St. Mary's Cnty. Cir. Ct. Criminal DCM Plan 1

The policies outlined herein are developed to eliminate the need for

requests to postpone court events and to adhere to case time standards.

Requests for postponements must be in writing and, regardless of the

type of hearing, be made in the form of a Motion, prior to the hearing sought to

be postponed. The motion must include specific reasons for the request, the

opposing party’s position on the postponement (if possible), a proposed order,

and proposed new hearing/trial dates that have been cleared through the

Assignment Office. The Court will grant postponements only for good cause

shown, and will evaluate, on a case-by-case basis, whether or not sufficient

cause justifies a postponement. As a guide for practitioners, the Court does

not generally consider the following reasons as sufficient cause to grant a

postponement:

a. Counsel or the parties agree to a postponement, without

providing a specific need for same;

b. The case has not previously been postponed;

c. Counsel or the parties have not completed discovery;

d. New counsel has entered an appearance or a party wants to

retain new counsel;

e. Unavailability of a witness who has not been subpoenaed; or

f. A party or counsel is unprepared to try the case for reasons,

including but not limited to, the party’s failure to maintain necessary

contact with counsel.

Generally, the Court will consider the following as good cause to grant a

postponement:

a. Sudden medical emergency or death of a party, counsel, or

material witness who has been subpoenaed;

b. Facts or circumstances arising or becoming apparent too late in

the proceedings to be fully corrected and which, in the view of the court,

would likely cause undue hardship or possibly miscarriage of justice if

the trial were required to proceed as scheduled; such circumstances

must not have been discoverable previously.

Should a conflict in assignment dates arise once counsel agrees to

scheduled hearing dates, counsel shall make every effort to obtain the presence

of another attorney to act in the case before requesting a postponement, which

may not be granted.