Crane v. Dunn

“In Maryland, a guilty plea to a traffic citation is admissible in a civil trial; its probative value is deemed to outweigh any prejudicial effect. An express acknowledgment of guilt to the charged offense in open court is far more probative than a questionable acknowledgment of culpability that might be inferred from paying a preset fine in lieu of going to court.” Briggeman v. Albert, 322 Md. 133, 139, 586 A.2d 15, 18 (1991).

In this case we must decide whether the trial judge correctly excluded evidence of a party’s guilty plea, in traffic court, to the charge of negligent driving when that…