Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh is retiring after 2 terms

As he wraps up his decadeslong profession in public service, Maryland Lawyer Common Brian Frosh shouldn’t be coasting into retirement.

Over the past six months of his tenure, Frosh has been navigating two high-profile circumstances.

His workplace has been responding to the abrupt freeing of Adnan Syed, whose case obtained worldwide consideration in 2014 with the discharge of the podcast “Serial.” That’s along with finalizing and pushing for the release of a 456-page grand jury report about the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which recognized 158 clergymen — lots of them beforehand recognized — accused of sexual abuse and “bodily torture” of greater than 600 folks over the last 80 years.

“Individuals say, ‘So, are you winding down?’ And the reply is, ‘No,’” Frosh mentioned in a current interview at his workplace inside St. Paul Plaza in Baltimore. “We now have a pipeline. And the pipeline is full, and it retains coming at me.”

Frosh, 76, of Chevy Chase, is retiring on Jan. 3 after spending the final eight years as Maryland’s forty sixth lawyer basic, the state’s chief authorized officer. His legacy is evident: he used the expanded powers of the workplace to problem the Trump administration in court docket, pushed for prison justice reforms, and centered on shopper safety. However he additionally drew criticism — together with for his positions on gun management — and it’s unclear whether or not these insurance policies will face up to ongoing litigation.

“Brian is a unprecedented public official,” mentioned John Willis, who served as Maryland secretary of state from 1995-2003 and has acted as senior counsel to Frosh since 2015.

“I’ve labored with just about all people within the final 50 years or noticed them or interacted with them in some style,” he added. “And Brian is the quintessential public servant.”

Frosh was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Montgomery County, his household finally settling in Bethesda.

His late father, Stanley, a World Conflict II veteran and son of Polish-Jewish immigrants, impressed a way of social justice. He represented a bookbinder at the Government Printing Office known as to testify earlier than U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Senate Everlasting Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 on accusations of being a communist.

Roy Cohn, McCarthy’s chief counsel who would later function Donald Trump’s mentor and lawyer, warned Frosh’s father towards persevering with to supply illustration. However he didn’t again down, and later served on the Montgomery County Council from 1958-1962 in addition to the bench as a choose from 1975-1989.

After regulation faculty, Frosh took a job as a legislative liaison to Rita Davidson, secretary of the Maryland Division of Employment and Social Providers. He left in 1972 to work as a legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. Harrison “Pete” Williams Jr., D-New Jersey, and went into non-public follow in 1976 at what was then known as Kass, Skalet & Frosh.

In 1979, Frosh moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to work on antitrust litigation.

Frosh, a Democrat, mentioned he’d thought that it could be thrilling to run for workplace. However he mentioned he’s extra reserved and felt uncomfortable asking for marketing campaign contributions and consorting with lobbyists.

When Republicans regained management of the U.S. Senate for the primary time in 28 years and Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, Frosh mentioned, “My head was exploding.” He determined to run for Maryland State Senate.

“I used to be making an attempt to resolve what I needed to be once I grew up,” Frosh mentioned. “And I’m considering to myself, ‘Ronald Reagan? I can do higher than this.’”

On the marketing campaign path, Frosh recalled going to a house on Morgan Drive in Chevy Chase.

“I stood on the sidewalk actually for about 10 minutes screwing up my braveness to go knock on the door. And I lastly knocked on the door,” he mentioned. “No one was residence. I used to be so relieved. I couldn’t consider it.”

However Frosh mentioned he developed from that particular person and have become possessed. He gained the Democratic main however misplaced on Election Day to the Republican incumbent, state Sen. Howard Denis, by 596 votes.

Frosh mentioned he hoped that he’d at some point have one other alternative.

The chance got here in 1986. Frosh efficiently ran for the Maryland Home of Delegates, the place he’d serve till 1995.

He developed a fame within the legislature as a number one proponent of gun management measures and environmental safety. That’s along with being an clever, variety and soft-spoken lawmaker.

“It’s actual. It’s not political,” mentioned Will Baker, the retired president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, who led the nonprofit group from 1981-2021. “It’s in his coronary heart. It’s in his intestine.”

Frosh helped block an effort to overturn an opinion from the Maryland Court docket of Appeals, then the title of the state’s highest court docket, which dominated in 1985 that individuals may sue gun producers over accidents from small, low-cost handguns generally known as “Saturday evening specials.” He was a part of the push to ban these weapons outright in 1988.

When Helen Bentley ran for governor of Maryland, she chosen Denis to be her selection for lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket. So Frosh ran and gained election to the Maryland State Senate in 1994.

He served as chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee from 2003-2015 and performed a key function in efforts to legalize same-sex marriage, abolish the dying penalty and move complete gun management measures following the 2012 mass capturing at Sandy Hook Elementary College in Newtown, Connecticut.

Frosh cared in regards to the particulars of public coverage and was “doing issues for the precise causes, even while you vehemently disagreed with him,” mentioned former state Sen. Bobby Zirkin, D-Baltimore County, who took over as chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee in 2015 and is now a lobbyist.

Zirkin remembered how the pair engaged in a dayslong, esoteric debate over Frosh’s invoice aimed toward defending folks from strategic lawsuits towards public participation, or SLAPP, that are designed to silence criticism via use of the authorized system.

“We have been simply having this big authorized combat,” Zirkin mentioned. “And on the finish of it, we simply type of gave one another a hug.”

Although Frosh mentioned he loved serving as a senator, he determined to run for lawyer basic in 2014.

Rachel Levine, Frosh’s marketing campaign supervisor in 2014, recalled assembly him at a Caribou Espresso in downtown Bethesda to debate his run. He promised to be the “folks’s lawyer.”

Levine mentioned she requested Frosh why he was working as a result of he’d achieved a lot as a legislator. He replied, “As a result of there’s a lot extra that may be performed.”

“I do know it sounds nearly naïve,” she mentioned, “however that sounded cool to listen to.”

Within the Democratic main, Frosh prevailed over two challengers, Del. Jon Cardin, D-Baltimore County, and Aisha Braveboy, who’s now Prince George’s County state’s lawyer. He then gained the overall election, incomes 55.8% of the vote.

When Trump took workplace in 2017, he issued an govt order that, partly, banned journey for 90 days from seven predominantly Muslim nations, which critics known as the “Muslim ban.”

Frosh mentioned he wrote to Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, asking for permission to sue — however didn’t hear again.

Subsequent, Frosh mentioned, he went to lawmakers, who shortly handed the Maryland Defense Act, which permits the lawyer basic to sue to guard the state towards dangerous actions from the federal authorities. When Trump issued a second, revised govt order, Maryland joined a lawsuit from Washington state.

Frosh estimated that he used that energy about 100 instances in the course of the Trump presidency.

“Brian was the lawyer basic of Maryland throughout a time after we had a mentally-ill, narcissistic president who was being aided by Congress for a lot of that point,” mentioned Doug Gansler, who served as Maryland lawyer basic from 2007-2015.

“All kind of different branches of presidency abdicated their accountability,” he added. “And Brian Frosh and likeminded Democratic attorneys basic actually grew to become the firewall to guard us.”

Maybe essentially the most notable case was the lawsuit that Frosh and D.C. Lawyer Common Karl Racine introduced alleging that Trump’s enterprise entanglements violated the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses of the Constitution.

Now, Frosh mentioned, it sounds nearly quaint to state that Trump had been violating the “nation’s first anti-corruption regulation.”

“It was for an vital precept,” Frosh mentioned. “I imply, there’s not one other president who violated the emoluments clauses brazenly — or to the extent that Trump did.”

The U.S. Supreme Court docket ended the lawsuit, holding that the case was moot after Trump left workplace.

The case, although, confirmed the best way for different attorneys basic and helped elevate the difficulty on the nationwide stage, mentioned U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, a fellow Democrat from Montgomery County and a member of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Earlier in his tenure, Frosh issued an opinion by which he wrote that the state’s money bail system underneath which individuals who couldn’t afford to pay have been incarcerated was likely unconstitutional. The Maryland Court docket of Appeals’ guidelines committee voted 7-0 in 2017 to overhaul the process.

His workplace sponsored laws in 2020 to finish the state’s follow of suspending people’s driver’s licenses for failing to pay fines and fees. Greater than 130,000 Marylanders have been in a position to get them again when that measure took impact, Frosh mentioned.

The Maryland Common Meeting in 2021 once more expanded the ability of the lawyer basic’s workplace and created the Independent Investigations Division, which is chargeable for inspecting “all alleged or potential police-involved deaths of civilians.”

The Unbiased Investigation Division took on 23 cases from Oct. 1, 2021, via Sept. 30. State’s attorneys did not file charges.

Frosh’s workplace introduced a lot of lawsuits aimed toward defending shoppers, suing Volkswagen over the diesel emission scandal; Entry Funding on allegations that it misled people who’d received structured settlements for lead paint poisoning; and Westminster Administration LLC, an organization that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, co-owns, over accusations that it charged tenants illegal fees and failed to maintain properties.

Earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, mentioned he and Frosh held a sequence of boards about shopper safety throughout the state. “He noticed the function as having an vital schooling operate, in addition to a regulation enforcement operate,” Van Hollen mentioned.

The boards have been like “a touring roadshow,” mentioned Yvette Lewis, chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, who labored for Van Hollen as a senior adviser from 2016-2019.

Lewis mentioned she adopted Frosh’s recommendation and froze her credit score so scammers couldn’t open new accounts in her title.

Later, Lewis mentioned, a gross sales affiliate satisfied her to use for a bank card to get a reduction on a purchase order. Her software was denied; she panicked.

“I dawned on me, ‘Yvette, you froze your credit score,’” mentioned Lewis, who added that she then felt a way of consolation that Frosh’s recommendation labored. “I couldn’t even do something. And it was me making an attempt to do it.”

In addition to being a famous fan of the Grateful Useless, Frosh enjoys operas equivalent to “The Marriage of Figaro” and “The Barber of Seville.” He mentioned he likes American soprano Beverly Sills and Swedish tenor Jussi Björling.

He makes use of his bicycle for brief journeys, equivalent to errands and physician appointments.

Vincent DeMarco, president of Maryland Health Care for All and a longtime advocate for public well being causes, mentioned he and his spouse, Molly Mitchell, took a photograph with Frosh on a motorcycle trip on the Northern Central Railroad Path in the course of the 2014 marketing campaign.

DeMarco mentioned Frosh informed him that he was going to put up the image. However Frosh later reversed himself after his marketing campaign crew famous that he was carrying bike shorts. “His aides felt that he would’ve misplaced the election if this image was posted,” DeMarco mentioned.

Individuals described Frosh as the identical particular person in public as he’s in non-public — although he’s recognized to sometimes use a well-placed curse phrase.

The present chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, state Sen. William C. Smith Jr., D-Montgomery County, mentioned he and Frosh take periodic hikes at Rock Creek Park that may last as long as 1 1/2 hours.

Frosh, he mentioned, is accessible for recommendation. They usually speak and textual content.

“He’s a mannequin public servant and somebody I’d hope to emulate in my service,” Smith mentioned. “And the state is healthier off for him having been in workplace. We owe him an ideal debt of gratitude.”

Not everybody, although, has agreed with Frosh on coverage.

Mark Pennak, president of Maryland Shall Issue, a corporation that seeks to protect and advance the rights of gun house owners, mentioned the group has had its “fair proportion of crossing swords with the lawyer basic.”

The assistant attorneys basic, he famous, have been “totally skilled.”

Pennak mentioned Marshall Shall Subject has advocated towards Frosh’s coverage positions and believes that they’re about to largely be undone following the Supreme Court docket’s current opinion holding that New York’s regulation on hid carry permits was unconstitutional.

The Firearm Safety Act of 2013 — the regulation that, partly, bans sure semiautomatic weapons and requires folks to acquire a allow to purchase a handgun in Maryland — continues to be being litigated and attacked on completely different fronts within the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Pennak mentioned.

“I feel his legacy will probably be lower than absolutely realized,” Pennak mentioned. “I feel, finally, his gun management agenda goes to fail.”

In the meantime, Frosh’s workplace has persistently fought to uphold the conviction of Syed, now 41, who was discovered responsible in 2000 in Baltimore Circuit Court docket of first-degree homicide, kidnapping, theft and false imprisonment within the killing of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend and classmate at Woodlawn Excessive College.

That’s a lot to the ire of Syed’s supporters. Syed has at all times maintained his innocence.

The Baltimore State’s Lawyer’s Workplace filed a movement this 12 months to throw out Syed’s conviction after reporting that an nearly one-year investigation uncovered that prosecutors didn’t flip over exculpatory proof and developed details about two doable various suspects.

However Frosh disputed that his office withheld evidence and added that movement had “critical issues.” State’s Lawyer Marilyn Mosby fired again, accusing Frosh of willfully sitting on that info and denying Syed the precise to a good trial.

Mosby later dropped the charges against Syed.

The Maryland Workplace of the Lawyer Common has sided in the course of the litigation with Steve Kelly, an lawyer representing Younger Lee, Hae Min Lee’s brother, who asserts that his client was neither provided adequate notice nor a meaningful opportunity to participate in the court proceedings.

Kelly is asking the Appellate Court docket of Maryland to order a new hearing.

When Frosh ran for lawyer basic, he determined it was the final elected workplace that he’d search.

Associates, he mentioned, pushed him to run for governor. However Frosh he mentioned there’s “a bunch of ceremonial stuff” that comes with the job, which doesn’t “gentle him up.”

Frosh mentioned he loves serving as lawyer basic. He incessantly enhances his employees, joking that it’s his job to take credit score for his or her nice work. However after 36 years in public workplace, Frosh mentioned, it appeared like an affordable time to stop.

“If I wasn’t going to stop at age 76, when am I going to stop?” Frosh mentioned. “If I’m going to do the rest in my life, that is the one alternative, I feel.”

“It appeared applicable to me to let any individual youthful have a shot at it,” he added.

His successor, U.S. Rep. Anthony Brown, D-Maryland, famous that some joke that the National Association of Attorneys General, or NAAG, alternatively stands for the Nationwide Affiliation of Aspiring Governors.

Brown mentioned there’s nothing incorrect with looking for greater political workplace. Frosh, although, felt that the function of lawyer basic was vital — and never a steppingstone in his profession.

“Brian ran for the precise causes. And he served for the precise motive,” mentioned Brown, who added that he has “huge footwear to fill.”

Frosh mentioned he’s not planning to sit down on the seaside or do the crossword puzzle all day. He’s excited by doing work in areas together with local weather, poverty, democracy and gun violence. He mentioned he didn’t really feel that it was applicable to seek for a job whereas serving as lawyer basic.

“However,” he mentioned, “I hope I can contribute one thing exterior the workplace.”

dylan.segelbaum@thebaltimorebanner.com