BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s courts are already busy. But if President Donald Trump deploys the National Guard in the city to address crime, as he has said he might, a surge of arrests could overwhelm the courts, Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue said.

Pointing to a barrage of cases during the federal deployment in Washington, D.C., as well as the influx of low-level cases during Baltimore’s 2015 uprising, Dartigue has been warning state and federal leaders about the city getting another torrent of misdemeanor cases.

Without more attorneys, a wave of arrests could hamstring her office’s ability to adequately represent defendants who can’t afford their own private lawyer. She called for “immediate congressional intervention” to restore and increase federal funding streams to recruit attorneys.

The public defender’s office initially represents arrestees at their first appearance before a judge — usually the next business day after their arrest. The attorneys get that list of clients at 8 a.m., and only have about two hours to conduct interviews and corroborate information before they’re in front of a judge.

“Imagine if you even double that, the stress that you would have in terms of the staff being able to advocate for the release of those individuals,” Dartigue said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. With any substantial increase of low-level cases, “we would essentially have to pull [attorneys] from other places, or overburden those who are assigned to represent those individuals,” she said.

The state public defender’s office handled over 85,000 cases in district court in fiscal 2024 — about 348 cases per attorney from the bail review stage. That is already more than three times the maximum amount of misdemeanor cases that an American Bar Association report says public defenders should handle per year to provide constitutionally adequate representation.

In an early September letter to members of Maryland’s federal delegation, Dartigue warned about the potential impacts of a National Guard deployment. She highlighted what Washington’s federal public defender A.J. Kramer described as a “real mess” caused by the deluge of cases after the National Guard’s arrival last month, which doubled the number of new criminal defendants in D.C’s Superior Court per day.

White House says Baltimore ‘should welcome’ troops

Trump sent federal troops into the nation’s capital last month to assist an influx of federal law enforcement and immigration officers dispersed in an effort to combat crime. He has since said he might deploy troops in a similar manner to Baltimore — describing the city as “a hellhole” and “a horrible, horrible deathbed” last month — as well as Chicago and other Democratic-leaning cities, most recently announcing plans to send the Guard into Memphis.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said that the “surge of federal law enforcement in our nation’s capital was a tremendous success for all of Washington, D.C.’s residents and visitors,” adding that the sweep removed drugs, “murderers, rapist[s], and gang members… from the streets” and rescued missing children.

“President Trump quickly transformed our nation’s capital from a crime-ridden disaster to a clean, safe city, and Baltimore should welcome the President’s generous offer to fix their out-of-control crime crisis,” she said.

Baltimore has seen sizeable decreases in homicides, nonfatal shootings and other categories of crime in recent years.

Dartigue noted the city’s recent strides on crime, calling the National Guard’s involvement an unnecessary “encroachment.”

“This National Guard encroachment in Baltimore City is not only not the solution,” Dartigue said. “As leaders, it’s also important that we say, ‘Okay, if the National Guard does come in, how are we going to continue to protect the vulnerable members of the city?'”

Surge would depend on how police, prosecutors handle it

Baltimore residents interviewed by The Sun were divided on the issue of deploying troops to combat crime. The law on using National Guard troops for law enforcement in states is murky, and the impact on state-level courts would ultimately depend on the extent to which the Baltimore Police Department and Baltimore City State’s Attorney Ivan Bates are involved, Dartigue said.

Through a spokesperson, Bates, a Democrat, declined to be interviewed on the subject. Police Commissioner Richard Worley told WBAL NewsRadio’s T.J. Smith earlier this month that “we have a plan in place” to work with the National Guard in case of a deployment.

“We’ll be guided by the city law department as to what we can and what we can’t do,” Worley said. A police spokesperson said Wednesday that the department “will not elaborate further at this time.”

U.S. Rep. Johnny Olszewski, a Democrat, said in a statement to The Sun that the issues brought by Dartigue are “among the many reasons” he strongly opposes “any deployment of troops to our city for the purpose of conducting domestic law enforcement.”

“In addition to likely being illegal, it is unhelpful and directly at odds with the dramatic improvement we have seen in Baltimore when it comes to crime,” he said.

Unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act, the National Guard is generally not allowed to engage in law enforcement activities, said Robert Knowles, a law professor at the University of Baltimore.

“The way that it’s traditionally done, is they arrange so that the National Guard troops are supporting: providing supplies, advice, surveillance,” but local police do the arrests and searches, he said. “A ton of it” also depends on city prosecutors and “if they’re going to move ahead” with charges, he said.

A federal judge in California ruled on Sept. 2 that the president “willfully” broke the law when he mobilized National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles in June in response to immigration protests. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bars the president from using the military for civilian law enforcement under most circumstances. The president and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth seem intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote in his 52-page ruling.

Troops came to Baltimore during 2015 uprising

The most recent troop deployment in Baltimore for law enforcement purposes came to quell the uprising that followed Freddie Gray’s death in police custody a decade ago. That led to a surge of arrests and overwhelmed courtrooms due to a flood of misdemeanor charges — curfew violations, loitering charges, failure to obey law enforcement and resisting arrest, Dartigue said.

“You saw an increase in the number of them, but there’s also a direct reflection of marginalized communities and their interaction with law enforcement,” she said. And to manage the “overwhelming influx” of cases in 2015, the court system implemented emergency procedures — around-the-clock court sessions to process bail hearings and public defenders working in shifts over 12 hours a day during the peak arrest period, she said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, both Democrats, have both pushed back against Trump’s efforts to send troops into the city and called for an increase in federal funding to fight crime. Moore said he “will never authorize the usage of the [National Guard] for something that is performative.”

Scott, meanwhile, has said “we’re good.”

“We don’t need or want the National Guard here in Baltimore,” he said.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, concurs. “We can improve public safety without undermining Marylanders’ rights and disrupting our communities.”

The president has not given any timetable for when he would deploy National Guard troops here, if he ultimately chooses to do so.

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