BALTIMORE — The Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office (SAO) is doubling down on its decision to cut ties with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) on two key strategies that have been credited with helping to lower the City's homicide rate.
In December 2025 State's Attorney Ivan Bates announced his office would no longer partner with MONSE on matters involving the Mayor's Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) and Victim Services.
Bates later requested an independent review of potential conflicts regarding the discovery process of exculpatory evidence in pending prosecutions, "due to concerns that it was not receiving complete and timely information about services and benefits MONSE provided to the State’s witnesses."
A major red flag was that MONSE in doing their work acquired certain testimony and/or evidence that if withheld from criminal defense attorneys could jeopardize cases brought by the State.
In particular were letters MONSE and the Police Department hand delivered to "persons of interest, victims, or witnesses of violent crime who are suspected to be part of a group known to be the most dangerous drivers of violence."
Bates says his team "was not involved in drafting the GVRS letter and did not approve or authorize the content of the letter."
As result, Bates worried the letters could give defense teams legal fodder.
"The letter is impeachment information because it shows a relationship between MONSE and the witness, including a potential agreement between them and/or benefit the witness may receive from complying with the letter and cooperating with MONSE," wrote Lydia E. Lawless of Kramon & Graham, the firm Bates hired to conduct the review. "The information is exculpatory because, among other things, it could suggest that someone other than the defendant may be responsible for the crime that serves as the impetus for sending the letter."
Lawless emphasized a number of hypothetical legal avenues defense teams could take to defeat the prosecution.
"Evidence that other individuals or groups were the ones responsible for the crime; evidence to support a self-defense claim; or mitigation evidence to use at sentencing," Lawless opined. "The threatening nature of the GVRS letter could itself be viewed as an inducement for a victim or witness to assist with the criminal prosecution out of fear of retribution from the SAO and other law enforcement agencies if the individual declines services."
With the review now complete, Bates says his decision to sever GVRS partnerships with MONSE is "affirmed."
When reached for comment, the Mayor's Office issued the statement below calling the move "politically-motivated and predetermined."
"Upon reviewing the SAO’s external opinion, it’s disappointingly clear that this analysis is an extension of the State’s Attorney’s politically-motivated and predetermined desire to end partnership with MONSE. It relies on information provided to the outside counsel by the SAO, without confirming facts or exploring additional context from the Mayor’s Office, MONSE, BPD, or anyone else in the administration. It is debilitatingly limited in scope and the conclusions are heavily biased to support the SAO’s existing position. The author directly admits in the opening of the report that it assumes the SAO’s premise to be true, despite the fact that the State’s Attorney’s Office has relied purely on a hypothetical concern that cases may be endangered and, despite repeated requests, has failed to identify any actual instance where that has happened.
We maintain that MONSE has always made good faith efforts to meet all requests for information from the SAO. We have referred this matter to our own outside counsel to conduct their own analysis and respond to the numerous legal claims that we believe hold no merit.
More importantly, the work will continue. If the State’s Attorney is adamant that he would like to separate himself from a coalition of partners that includes the Governor and state government, the Attorney General of Maryland, every law enforcement partner in the region, the philanthropic community, the academic community, and countless community violence intervention organizations and residents working to reduce violence in Baltimore – that is his prerogative. That entire apparatus will continue to work diligently on a daily basis, and we will continue to welcome the State’s Attorney and his team back to the table when they choose to return."
