Arrests on Maryland College Campuses
For someone enrolled at a college or university in Maryland, an arrest can have a huge impact and carry serious consequences. With this in mind, the following is what you need to know regarding student arrests and how an experienced Maryland student defense lawyer can help. For assistance with your case, call and schedule a consultation today.
Campus and Local Police Interaction
Campus and local police work together on arrests and often in circumstances that are usually more serious in nature, such as sexual assaults that take place on campus or large scale thefts of things such as laptops or other items that are of high dollar value. Campus police are usually the first point of contact for students that are involved in some kind of criminal act or are the victims of some kind of criminal act.
Once the campus police are notified and depending on the severity of the situation, they determine whether or not the authorities should be contacted as well. Generally speaking especially if people are residing on campus as college students, campus police will be the first point of contact and then work closely with the criminal police department in the county to determine what the appropriate next steps are and share any information that they have obtained during the course of their investigations.
Will The School Find Out If A Student Is Arrested Off Campus?
Local police typically do not report things directly to the university. It is unusual for the police department to decide to go back to the university and tell them that something happened. However, if the activity that somebody was arrested for involved other students or poses a threat to the people on campus, for example if a person was charged with a sexual offense off campus, then for the safety of the community and because law enforcement officers do work closely with the campus police, this might be information that is shared between the parties.
Many university campuses have an agreement with all of their students when they enroll about their duty to disclose which means many students, even if they are charged or are being investigated by the state or government authorities, will be required by many schools to disclose that information without any police officers ever reporting it to the appropriate authorities on the campus.
Impact Of A Student Arrest
The stakes are high when someone is arrested because they are usually facing two different sets of consequences. The first set of consequences and probably the most important set of consequences are associated with criminal prosecution. Generally speaking, if somebody is arrested they are facing some charge that is criminal in nature and possibly carries some period of incarceration. Criminal charges can snatch somebody’s liberty, and mean facing other consequences that are financial in nature or can be placed on lengthy periods of probation.
In addition to these criminal penalties, universities may have their own ramifications that a student might face, such as expulsion, suspension or some other disciplinary actions in the university and beyond. An arrest of a university student could ultimately impact their future well beyond their stay at the university. For example, when applying for professional licenses or to graduate school they might be forced to report to the subsequent program or licensing agency that they were arrested or that they suffered some kind of consequence on the university’s campus as a result of some criminal investigation which could jeopardize their future.
How An Attorney Can Help Someone Who’s Been Arrested
When somebody is arrested they are being charged with a criminal act and a defense attorney, whether or not that person is a student on campus or not, is going to help the person review the evidence, explain the charges and make sure that they understand what their rights are during the course of the trial.
During the course of any criminal investigation, witnesses need to be spoken to, records may be subpoenaed and discovery made to evaluate and see whether the investigation was conducted properly and whether there is any evidence that was potentially going to be subject to suppression or constitutional issues due to how it was collected and to make a determination of how best to handle that evidence during the course of trial.