Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown commended elected prosecutors Friday for opening up their case data to researchers.
Prosecutors in Montgomery, Charles and Frederick counties and Baltimore City have initiated grant-funded case transparency projects allowing criminal justice researchers to analyze their case data for racial disparities in prosecutions.
“Marylanders should be proud to see these state’s attorneys leading from the front,” the Democrat said. “Their actions are both innovative and courageous.”
Brown’s statement comes after The Banner highlighted the nascent efforts of some prosecutors to share data and the hesitancy of others to follow suit, including leaders of the state’s attorneys’ professional association. He encouraged all Maryland state’s attorneys to join their colleagues in sharing their records.
He said his office plans “to initiate the same type of valuable partnership in research, as well.” The release did not go into detail on when Brown would begin such a project or what form that would take.
“Only by tracking case data on arrests, convictions, charges, and other key outcomes with a breakdown by race and gender will we truly understand and be able to eradicate longstanding and pervasive inequities from our criminal justice system,” Brown said.
Brown said the state’s attorneys’ sharing their case data aligns with his motivation to start the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative in October with Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue. The pair launched the joint initiative to closely examine the causes of mass incarceration and overrepresentation of people of color in Maryland’s prison system.
“Individual case data that can be gathered from state’s attorney’s offices is critical in addressing this crisis and disparities,” Brown said.
State’s attorneys with projects already underway have entered into collaborative agreements with academics and nonprofits to publish their findings regardless of what the data reveals, address any racial injustices and ensure more fairness and equity.
The projects led by Prosecutorial Performance Indicators, or PPI, are grant funded. The nonprofit works with jurisdictions across the country to improve fairness and efficiency in prosecutors’ offices through data analysis.
The Maryland State’s Attorney Association pushed back on statewide data sharing standards during state task force meetings. President and Howard County State’s Attorney Rich Gibson said he feared taking this step could promote competitiveness across jurisdictions or create a “scoreboard” among attorneys at the expense of delivering justice.
Elected prosecutors carry immense power to ultimately decide a defendant’s criminal charges and negotiate life-altering plea bargains. They also play a key role in a criminal justice system where people of color are historically overrepresented. Without aggregated metrics by race, age and gender on plea deals, charging decisions, case outcomes, and victims’ services, constituents — and lawmakers — are left to rely on prosecutors’ self-reporting and anecdotes.
Researcher Brian Johnson called the willingness of Maryland prosecutors to welcome academics like him into their records an “incredible sea change” for a government sector unaccustomed to exposing their decisions to public scrutiny. Johnson was part of the team led by PPI.
“The culture of the criminal legal system has changed in recent years,” Johnson said. “Where there’s greater emphasis on, and greater concern for, issues of racial justice and fairness in the system.”
