McGee v. Criminal Injuries Compensation Board

LOWE, Judge.

“[Conceding an inability to ameliorate to any degree the threat of violent crime, and undertaking to assume the consequences of such crime as a public burden, on the ground of ‘moral responsibility’ ”, the General Assembly enacted Md.Ann.Code, Art. 26A, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act. Criminal Inj. Comp. Bd. v. Gould, 273 Md. 486, 498, 331 A.2d 55 (1975). That sense of moral responsibility has not so infected the sovereign conscience, however, that government will assume the more pointed consequences of its own negligent acts that cause equally serious financial hardships.…