Maryland Judiciary’s Response to A Butterfly in COVID: Structural Racism and Baltimore's Pretrial Legal System

This letter was sent in regards to the lead article of Volume 82 of the Maryland Law Review, A Butterfly in COVID: Structural Racism and Baltimore's Pretrial Legal System.

The Review values the Maryland Judiciary's response to the Article and will defer responses to the substantive objections that the Judiciary has to the Article to the authors, Professors Doug Colbert and Colin Starger. That said, the Maryland Law Review prides itself on conducting a thorough and rigorous review of each article that it publishes. Each article is independently reviewed throughout nine separate rounds of edits by our staff editors, articles editors, and at least three editors of our Executive Committee. Throughout the editorial process for this Article, the Review independently reviewed the public source data published by the authors, the publicly available information on the criminal cases that the authors referenced, as well as recordings of bail hearings before the Baltimore City District Court, amongst other information. Respectfully, the Maryland Law Review stands behind the work of its student editors in the review of this Article.

Natasha Dartigue, the Maryland Public Defender, elected not to participate in the panel discussion regarding A Butterfly in COVID during this time of transition and evolving landscape of bail reform.