a material change in circumstances; (2) Mother had proven by clear and convincing evidence that good cause existed under FL §9-101.2 to award her custody; (3) it was in the Child’s best interest to return to the custody of Mother, his natural parent; and (4) Grandmother had not shown that Mother was unfit, that exceptional circumstances existed or that Grandmother was a de facto parent. Mother was awarded sole legal and physical custody of the Child and there was a transition plan for the transfer of physical custody of the Child from Grandmother to Mother. The court further ordered that Mother and the Child would participate in reunification therapy, the cost of which would be split between the parties and that the Child would continue in individual therapy.

The Court of Appeals began with a discussion of the case law relevant to the rights of parents to direct and govern the care, custody and control of their children is a fundamental right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 66 (2000), Conover v. Conover, 450 Md. 51, 60 (2016)) Conover further stated that the “primary goal of access determinations in Maryland is to serve the best interest of the child.” Conover, 450 Md. at 60. Conover also recognized the concept of de facto parenthood rather than having to meet the requirements of third parties seeking custody to overcome the presumption that the child’s best interest is to be in the parent’s custody by proving that the child’s natural parents were unfit to have custody or that there were exceptional circumstances making parental custody detrimental to the best interests of the child. The Court