Lawson v. State

On July 8, 2003, Joseph Lawson, petitioner, was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County on two counts of second-degree rape, two counts of attempted second-degree rape, and two counts of second-degree assault. He was thereafter sentenced by the trial court to fourteen years in prison. Petitioner appealed the convictions to the *576Court of Special Appeals challenging, among other things, the admissibility of a social worker’s testimony at trial and the propriety of the prosecutor’s closing arguments. On January 10, 2005, the intermediate appellate court reversed one…