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Motion To Supplement Brief
Motion To Supplement Brief
In the
v. No. 02328
Appellees
NOW COMES Appellant Aaron J. Walker, Esq.,1 and files this Appellant Walkers
Motion to Supplement his Appellants Brief Due to the Emergence of New Authority. He
laws, MD CODE Crim. L. 3-803 and 3-805. These statutes include a prohibition on speech
and actions that alarms or annoys another (3-803 and 3-805(b)(1)) or inflicts emotional
distress on a minor (3-805(b)(2)). Mr. Walker has argued that both laws are
3. On November 30, 2017, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down that states
stalking and cyberstalking statutes on First Amendment grounds in State v. Relerford, 2017
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Mr. Walker refers to himself throughout this filing in the third person for stylistic reasons
and in order to de-personalize this case.
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IL 121094 (2017). Mr. Walker learned about this decision on December 4, 2017, and
immediately realized that it would provide useful guidance to this court as persuasive
authority. He therefore moves that he be allowed to supplement his brief to aid this court
4. As stated in the proposed brief, the statutes in question are very similar to the
statutes challenged in the instant case. Like 3-805(b)(2), they prohibit the infliction of
emotional distress, and, further, alarm is sufficient to meet the definition of emotional
distress making it similar to 3-803 and 3-805(b)(1) in that respect. Further, both the
Illinois statutes and 3-803(b) and 3-805(d) have a section that creates an exception for
some protected expression. Based on these similarities, Mr. Walker argues in the proposed
brief that Relerford supports the contention that Marylands statutes are content-based
restrictions on speech, that must be subjected to the strict scrutiny standard. Further,
Relerford rejected some of the same arguments the State is making in this casenamely
that Marylands statutes can be saved under the true threat doctrine or as prohibiting speech
integral to criminal conduct. Finally, the overbreadth analysis was fatal in Relerford, and
is fully applicable to the instant case. The proposed brief expands on these points.
5. Mr. Walker also notes that the additional briefing is not long, clocking in at
only [n] wordsless than a typical reply brief. Mr. Walker used a white cover because
6. Mr. Walker equally believes that the State should have a chance to respond
December 29, 2018, two business days before the oral argument on January 3, 2018. Mr.
WHEREFORE, this Court should accept Mr. Walkers Proposed Supplemental Brief filed
simultaneously with this motion, and grant to the state until December 29, 2018 to file any
1. This document contains [2,786] words, excluding the parts of the document
exempted from the word count by Rule 8-503.
2. This document complies with the font, spacing, and type size requirements
stated in Rule 8-112. Specifically this document was typed in Times New Roman, 13-point
font.
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that on [July 19, 2017,] I served copies of the Appellants Brief on the State
by Alexis Rohde, Esq., Office of the Attorney General, 200 St. Paul Place, 20th Floor,
Baltimore, Maryland 21202, and Mr. and Mrs. Kimberlin at 8100 Beech Tree Road,
Bethesda, Maryland 20817.
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AARON J. WALKER, ESQ. In the
v. No. 02328
Appellees
Appellants Brief Due to the Emergence of New Authority, and any filing in opposition or
ORDERED that the Proposed Supplemental Appellants Brief filed by Mr. Walker
ORDERED that the State has until December 29, 2017, to file any responsive brief,
if they should choose to do so, that such responsive brief shall contain no more than 3,900
words, excluding the parts of the brief ordinarily excluded from that count, and that such
brief otherwise comply with the rules applicable to ordinary appellees briefs.
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Judges, Court of Special Appeals