How to Withdraw a Motion to Compel in Maryland
- 1). State the unimportance of the witness's evidence to your case or, in rarer cases, state the unwillingness of the witness to give testimony. To justify a Motion to Compel in Maryland, your lawyer will have to be able to assert to the judge both the usefulness of a witness's testimony to your case and that witness' refusal to provide that testimony. Asserting either the evidence's lack of value or the lack of willingness of the witness to give that evidence would challenge those justifications for the motion and so offer a reason to quell it.
- 2). Withhold the court record of the witness' refusal to speak from the judge. According to Maryland law, no judge can take any action against a witness for refusing to comply with a court motion to give testimony before receiving the court transcript of that refusal, and so refusing to submit the record of that inaction would prevent the judge from taking any action against said witness. This would not be exactly the same as withdrawing of the Motion to Compel, but it would spare the recipient of that motion any consequences for non-compliance.
- 3). Disqualify the witness from speaking on the ground's of being the spouse of the accused. Maryland law holds the spouse of a person accused of a crime to be "not competent" to offer testimony on confidential matters of their marriage (9-105), and it forbids courts from forcing one spouse from giving testimony against another, except for pre-existing testimony from a previous trial or in cases of child abuse, domestic assault, or a previous charge for a violent crime (9-106).
- 4). Invoke the privilege of certain professions to avoid giving evidence. Under Maryland law, psychologists, psychiatrists (9-109), psychiatric nurses (9-109.1), clergy (9-111), and, except in cases of crime, bankruptcy or hearings before The State Board of Public Accountants, accountants (9-110) are all exempt from offering evidence on their clients, patients and parishioners. Less obviously though, neither the State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene nor the Maryland Commission to Study Problems of Drug Addiction can offer testimony on a defendant, and neither can the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty, the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems (10-205).