In Maryland, anyone can press criminal charges against another person (without any involvement of police) simply by going down to the courthouse and filing a written complaint with a judicial official called a "Commissioner".
Once the person files the complaint and swears that it's true, the Commissioner reads it and decides what (if any) crimes to charge. If the Commissioner files criminal charges, he/she also gets to decide weather to issue a court summons or an arrest warrant. If the person is arrested, another Commissioner will decide what their bond (if any) should be.
These commissioners are not lawyers and often have little education and low caliber. However they have a lot of power to disrupt anyone's life with false charges and arrests and pre-trial detention.
If someone is falsely charged/arrested based on incompetence or malice of a commissioner, then what recourse do they have? Is suing for tort likely to succeed? Will the State of Maryland provide a defense lawyer for the commissioner? Any advice on this topic -- even if only tangentially related -- would be appreciated.
