Maryland Criminal & Immigration Lawyer Blog

The Court of Special Appeals in Maryland recently considered an interesting question of criminal law: whether a trial judge may condition probation on no direct contact between a defendant and his victim, even when the two are married and want to be together.

Lambert v. State arose in 2009, when James Lambert and his wife were arguing over a lockbox. Lambert pushed his wife and she fell down stairs hurting her head and abdomen. According to Lambert, he was just pushing her away from the lockbox and didn’t intend for his wife to fall. However, he pled guilty to second-degree assault and at his sentencing hearing admitted several prior assaults on his wife.

The wife didn’t show up at the hearing, but did write a letter saying she wasn’t afraid of Mr. Lambert and wanted to go to counseling and reconcile with him. The trial judge sentenced Mr. Lambert to three years of confinement. This confinement was suspended while he remained on three years of supervised probation. Noting a pattern of assault between the two that he had seen in a case in his own career as an attorney, the trial judge conditioned probation on the defendant having “no contact” with his wife during probation. Continue reading