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Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby eliminates over 820 additional warrants

Profile: Marilyn Mosby for Baltimore State Attorney
Posted at 12:14 PM, Feb 25, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-25 12:14:45-05

BALTIMORE — Baltimore City State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that her office has successfully eliminated 829 open warrants and dismissed the underlying cases.

The cases relate to offenses the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) is not currently prosecuting, and include the following offenses:

  • CDS (drug) possession
  • Paraphernalia possession
  • Prostitution
  • Trespassing
  • Minor traffic offenses
  • Open container
  • Rogue and vagabond
  • Urinating/defecating in public

On March 18 2020, State’s Attorney Mosby announced that the office was not prosecuting the aforementioned offenses during COVID-19.

Shortly after, they became aware that people were still being arrested due to open warrants for failing to appear in court on an offense the office no longer intended to prosecute. Unlike a standalone offense, the Baltimore City SAO has to go to court to request that the warrant be “quashed“ before being able to dismiss the case.

Baltimore City SAO prosecutors gathered and assessed open and pending warrants, requested hearings to eliminate the warrants and entered a “nolle prosequi” in each case, effectively dismissing the charge. The 829 warrants bring the total number of warrants dismissed to 1415, following the office’s announcement in June 2020 that 586 warrants were dismissed.

“We encourage everyone who is concerned about an outstanding warrant for these minor offenses to go to this website and see if their case has been dealt with,” said State’s Attorney Mosby. “COVID-19 remains a major threat in prisons and jails, and we do not want people to be held for offenses we no longer prosecute. This is an issue of fairness.”

The Baltimore City SAO understands that members of the public will want to know if their warrant has been eliminated and their case has been dismissed. A letter will be sent by the courts to the last known address of each individual informing them of the dismissal.

If would like to know prior to the letter’s arrival, you can find out by doing the following:

  1. Visit Maryland Judiciary Case Search
  2. Check the box to agree to terms and conditions
  3. Enter your name and select a court from the drop down menu (choose District Court or Baltimore City Circuit Court).
  4. Select “get case.” The search may bring up one or more cases. Individuals must click on each case number.
  5. Under “charge and disposition” information, each charge is listed. If under “disposition” the term “NOLLE PROSEQUI” appears, that means the case has been dismissed and the charges dropped.
  6. At the bottom of the page, an entry should list “WARR” and a recent date (last week), when the hearing was held, and the warrant eliminated.
  7. Alternatively, if you have your case number, you can enter that directly without your name and select “get case”, and follow steps 5 and 6.