Baltimore Homicide Lawyers

homicide

A homicide conviction in Baltimore or elsewhere in Maryland can have truly catastrophic consequences, including the possibility of spending the rest of your life in prison. You need dedicated, skilled legal representation who can give you the best chance of successfully resolving your charges. Let the team from Greenberg Law Offices provide it.

For over 60 years and three generations, our attorneys have advocated for clients facing complex criminal charges in Baltimore and throughout Maryland. We treat everyone who walks through our doors like family — a respect we extend to their loved ones as well, as we recognize that criminal charges affect them just as much as they affect our direct clients. Our lawyers are ready to fight hard on your behalf, and we won’t hesitate to continue that fight in the courtroom as necessary.

When law enforcement pursues homicide charges against you in Baltimore or anywhere in Maryland, don’t wait to put experienced advocates in your corner. Contact Greenberg Law Offices today for an initial case evaluation with a knowledgeable Baltimore homicide lawyer. Discover how our firm will fight to defend your reputation, freedom, and future.

Why You Need a Baltimore Defense Lawyer if You Are Accused of Homicide

Prosecutors will leverage all the government’s resources to investigate and pursue convictions in homicide cases. You deserve legal counsel who can level the playing field for you. A homicide defense attorney from Greenberg Law Offices can help you face prosecution for murder or manslaughter in Baltimore or Maryland by:

  • Independently investigating your charges to obtain evidence police and prosecutors won’t look for that may support your defense
  • Identifying possible legal strategies based on the facts and evidence in your case
  • Thoroughly explaining your charges and the potential outcomes and providing you with honest, tailored legal advice to help you make informed decisions
  • Vigorously challenging the state’s case at every step, including protecting your rights by seeking to exclude evidence the police may have obtained through unlawful searches or interrogations
  • Pursuing the best possible resolution under the circumstances of your case, whether that involves negotiating a favorable plea agreement or taking your charges to court to fight the prosecution’s allegations and assert your innocence

What Must the State Prove to Secure a Murder Conviction?

Prosecutors in a homicide case must prove that the defendant unlawfully caused another human being’s death. Homicide may rise to the level of murder when a defendant unlawfully kills a human being with deliberate premeditation or malice aforethought. Even a few seconds of thought can qualify as premeditation that turns a homicide into a murder.

What Are the Types of Homicide Charges in Maryland?

Maryland law recognizes several degrees of homicide based on the circumstances of the homicide and the perpetrator’s mental culpability in committing the homicide. First, a person commits first-degree murder in Maryland when they:

  • Commit a deliberate, premeditated, and willful killing
  • Commit a killing by lying in wait
  • Commit a killing with poison
  • Commit a killing while perpetrating or attempting to perpetrate:
    • A first-degree arson
    • Burning down of a building containing livestock, harvest, or merchandise
    • Burglary
    • Carjacking
    • Escape
    • Kidnapping
    • Mayhem
    • Robbery
    • First- or second-degree sexual offense
    • A destructive device offense

Any murder that does not constitute a first-degree murder under Maryland law becomes a second-degree murder.

In Maryland, a person commits the crime of manslaughter when they commit a homicide while under the influence of reasonable passion or provocation. The law expressly excludes the discovery of one’s spouse engaged in sexual intercourse with another person or perceptions/beliefs about another person’s race, color, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, or disability as an adequate provocation to support a charge of manslaughter.

Maryland law also contains the offense of vehicular manslaughter, which occurs when a person causes another individual’s death due to the person’s operation or control of a vehicle in a grossly negligent manner.

What’s the Difference Between State and Federal Murder Charges?

A person can face prosecution for murder under state or federal law, depending on the circumstances of the offense. Most murder cases end up in state court. However, homicide can result in federal charges when it:

  • Occurs during the commission or attempt of a federal offense of arson, escape, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse, child abuse, burglary, robbery, or child torture
  • Occurs in the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of the United States
  • Involves the death of an officer or employee of the United States, including any member of the uniformed services, that occurs in the course of the officer’s or employee’s official duties
  • Involves the death of a foreign official, official guest of the United States, or internationally protected person
  • Involves a homicide committed by a prisoner in a federal correctional institution serving a life or death sentence
  • Involves a homicide committed by an escaped federal prisoner
  • Involves the death of a state or local law enforcement official, officer, or employee working with federal law enforcement in a federal criminal investigation

What Are Common Murder and Homicide Defense Strategies?

There are various case strategies that someone charged with homicide in Baltimore or Maryland can pursue. Some of the most common and effective include the following:

A defendant facing a homicide charge may assert that they did not act with the criminal intent required by the charged statute, such as when a defendant causes a person’s death through ordinary negligence.

Defendants may seek to reduce the grading of their homicide offense from murder to manslaughter by presenting evidence to prove they acted under a reasonable passion or provocation caused by the victim, which meant the defendant could not have premeditated the homicide or acted with the required malice.

A defendant may assert they acted in self-defense or defense of others to prevent the alleged victim from using unprovoked deadly force against the defendant or a third party. A successful self-defense claim can turn a homicide into a “justifiable” homicide.

A defendant may challenge an eyewitness’s identification of the defendant as the perpetrator of the homicide by identifying factors that could have impaired the witness’s vision or by proving the police used improperly suggestive identification procedures with the witness.

A defendant may deny having committed a homicide by presenting alibi evidence to prove they were elsewhere when the crime occurred.

Defendants may challenge the reliability of forensic evidence like DNA, fingerprints, or ballistics in the prosecution’s case by highlighting issues with the state’s forensic testing methods or other problems such as mishandling forensic samples.

A defendant may seek to negate the intent element of a homicide charge by arguing that they had a temporary or permanent mental defect that prevented them from appreciating the nature of their actions or understanding right from wrong. However, a defendant asserting an “insanity” defense must admit they caused the victim’s death. Furthermore, the defense will usually result in the defendant’s civil commitment to in-patient mental health treatment.

When the prosecution does not have a victim’s corpse or remains, a defendant may argue that the government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim’s death occurred; alternatively, a victim may have gone missing or into hiding.

Defendants may challenge the admissibility of prosecution evidence obtained during a law enforcement investigation by arguing that investigators obtained that evidence through a warrantless search or a search lacking probable cause or by interrogating the defendant in custody without first advising them of their rights or misleading the defendant into giving inculpatory statements or confessions.

What Are Potential Penalties for a Homicide Conviction?

The penalties imposed for a homicide conviction under Maryland law depend on the grading of the crime. A homicide sentence in Maryland for a first-degree murder conviction carries a penalty of life imprisonment or, in certain circumstances, life without parole. A second-degree murder under Maryland law carries a penalty of up to 40 years in prison. The law also imposes a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for attempted homicide in the first degree or 30 years for attempted homicide in the second degree.

A manslaughter conviction carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison or incarceration in a local correctional facility for up to two years. A vehicular manslaughter conviction can also impose a ten-year prison sentence, although the law increases the maximum sentence to 15 years for a second or subsequent offense.

A federal homicide conviction can impose similarly harsh penalties. A first-degree murder conviction under federal law will result in a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty. A second-degree conviction can impose a sentence of any term of years up to life imprisonment. A federal voluntary manslaughter conviction has a maximum prison term of 15 years; an involuntary manslaughter conviction has a maximum term of eight years.