Former Harford County Council member Dion Guthrie (D) was dealt a blow Wednesday to his legal effort to undo his 2024 removal from office. (File photo by Bryan P. Sears/Maryland Matters).
A Harford County Council member who was removed from office after entering a nolo contedere plea to a 2024 felony charge of theft will not be restored to his office, an appellate court ruled Wednesday.
Dion Guthrie was removed from office after entering the plea on charges that he stole from a union he oversaw for 52 years. A decision issued Wednesday by the Appellate Court of Maryland denied Guthrie’s appeal to overturn his removal by Council President Patrick Vincenti.
“We are unpersuaded by Mr. Guthrie’s argument that he did not enter a nolo contendere plea,” the court wrote in a 20-page opinion. “Neither our plain reading of the Baltimore County plea hearing transcript nor the record support his contention that [Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Dennis] Robinson ‘expressly rejected the plea.'”
In 2012, the Maryland General Assembly passed an amendment — approved later that year by voters — adding a provision to the law governing the removal of state and local officials.
That provision automatically removes any elected official who enters a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to any felony charge or misdemeanor crimes related to the official’s public duties and responsibilities.
Guthrie, who is represented by former Attorney General Doug Gansler, asked the court to overturn his removal. He argued that his nolo contendere plea was effectively stricken when Judge Robinson sentenced him to probation before judgment. Because of that sentence, Gansler argued the constitutional penalty did not apply to Guthrie, making his removal “illegal.”
Lawyers representing Vincenti and the council argued, successfully, that the law is triggered by the plea not by any sentence that follows.
— This story will be updated.
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Originally published at Marylandmatters.Org