Key Takeaways
- The Maryland appellate court ruled that merely carrying a handgun does not justify police stopping and detaining an individual.
- Following the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, carrying a handgun for self-defense is now considered presumptively lawful in Maryland.
- The court reversed Steven Hicks’s conviction, stating police needed reasonable suspicion of illegal activity to stop him.
- The decision emphasizes that exercising a constitutional right cannot automatically make someone a suspect, although visible carry remains a concern in Maryland.
- Judges indicated a need for the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify how Bruen and stop-and-frisk laws interact.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
ANNAPOLIS, MD — A Maryland appellate court has ruled that the simple fact a person is carrying a handgun is no longer enough, by itself, for police to stop and detain them.
The Appellate Court of Maryland, sitting in banc, issued the decision June 4 in Steven Hicks v. State of Maryland. The opinion, written by Judge Graeff, holds that after the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, carrying a handgun for self-defense is presumptively lawful. The court wrote that “mere possession of a concealed firearm, by itself, is not indicative of criminal activity.”
That is a sharp break from decades of Maryland practice, where seeing a gun was treated as reason enough to stop someone.
The case started in Baltimore on July 5, 2023. A detective in an unmarked car spotted the outline of a handgun printing through Steven Hicks’s shirt. When officers approached, Hicks immediately told them he had a permit, and he did. His permit was valid with no restrictions.
Officers handcuffed him anyway, pulled the gun from his waistband, and kept searching. They found a second handgun in his bag and cocaine in his pocket. Hicks later entered a conditional guilty plea and was sentenced to five years without parole.
The court reversed that conviction. The majority held that police needed reasonable suspicion that Hicks was carrying the gun illegally, not just that he had one. Because they stopped him based only on the sight of the firearm, the stop violated his Fourth Amendment rights.
The court was unanimous on a second point. Even if the stop had been valid, officers went too far. A frisk is limited to a pat-down for weapons. Here, an officer reached directly into Hicks’s bag and pocket, and the State could not justify it because the officer who conducted the search never testified.
This is the part lawful carriers should pay attention to. The principle the court protected is that exercising a constitutional right cannot, on its own, turn you into a suspect. For years, a Maryland gun owner doing everything right could still expect to be detained the moment an officer caught a glimpse of a holster. This decision says that is not how it works anymore.
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I want to be straight about the limits, though. Hicks was stopped in July 2023. Maryland’s law requiring permit holders to carry concealed did not take effect until that October. His gun was visibly printing, which under today’s law would be a violation on its own and would give an officer a reason to stop him. Several concurring judges made that point clearly, noting this case could not happen the same way now.
So this is a win on the principle, not a blanket shield. Open or visible carry is still a problem in Maryland, and police can still act on real, specific suspicion of a crime.
The court itself was split on how far to go. All the judges agreed the search was unlawful, but a group of them would have decided the case on the narrow frisk question alone and left the bigger Second Amendment issue for another day.
That tension is not going away. Several judges openly invited the U.S. Supreme Court to settle how Bruen and stop-and-frisk law fit together. I’ll be following this one as it moves up the chain.
