SNOW HILL, MD - A Public Defender has filed a legal brief to the Maryland Appellate Court asking that the dismissal of charges against Tyler Mailloux stand, thus upholding a judge’s decision over the summer.
Mailloux faced multiple charges for the hit and run that killed Gavin Knupp in July of 2022, but a Circuit Court Judge granted a motion to dismiss the case in August, agreeing with the Defense that the case should have began in Maryland's lowest court level.
The brief, filed November 17th, comes in response to one sent to the Appellate Court by Maryland’s Attorney General last month requesting an appeal of the Circuit Court Judge’s decision. Mailloux and his legal team had 30 days to respond to the brief and make their own argument to the Appellate Court.
In that response, the Public Defender repeats and elaborates on the argument that the State did not file the charges against Mailloux in the correct jurisdiction.
“The criminal information should have been filed in the District Court of Maryland,” Mailloux’s brief states, arguing the 17 charges against him were violations of motor vehicle law, and thus should not have first been filed in Circuit Court.
“Under Maryland’s two-tiered trial court system, the circuit court could have properly obtained jurisdiction over the charges in this case if the criminal information had first been filed in the District Court,” the legal document reads.
In their first brief to the Appellate Court, Maryland’s Attorney General argued the State had full discretion to bring the charges against Mailloux in Circuit Court.
Mailloux’s latest response asserts the State’s decision to file in the circuit court deprived Mailloux of his right to choose where and how he would be tried, whether by a judge in the District Court or a judge or jury in the Circuit Court.
The same arguments were made in court when Mailloux filed the motion to dismiss, which the Circuit Court judge granted on August 18th.
The brief lists multiple past court cases that, Mailloux’s attorney argues, establish legal precedence for the dismissal.
The decision whether or not to uphold the Circuit Court Judge’s dismissal now rests with the Appellate Court. Oral arguments are expected to be heard by the Court in 2024.
A copy of the full brief, obtained by WBOC, is attached to this article.
