Hourie v. State

A healthy legal system should strive constantly for greater harmony and should, even when it cannot always eliminate existing disharmony, avoid adding new disharmony. It is against the backdrop of that ideal that we review the convictions of the appellant, Georgeine Emilio Hourie, for welfare fraud and false swearing. She was tried by Judge Donaldson C. Cole, Jr., sitting without a jury, in the Circuit Court for Talbot County. She was convicted of nine separate charges and given concurrent sentences as to each. The nine convictions break out into two discrete categories: (1) a conviction…