Hats off to Delegate Luiz Simmons and Senators Stone and Miller, who proposed the only sensible legislation for our domestic violence laws last session. Not surprisingly, their bills (HB1181/SB467) failed.

Currently, unlike criminal actions, even when a domestic violence petition is denied or dismissed, the record of the action remains on the court records and cannot be expunged. The proposed bill would have authorized a respondent to request that these records be expunged, but Political Correctness won the day and the bill failed.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, our domestic violence laws in Maryland impose criminal consequences in a civil context, without any due process protections. The entire code needs to be changed so that the serious crime of domestic violence can be pursued in the appropriate way and those innocent of the accusations can have the due process protections they deserve.

Write your state legislators and let them know you support a complete overhaul of our domestic violence laws.