Press Release
Independent Legal Review Affirms State’s Attorney’s Office Decision to Terminate Partnership with MONSE
January 22, 2026
Baltimore, Md. (January 22, 2026) – Today, the Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City released the results of an independent legal review regarding the decision to terminate its partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) as it relates to Victim Services and the Gun Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS). In light of its findings related to these programs, the independent legal review did not address the State’s Attorney’s ongoing additional concerns about other MONSE programs.
The review, requested by State’s Attorney Ivan J. Bates, asked for an expert opinion on the question: If information held by MONSE must legally be treated as if the State’s Attorney’s Office (SAO) also knows it and must share it with defendants, can the State’s Attorney’s Office maintain a partnership with MONSE?
MONSE was established on December 23, 2020, and is the successor to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. MONSE is charged with implementing Mayor Brandon M. Scott’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan (“CVPP”). It is not a Baltimore City agency and does not have any enabling legislation.
For purposes of the opinion, it is assumed that MONSE is in possession of three categories of information that would constitute exculpatory and/or impeachment information if it were in the possession of the State’s Attorney’s Office:
1. Information about financial benefits provided to any State’s witness is impeachment material.
2. The fact that a State’s witness is identified as GVRS and the fact that a State’s witness received the GVRS letter are exculpatory and impeachment information.
3. To the extent that they occur, any statements made by defendants and witnesses to MONSE about the related criminal conduct may constitute exculpatory and/or impeachment information or otherwise trigger the SAO’s mandatory disclosure obligations.
The review references the role of the prosecutor through the Berger opinion, which states:
[The prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilty shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor—indeed he should do so. But while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one.
In December 2025, the Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City determined that it could not continue to partner with MONSE Victim Services due to concerns that it was not receiving complete and timely information about services and benefits MONSE provided to the State’s witnesses. The independent legal review revealed an additional concern that the GVRS letter may constitute impeachment and/or exculpatory material when provided to a victim or witness in a criminal case.
The review states:
When determining whether disclosure is required, the relevant question is not “whether the records themselves are admissible at trial, but rather … whether disclosing that material to the seeking party would reveal or lead to admissible evidence.” Fields v. State, 432 Md. 650, 668 (2013).
The independent legal review concludes:
Simply put, because the SAO knows that MONSE may be in possession of exculpatory
and impeachment information that may be imputed to the State, the SAO has an obligation to gather the exculpatory and impeachment information and to timely disclose same to the defense. If the SAO is not confident that it is complying with its disclosure obligations, it should, in the interest of protecting the integrity of its prosecutions and defendants’ Constitutional rights, end its formal partnership with MONSE.