What will it take to bring Catholic child abusers to justice in Maryland? A prosecutor with guts. | GUEST COMMENTARY

There are worse things than legions of sadistic sexual predators abusing Maryland’s children: like legions of sadistic sexual predators abusing Maryland’s children and getting away with it.

A recent report from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office unveiled decades of rampant sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy and others affiliated with the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But many of the perpetrators can likely sleep easy believing that no one will prosecute them, because they beat the clock and concealed their crimes well enough to avoid detection earlier, when it would have been less challenging to bring them to trial...

...In my 38 years of practice fighting for justice as a prosecutor and as the voice for crime victims in Maryland, there is no similar circumstance in our lifetimes that reeks of injustice more than this scandal, which is only partially exposed in the attorney general’s report. Nothing should haunt good prosecutors more than this, until they exhaust every effort to bring the living offenders to justice, no matter how old the cases.

Many of the reasons that have been given not to prosecute do not ring true. For the most part, there is no impediment. For God’s sake, for the sake of justice, to even preserve the meaning of the word justice, would my prosecutorial colleagues please do something? Anything?

What will it take to bring Catholic child abusers to justice in Maryland? A prosecutor with guts. | GUEST COMMENTARY – Baltimore Sun

Atty General Brian Frosh Responds to Parents' Coalition. The General Assembly, Governor, Comptroller, Treasurer, State's Atty, Marc Elrich or Gabe Albornoz can request an Opinion on Planning Board Appointments

On October 23, 2022, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD wrote to Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and asked the Attorney General to answer the question: Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?

Today the Attorney General's office responded:  

OAG <OAG@oag.state.md.us>

To:

• You

Wed 10/26/2022 12:58 PM

Dear Ms. Sartucci,

Thank you for contacting the Maryland Office of the Attorney General.

The Attorney General is the legal counsel for the State of Maryland and its agencies. As such, this Office provides legal advice to state agencies, boards and commissions and investigates and prosecutes crimes against the State. The Office further represents the State in all cases pending in the Appellate Courts of the State, and in the U.S. Supreme Court and lower Federal Courts. To learn more about the Office of the Attorney General, follow this link: http://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/ 

Under the longstanding policy of the Attorney General’s Office, we are unable to respond to requests for advisory legal opinions from private citizens.  We simply do not have the resources to undertake the many hours of legal research and writing that would be necessary to respond in the form of an official opinion to the hundreds of inquiries that our Office regularly receives from private citizens.  Instead, we must limit ourselves to opinion requests from the various State government agencies and officers that, by law, we are required to represent as well as, on occasion, to requests from local governments. See http://www.marylandattorneygeneral.gov/Pages/Opinions/faq.aspx (explaining our Office’s policy regarding official opinions). 

Thank you again for contacting our Office.

Sincerely,

Citizen Response Coordinator

Office of the Attorney General

************************************

Who can request an Opinion from the MD Attorney General's office:

...The Maryland Constitution directs that the Attorney General is to give an "opinion in writing whenever required by the General Assembly ... the Governor, the Comptroller, the Treasurer or any State's Attorney on any legal matter or subject." Article V, §3...

...a request by a local government for an Opinion of the Attorney General must be made by the chief executive of the local government or by the presiding officer of the local legislative body on behalf of the entire body...

URGENT to AG Brian Frosh: Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?

From: Parents Coalition

Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2022 12:20 PM
To: OAG <OAG@oag.state.md.us>
Cc: eric.luedtke@house.state.md.us <eric.luedtke@house.state.md.us>; anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us <anne.kaiser@house.state.md.us>; craig.zucker@senate.state.md.us <craig.zucker@senate.state.md.us>; pam.queen@house.state.md.us <pam.queen@house.state.md.us>; brian.feldman@senate.state.md.us <brian.feldman@senate.state.md.us>; lily.qi@house.state.md.us <lily.qi@house.state.md.us>; susan.lee@senate.state.md.us <susan.lee@senate.state.md.us>; ariana.kelly@house.state.md.us <ariana.kelly@house.state.md.us>; marc.korman@house.state.md.us <marc.korman@house.state.md.us>; sara.love@house.state.md.us <sara.love@house.state.md.us>; cheryl.kagan@senate.state.md.us <cheryl.kagan@senate.state.md.us>; kumar.barve@house.state.md.us <kumar.barve@house.state.md.us>; jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us <jim.gilchrist@house.state.md.us>; julie.palakovichcarr@house.state.md.us <julie.palakovichcarr@house.state.md.us>; jeff.waldstreicher@senate.state.md.us <jeff.waldstreicher@senate.state.md.us>; alfred.carr@house.state.md.us <alfred.carr@house.state.md.us>; emily.shetty@house.state.md.us <emily.shetty@house.state.md.us>; jared.solomon@house.state.md.us <jared.solomon@house.state.md.us>; ben.kramer@senate.state.md.us <ben.kramer@senate.state.md.us>; charlotte.crutchfield@house.state.md.us <charlotte.crutchfield@house.state.md.us>; bonnie.cullison@house.state.md.us <bonnie.cullison@house.state.md.us>; vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us <vaughn.stewart@house.state.md.us>; will.smith@senate.state.md.us <will.smith@senate.state.md.us>; lorig.charkoudian@house.state.md.us <lorig.charkoudian@house.state.md.us>; david.moon@house.state.md.us <david.moon@house.state.md.us>; jheanelle.wilkins@house.state.md.us <jheanelle.wilkins@house.state.md.us>; Nancy.King@senate.state.md.us <Nancy.King@senate.state.md.us>; gabriel.acevero@house.state.md.us <gabriel.acevero@house.state.md.us>; lesley.lopez@house.state.md.us <lesley.lopez@house.state.md.us>; kirill.reznik@house.state.md.us <kirill.reznik@house.state.md.us>; david.fraser.hidalgo@house.state.md.us <david.fraser.hidalgo@house.state.md.us>; Linda.Foley@house.state.md.us <Linda.Foley@house.state.md.us>

Subject: URGENT to AG Brian Frosh: Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?

 

Dear Attorney General Frosh,

The Montgomery County Council has announced that this week they will appoint temporary acting commissioners and a temporary acting chairperson to the Montgomery County Planning Board.  

The Montgomery County Council has also announced that they will not be following the statutory process for filling unexpired terms on the Montgomery County Planning Board.

Questions to be answered by the Maryland Attorney General's office:

1. Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory term for Planning Board appointments so that they are only temporary appointments?
2. 
   
3. Can the Montgomery County Council change the statutory appointment process for Planning Board appointments and eliminate the statutory 3-week period between making the list of applicants public and the appointment date?
4. 
   

In April of 2021, your office issued an opinion as to whether a state superintendent of schools appointed to a vacancy in the middle of a term serves for the remainder of the unexpired term. In 106 Opinions of the Attorney General 67 (2021), your office concluded that the Maryland State Board of Education could not offer a State Superintendent a term different than that provided for in the statute.  

In the appointment of Montgomery County Planning Board commissioners and the chairperson, the statute does expressly state that an individual appointed to a vacancy serves for the unexpired term, the statute does provide for staggered terms, and the statute does refer to positions by using the word term.  In light of your offices' Opinion in 16 OAG 67, it would appear that the Montgomery County Council must also follow the applicable statutes in appointing Commissioners and a Chairperson to the Montgomery County Planning Board.  

The Maryland statute on filling unexpired terms on the Montgomery County Planning Board does not provide for temporary appointments.  There does not appear to be any language in the statute that would support the appointment of temporary acting Planning Board Commissioners or a temporary acting Chairperson.  

The statute does not offer any alternative to the appointment process and is clear that the public is to have access to the list of applicants for these positions for 3 weeks prior to appointment. 

The appointment of Montgomery County Planning Board Commissioners and its Chairperson are of great public importance as the Montgomery County Planning Board actions impact virtually every land use decision in the County.

Thank you for your immediate review of these questions. 

We look forward to your prompt response as time is of the essence in this matter.  

Janis Zink Sartucci

Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, MD

Formed in 2002, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland seeks to achieve the goals of coherent, content-rich curriculum standards; high expectations combined with timely remediation and acceleration; a wider range of educational options for parents and children; greater transparency and accountability; and meaningful community input.

Attachment - Montgomery County Council 2022 FAQs: Appointment of New Planning Board Members

Survivors of abuse in Catholic Church demand @BrianFrosh attorney general release findings. [See Netflix series The Keepers on MD Legislature's Failure to Protect Children]

Maryland & France

A French author wrote for years about his sexual relations with children and continued to win acclaim. Now one of them has spoken out.

PARIS — The French writer Gabriel Matzneff never hid the fact that he engaged in sex with girls and boys in their early teens or even younger. He wrote countless books detailing his insatiable pursuits and appeared on television boasting about them. “Under 16 Years Old,” was the title of an early book that left no ambiguity.

Still, he never spent a day in jail for his actions or suffered any repercussion. Instead, he won acclaim again and again. Much of France’s literary and journalism elite celebrated him and his work for decades. Now 83, Mr. Matzneff was awarded a major literary prize in 2013 and, just two months ago, one of France’s most prestigious publishing houses published his latest work.

But the publication, on Thursday, of an account by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, has suddenly fueled an intense debate in France over its historically lax attitude toward sex with people who are underage. It has also shone a particularly harsh light on a period during which some of France’s leading literary figures and newspapers — names as big as Foucault, Sartre, Libération and Le Monde — aggressively promoted the practice as a form of human liberation, or at least defended it...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/world/europe/france-pedophilia-gabriel-matzneff.html

Mother of 14-year-old daughter on her murderer's early prison release: Where is the justice?

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/mother-of-14-year-old-daughter-on-her-murderers-early-prison-release-where-is-the-justice/65-4eadcd40-d76a-4173-aeb2-07d8ee5bb226


2009 story on murder:

http://www.gazette.net/stories/05282009/laurnew122824_32535.shtml

Maryland is failing to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities

By Jeneva Burroughs Stone

February 13

Jeneva Burroughs Stone is a member of Little Lobbyists.

I attended the Disability Integration Act reintroduction ceremony as a member of Little Lobbyists, a parent-led organization of families with children with complex medical needs and disabilities. As Elena Hung , the co-founder of Little Lobbyists, said at the ceremony, “We want to make sure [our children] have the support in place to live the best lives and maximize their independence in the community and be here with us and not in institutions far away.”

That statement hit me hard, because my husband and I have been placed in a no-win situation by Maryland. Now, our financial future is pitted against our love for our son...

...The problem isn’t the state’s Developmental Disabilities Administration, which assesses REM waivers, nor the state legislature. It’s the Maryland Division of Nursing Services, which processes applications for skilled nursing services, and the Maryland attorney general’s office, which reflexively backs up the nursing division’s internal guidelines that keep private-duty nursing hours at a minimum for Maryland families. In effect, the attorney general’s office is pitting the implementation of one Medicaid program against another at the expense of people such as my son...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/localopinions/maryland-is-failing-to-protect-the-civil-rights-of-people-with-disabilities/2019/02/12/3f7927fa-1ff2-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html?fbclid=IwAR1-UmMHAi75k1k3TJieG5TdS4kzQYaVVzs2wl7qEoX35zvNX9Psyi6797Q&utm_term=.9a27eaeef47c