In the 2022 Maryland General Election, Maryland voters opted to remedy a point of confusion in the Maryland Judiciary – the names of its courts.[1] During the 2021 Legislative Session, the Maryland General Assembly passed House Bill 885, and its companion Senate Bill 666, by wide margins.[2] This bill set forth a ballot referendum to rename Maryland’s highest court, the Court of Appeals of Maryland, as the Supreme Court of Maryland, and to rename Maryland’s intermediate court, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, as the Appellate Court of Maryland.[3] Now that the referendum passed, the judges of the highest state court will be referred to as Justices, instead of Judges.[4] This referendum appeared on all Maryland ballots as “Question 1, Constitutional Amendment (Ch. 82 of the 2021 Legislative Session) Court of Appeals and Special Appeals – Renaming.”[5]

Before the referendum passed, Maryland and New York were the only states that did not call their highest court a “supreme court.”[6] Debate over the name of Maryland’s Courts dates back to the 1967-1968 Maryland Constitutional Convention – though the Court of Special Appeals was only established in 1966.[7] Maryland’s name distinction puzzled out-of-state attorneys, researchers, law students, and even Marylanders, as former Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of Maryland Mary Ellen Barbera said at a hearing on this bill.[8] This confusion had grave implications on particularly vulnerable parties, such as prisoners seeking to represent themselves in court for matters like post-conviction relief or appeals, and other types of pro se litigants.[9] Indeed, as Chief Judge Matthew J. Fader of the Court of Appeals of Maryland noted, many people mistakenly assumed the Court of Special Appeals is the highest court, due to the word “special.”[10] Therefore, it was not uncommon for people to file documents in the wrong court, resulting in a missed deadline in the proper court. Now that Maryland voters decided to change their courts’ names, such perplexity will perhaps be exponentially mitigated, streamlining the work of researchers and potential litigants.

Article XVI of the Maryland Constitution governs the referendum process.[11] Under this article, a ballot referendum only passes if it receives a majority of voter support.[12] On November 8, over 74% of Maryland voters elected to rename the state’s appellate courts.[13] Since Maryland voters voted to approve the constitutional amendment, under Article XIV of the Maryland Constitution, the Governor, “by his proclamation,” shall add the amendment to the Maryland Constitution.[14] Albeit, statistics were on this referendum’s side; between 1985 to 2020, 49 of 54 statewide ballot referendums were approved by Maryland voters.[15] This trend of approval only continued in 2022; though the State Elections Board has not certified the referendum results yet, all five ballot questions passed with comfortable margins.[16] Now that Maryland voters have voted to rename Maryland’s appellate courts, this confusion will hopefully subside.

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Ali Mahdi is a second-year J.D. Candidate at the University of Baltimore School of Law. He is a Staff Editor for Law Forum. Most recently during the Summer of 2022, he was selected for the ABA’s Judicial Intern Opportunity Program, and placed at the Delaware Superior Court. Ali graduated from the University of Delaware in 2019, majoring in Economics and in Political Science, while concentrating in Global Politics and earning a minor in Sustainable Infrastructure. He is interested in litigation and is slated to graduate in May 2024.

Read more: Election Day was a “Namechanger”: Voters Successfully Rename Maryland’s Appellate Courts

[1] Danielle E. Gaines, General Assembly Passes Bill to Rename Maryland’s Top Court, Md. Matters (Apr. 6, 2021), https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/04/06/general-assembly-passes-bill-to-rename-marylands-top-court/.

[2] Ballotpedia Staff, Maryland Voters Will Decide Whether to Rename the Maryland Court of Appeals and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals in 2022, Ballotpedia News (Apr. 9, 2021), https://news.ballotpedia.org/2021/04/09/maryland-voters-will-decide-whether-to-rename-the-maryland-court-of-appeals-and-the-maryland-court-of-special-appeals-in-2022/.

[3] Bryn Stole, Legislators OK Bills to Rename Maryland’s 2 Appeals Courts; Voters Could Decide Question in 2022 Referendum, Balt. Sun (Mar. 27, 2021), https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-court-of-appeals-20210327-7v6prx6emvh7lag3ogbf3bdk3m-story.html.

[4] Id.

[5] Letter from John C. Wobensmith, Md. Sec’y of State, to Linda H. Lamone, Md. State Elections Administrator (Aug. 2, 2022), https://elections.maryland.gov/elections/2022/Linda%20Lamone%20ltr.,%20ballot%20language,%208.3.2022.pdf (providing language of all statewide ballot questions).

[6] Stole, supra note 3.

[7] Gaines, supra note 1.

[8] Id.

[9] Stole, supra note 3.

[10] Id.

[11] Md. Const. art. XVI, § 1-4.

[12] Id.

[13] Unofficial 2022 Gubernatorial General Election Results for All State Questions, Md. State Bd. of Elections (Nov. 12, 2022, 12:02:04 AM), https://elections.maryland.gov/elections/2022/general_results/gen_qresults_2022_1_00_ALL.html.

[14] Md. Const. art. XIV, § 1.

[15] Maryland 2022 Ballot Measures, Ballotpedia (2022), https://ballotpedia.org/Maryland_2022_ballot_measures.

[16] Dana Munro & Emily Opilo, Maryland to Require Legislators to Live in Their Districts; State Will Rename its High Court, Balt. Sun (Nov. 9, 2022), https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/elections/bs-md-pol-maryland-ballot-questions-vote-20221109-55lh7busmngc7e6waiy7jeixra-story.html.