Courthouse Report for
Edward A. Garmatz United States District Courthouse
IMPORTANT NOTE
This report was prepared by FIJA staff and/or volunteers—not by an attorney. It contains our observations and results of our research up to the date of the report regarding courthouse outreach at the location listed below. The information herein is correct to the best of our knowledge as of the date of the report, but we cannot guarantee 100% accuracy or completeness. You should double check this information for yourself before you act on it and consult an attorney if you need legal advice. We have done our best to provide links to source material embedded in this report.
While the information in this report, FIJA’s training for community outreach, and FIJA’s guidelines for outreach specifically at courthouses may help reduce the small risk of trouble from courthouse officials, security, or police, nothing can guarantee zero risk. This is particularly true given that government officials may strategically choose to violate the law just to get rid of juror rights educators, knowing that they as government officials will very likely face no serious consequences. FIJA provides no legal advice, nor can we fund your defense or provide you with an attorney should you run into legal trouble in the course of your courthouse outreach activities. You are personally responsible for determining your own comfort level and risk tolerance. It is up to you to engage only in activities and to work only with people you feel comfortable with.
Courthouse Details
| Report Date: | 5 April 2022 | ||
| Address: | 101 W. Lombard St. | ||
| Baltimore, MD 21201 | |||
| Website: | https://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/ |
Administrative Orders
Judges sometimes issue administrative orders (they may also be called other things, such as standing orders) that either actually pertain to sharing FIJA’s message at courthouses or which officials may falsely claim pertain to such activity. Below are administrative orders we were able to find that may pertain to courthouse outreach. Not all administrative orders are on a courthouse’s website, so there may be other orders we are not aware of.
If you are told that you are violating an administrative order, please ask for the order number, title, and a copy of it. Then please get in touch with us at aji@fija.org with as much information as you were able to gather. We have in the past aided volunteers in successfully challenging illegal orders, and we will do our best to help you as well.
Findings
No administrative orders were found that appear to pertain to courthouse outreach conducted according to FIJA guidelines. Web pages reviewed for possible applicable orders were:
Possible Locations for Sharing FIJA Brochures
The First Amendment pertains only to restricting how government may restrict expression on public property. It does not apply to private property, for which you should seek permission from the property owner(s). This includes not placing pamphlets on the windshields of parked cars.
Additionally, all public property is not the same for First Amendment purposes. The United States Supreme Court has divided public property up into a number of categories. The level of protection of your First Amendment rights depends in part on which category the place where you are doing outreach falls into. Public forum doctrine—including the different types of forums, and what that means in terms of legal government restrictions—is discussed by The First Amendment Encyclopedia.
We share here only some possible options that may be suitable for sharing brochures in the vicinity of the courthouse. There are no guarantees that the information we've been able to collect from behind a computer in the FIJA office for this location is complete or accurate, or if it is complete and accurate, that government officials will act in accordance with the law.
As a reminder, FIJA does not have any attorneys on staff, nor do we give legal advice. If you need legal advice regarding specific locations for sharing FIJA brochures, you should consult an attorney. It is your responsibility for determining your own comfort level and risk tolerance of working at any of these possible locations. It is up to you to engage only in activities and to work only in places you determine are within your risk tolerance.
Findings
1. Courthouse Campus and Immediate Vicinity
From surveying the area on Google Maps, it appears that the main entrance used by the general public is accessed primarily from W. Lombard St. and perhaps secondarily from S. Hanover St. Drive-in access to the courthouse campus on S. Hanover St. appears to be limited only to those with government permits. Moreover, the courthouse website indicates in its information for jurors that there are several parking lots and transit stations available to jurors.
It seems unlikely that the general public actually parks at the courthouse to access it. Rather, most members of the general public likely access the main entrance to the courthouse via the public sidewalk on W. Lombard St. The public sidewalk is one of the few pieces of public property that has been deemed by the Supreme Court to be traditional public forums—the most protected type of public property for First Amendment Purposes. In this picture, the red brick area between the pyramidal cement features and W. Lombard St. at the bottom of the image appears to be the public sidewalk
2. Parking and Transit
The website for the United States District Court for the District of Maryland identifies several parking and transit options for this courthouse location. There does not seem to be one dedicated parking lot for the jurors, but the most likely lots for jurors based on a brief viewing of the map linked to by the courthouse website seem to be the lots on the north side of Lombard St. between Howard St. and Charles St. or the lot on the southeast corner of the intersection of Lombard St. and Howard St. The website also lists several transit stops from which people might walk to the courthouse.
Because these locations are more spread out, if there are only a small number of juror rights educators, a possible strategy might be to treat the sidewalk in front of the courthouse on Lombard St. as the primary location for sharing brochures and hold parking lots and transit. While handing out brochures, volunteers might make a point of observing what is the most common direction from which people approach the courthouse. That way, if they are told they cannot share brochures at the primary location or become uncomfortable continuing to do so for other reasons, they can use those observations to find a backup location to share brochures at while they are challenging whatever order they were given not to share information in front of the courthouse or where they would feel more comfortable.
3. Neighborhood Locations in the Vicinity of the Courthouse
Other possible neighborhood locations that can be good places to canvas outside of on the public sidewalk are places those with business at the courthouse might visit beforehand or on a lunch break. For instance, those called for jury duty may want to stop at a nearby coffee shop on the way to the courthouse to get their morning beverage rather than relying on the courthouse to provide coffee. At lunchtime, they may choose to step out of the courthouse to grab a bite to eat a nearby restaurant. Because lunch breaks can be short, we focus on fast food type restaurants rather than sit down restaurants.
The coffee shops in closest proximity to this courthouse seem to be along Pratt St. just south of the courthouse. The closest seems to be a Starbucks at the corner of Howard St. and Pratt St. A little farther away are a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Filicori Zecchini Baltimore, Cafe Express and another Starbucks. Volunteers doing outreach on the public sidewalk in front of the courthouse could observe store names on to go coffee cups that people are carrying when they come to the courthouse and their direction of approach to get a sense of where they might be getting coffee in the mornings before coming to the courthouse.
Because those called for jury duty may have a limited time for lunch, canvasing the public sidewalk outside of restaurants at lunchtime should focus on places that get customers in and out quickly. Some possible quick lunch options in walking distance of the courthouse appear to include R&R Taqueria, Good News 2, and possibly Chef Rod Food Network to the east of the courthouse along Lombard St. and Chipotle and Jimmy John's to the west of the courthouse along Pratt St.
Personal Needs
It is best not to go inside the courthouse outside of which you are engaging in general educational outreach if you can avoid it. While it may seem like an easy place to pop in and use the restroom or refill a water bottle, finding another place to do those things avoids the possibility of courthouse officials falsely claiming that you were handing out brochures or engaged in other juror rights related activity inside the courthouse. It is handy to have in mind some alternate locations for these types of activities so as not to open the door even the slightest crack for government officials to falsely accuse you of jury tampering.
If you are patronizing a business in the area, you may be able to use their restroom or get a water refill. Please respect private property and their rules. If you are not patronizing a business, it is a good idea to know where there is a nearby, neutral, public facility where you can take care of personal needs. By 'neutral', we mean a place such as a library, park, etc. as opposed to, for example, another courthouse, a police station, a prosecutor's office, etc.
Findings
There are public restrooms and fountains available at the nearby Baltimore Convention Center, located south of Pratt St. between Howard St. and Sharp St. However, their FAQ for Re-Opening, which was last updated more than a year ago on 1 March 2020 suggests that it may be difficult to access the building. We have no way of knowing if that is still the case. If the building is accessible, the Level 100 floor plan of the Convention Center shows several restrooms potentially accessible from Howard St., Pratt St, and Charles St., including restrooms in the Pratt Street Lower Lobby and the Charles Street Lobby. And the FAQ for Re-Opening states that "Auto-fill bottle water fountains have been installed throughout the facility near restrooms for easy access."
Court Cases/Arrests Associated with this Location
In a very few cases, we are aware of previous incidents of arrests or legal cases associated with a particular courthouse. If we have such information, it will be included here. Keep in mind that just because we are not aware of any such history, that does not mean there is no such history. Also keep in mind that just because there is no such history at a given courthouse does not mean that government officials won't behave differently in the future.
Findings
FIJA is not aware of any court cases or arrests regarding sharing juror rights brochures at or near this courthouse. This does not mean that none have occurred. If any have, however, we do not have any information on them.
Notes About Other Juror Rights Educators’ Experiences
In a very few cases, we are aware of previous incidents of arrests or legal cases associated with a particular courthouse. If we have such information, it will be included here.
If you have conducted general educational outreach at this location, please email us at aji@fija.org with the date(s) and time(s) you were conducting outreach and any helpful details of how things went, whether you had no encounter whatsoever with government officials or even positive experiences with them or whether you got minor or major pushback from them. It all helps prepare other volunteers who seek to educate people at this location.
Findings
FIJA is not aware of any juror rights outreach that has been done at this location. Consequently, we have no notes to share about other juror rights educators' experiences here.
