Maryland Landmark Legal Settlements
ACLU, Civil Rights Groups and Maryland Officials Reach Landmark Racial Profiling Settlement
The Maryland Board of Public Works in 2003 approved a settlement ending the practice of racial profiling on the state's highways.
The settlement of the lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of several motorists, brought national attention to the issue of "driving while black or brown."
The agreement provided $400,000 in damages to the individual plaintiffs, a requirement that the Maryland State Police retain an independent consultant to assess its progress towards eliminating the practice of racial profiling, and a joint statement by all parties involved in the lawsuit condemning racial profiling and highlighting the importance of taking preventative action against this practice in the future.
In 1993, the ACLU brought a class-action lawsuit against State Police on behalf of Robert L. Wilkins, an African-American attorney who was stopped, detained and searched by the MSP for no apparent reason. Documents showed that that State Police had illegally targeted African-American motorists for stops and searches along Maryland’s highways.
Former Students Settle Strip-search Case
Two former Kent County High School students who were strip-searched during a 2004 drug raid were awarded a $285,000 settlement, along with apologies from the school and Sheriff's Department officials.
The American Civil Liberties Union in 2007 negotiated a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the students, Heather Gore and Jessica Bedell, who were 15-year-old sophomores when they were searched by a female sheriff's deputy.
Drug-sniffing dogs scanned 250 student backpacks in a dozen classrooms at the high school, and 16 other students were "patted down" by deputies. No drugs were found.
ACLU officials said the settlement is the largest monetary award in Maryland in a police misconduct case.
$54 Million: Maryland Fly Ash, Class Action Settlement Wins Court Approval
In 2008 residents of a Maryland suburb reached a $54 million settlement with Constellation Power Generation for allegedly contaminating their private water supplies.
The lawsiit claimed that Constellation contaminated the water supplies of residents in Gambrills by dumping coal ash in a sand and gravel quarry near their homes in Anne Arundel County for more than a decade.
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