Every Mother's Son

Maryland law requires that the police make a "good faith effort" to notify the parent/legal guardian of a minor prior to questioning them; the only situation this doesn't apply to is when the minor is being questioned as a witness. In Maryland, prior to 2022, if a minor was being questioned as a suspect in a crime and police were unable to contact the minor's parent/legal guardian, they could be questioned as long as they were advised of their rights and agreed to waive their right to remain silent. However, the Maryland legislature passed the Child Interrogation Protection Act in 2022 that changed the requirements regarding police interrogations of a minor. This new law reflects the majority opinion of most courts (including the Supreme Court) that a minor is not able to fully comprehend their Constitutional rights and make an informed choice to waive them in the same manner that an adult can. Under the CIPA, the police are required to notify the parent/legal guardian when a minor under the age of 18 is taken into custody, and, if the parents do not hire an attorney to represent the child, then police are required to have the child speak to an attorney from the public defender's office who reads from a child-friendly script that explains what's happening and what rights the child has. The choice to speak to the police is ultimately up to the child, and, if they wish to speak to the police without a parent or attorney, they must sign a Miranda rights waiver card that is specifically worded for minors. The CIPA also forbids police officers from using certain tactics when questioning minors that are acceptable for adults like: making threats or using psychological manipulation techniques, namely using deceptions such as misrepresenting facts (like lying about the existence of evidence), or making false statements about leniency in exchange for their confession.

The day before Baylis, Lewis and Munch are to open the bar a Baltimore City Sheriff's deputy confiscates their business license for unpaid property taxes. The deputy scolds them for being detectives that didn't do their homework before buying the property. However this is not a failure on the owner's part, it's a failure on the bank's. Baylis, Lewis and Munch took out a bank loan to buy the bar, the bank would have looked into the property history (including tax history) before approving a loan. Unpaid taxes would have caused a lien to be placed on the property long before the detectives bought it, and a bank would never issue a loan for a property with a lien on it without first making the buyer aware of it.

Featured in Homicide: Life on the Street: The Documentary (1997)