Pinkney v. State

I respectfully dissent. The thousands of instances in which defendants fail to appear for trial in the State of Maryland, which I will note later, seriously disrupt the calendars of the courts and inconvenience a multitude of jurors and witnesses. There are potentially tens of thousands of witnesses, including police officers and jurors, persons fulfilling their civic duties, whose lives and occupations and the services they perform for the public, are disrupted needlessly and seriously by the conduct of defendants who willfully fail to appear.

Although this case concerns the single witness…