GREENBELT, Md. — Maryland’s Court System is denying accusations that judges are retaliating against volunteer Prince George’s County court watchers advocating for racial justice by restricting access via Zoom.
The court watchers include Grammy-award-winning singer-songwriter, and racial justice advocate, Fiona Apple.
For two years, Apple says she has been observing Prince George's County court hearings on court-provided zoom links in an effort to assist law students and other volunteers who collected information for a federal lawsuit alleging that the county routinely violates the rights of suspects.
In a series of videos posted Monday to Twitter by civil rights attorney Scott Hechinger, Apple complains that the zoom links have been removed by Maryland's judicial system.
"Why did they take away this access after the lawsuit was dropped?" Apple asked. "It's like they’re retaliating against us."
Tuesday, Maryland's judiciary responded with a written statement:
"Any suggestion that this was done in a retaliatory effort for a lawsuit filed in July 2022 is demonstrably false," wrote Bradley Tanner, a spokesperson for the Maryland Court system.
"On March 4, 2022 and in several subsequent public communications the administrative judge for the District Court in Prince George’s County sent a communication, which included a reference to the intent to resume in person operations, to the bar and stakeholders well before the lawsuit was filed," Tanner explained.
Tanner pointed out that in-person public access is permitted and that the District Court in Prince George’s County continues to make audio available for those who wish to listen to the proceedings as well.
Apple, who has won three Grammy awards since 1996 and racks up millions of streams per month on Spotify, quietly spent the pandemic on zoom, helping local racial justice advocates in Prince George’s County keep an eye on the court system.
The resulting federal lawsuit accuses local judges in Prince George’s County of “abdicating their responsibilities”, by unconstitutionally letting suspects languish in jail for days weeks or months, while an office known as pretrial services conducts background investigations before releasing them.
The suit claims the average suspect stays unconstitutionally locked up an average of 38 days, even though they often end up with charges dropped or being found innocent.
"She has been our greatest ally," said CourtwatchPG director Dr. Carmen Johnson, who refers to Apple as "my little sister."
Johnson says CourtwatchPG has trained 258 court watchers, 47 of whom are currently active monitoring proceedings in the county court system. Many of the volunteers are law students from the law schools at Georgetown University and Howard University, according to Johnson.
During a hearing on the lawsuit in US District Court in Greenbelt Tuesday, attorneys for at least nine suspects claimed they have been unconstitutionally denied release from jail before their trials.
An attorney for Prince George's County, Shelley Johnson, explained that defendants are held until the county's pre-trial services division can collect and verify the needed background information before an individual can be released into the community or electronically monitored home detention.
Johnson said pretrial services usually complete the work within two weeks.
The plaintiffs in the case are asking US District Court Judge Peter J. Messette to order reforms to the system that eliminates release delays and puts accountability for release back in the hands of local judges.
Messitte did not immediately rule Tuesday on a motion to dismiss the case filed by Maryland's Office of the Attorney General filed on behalf of the Prince George's County court system.
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