Quick answer: The District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County sits in two places — Annapolis and Glen Burnie — and a Glen Burnie DUI is heard in Glen Burnie, not at the county seat. Venue follows where the officer stopped you, not where you live, so a stop on Ritchie Highway, I-97, MD 10 or the roads feeding BWI lands on the northern docket. The location printed on your citation controls. And there is nothing to mail in: Md. Code, Transp. § 21-902 is a must-appear charge carrying 12 points.
I’m David Waranch, and I’ve handled thousands of Maryland traffic and DUI cases — including in both Anne Arundel County courthouses, which do not run the same way.
Standing in the wrong Anne Arundel courthouse is treated exactly like not showing up. Annapolis and Glen Burnie are two locations of one court, and people who assume “Anne Arundel County” means Annapolis get called in a courtroom twenty miles from the hallway they are sitting in. That is a failure to appear: a bench warrant out of Glen Burnie plus notice to the MVA, which suspends the driving privilege — a warrant and a suspension layered on a DUI you had not yet lost. Read the location line on the summons, and call the clerk before the date rather than guessing.
Glen Burnie or Annapolis: Read the Citation, Not the Map
Anne Arundel is one of the counties where the District Court is split across two buildings, and Glen Burnie is the northern one. Northern county stops feed it: MD 2 — Ritchie Highway — through the middle of town, MD 648 running parallel, MD 10, MD 100, the I-97 corridor that begins here at the Baltimore Beltway, MD 3 Crain Highway where it starts at the Ritchie Highway junction, and the approach roads to BWI Marshall.
If you were stopped in south county — Annapolis, Parole, Edgewater, Crofton, Davidsonville — that is the other courthouse, and the Annapolis DUI page covers it. For how the county docket works as a whole and the rest of Anne Arundel’s towns, start with Anne Arundel County DUI defense.
A Mile North and You Are in Someone Else’s Jurisdiction
Glen Burnie sits close to three jurisdictional boundaries and drivers cross them without noticing. North on Ritchie Highway you stay in Anne Arundel through Brooklyn Park until, abruptly, you are in Baltimore City. Northwest across the Patapsco is Baltimore County; west past the airport is Howard. Nothing about your driving changes at those lines. Everything about the case does — a different District Court, a different elected State’s Attorney, a different police agency behind the file.
| Where the stop happened | Court that hears the criminal case | Who prosecutes |
|---|---|---|
| Glen Burnie, Brooklyn Park, Pasadena, Severna Park, Millersville, Linthicum, the BWI area | District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County — Glen Burnie | Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney |
| Annapolis, Parole, Edgewater, Crofton, Davidsonville and south county | Same court — Annapolis location | Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney |
| Brooklyn or Curtis Bay, north of the city line | District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City | Baltimore City State’s Attorney |
| Across the Patapsco — Halethorpe, Lansdowne, Arbutus | District Court for Baltimore County — Catonsville | Baltimore County State’s Attorney |
| West of BWI toward Elkridge | District Court for Howard County | Howard County State’s Attorney |
Cross the city line and it is a Baltimore City DUI; over the river, Baltimore County; west, Howard County. When a report is vague about the mile marker, the jurisdiction the State picked is worth checking rather than accepting.
Glen Burnie Has No Police Department of Its Own
Glen Burnie is unincorporated — the county’s largest population center, with no municipal government and no city police force. That makes it the opposite of Annapolis, where a city department writes a large share of the DUI charges. Here the stop comes from Anne Arundel County Police, a Maryland State Police trooper on the interstate system, or MDTA Police on airport property and the toll crossings.
They all charge into the same courthouse and the same prosecutor’s office, but they do not build the same file, and what video exists varies by agency. The stop and the tests are where a Glen Burnie case is usually won: whether there was a lawful reason to pull you over, and whether the field sobriety tests were administered to standard. Out of a sobriety checkpoint, the analysis differs again — the State defends the checkpoint plan, not one officer’s observations.
Driving Again Within 12 Hours Is Its Own Crime
Here is the trap nobody is warned about. Your car was towed off Ritchie Highway or left on the shoulder of I-97, you are released a few hours later, and going back for it feels like housekeeping. It is a separate charge.
“An arrestee may not drive a motor vehicle within 12 hours after the arrestee’s arrest for a violation of § 21–902 of this subtitle or Title 2, Subtitle 5 or § 3–211 of the Criminal Law Article.” — Md. Code, Transp. § 21-902.1(b)
A conviction under § 21-902.1 carries up to 2 months and a $500 fine, it is must-appear, and § 16-402(a)(29) assesses 8 points for it — the same as a DWI. Under § 16-404(a)(3)(i) the MVA suspends at 8 points in a two-year window, so this one offense reaches the suspension threshold by itself, before anything happens on the DUI. Get a ride. The impound fee is cheaper than the charge.
The Numbers on the Charge Itself
| Charge | Maximum jail, first offense | Maximum fine, first offense | Points | Payable? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| § 21-902(a)(1) — DUI, or DUI per se at 0.08 or more | 1 year | $1,200 | 12 | Must appear |
| § 21-902(b)(1) — DWI, impaired by alcohol | 2 months | $500 | 8 | Must appear |
| § 21-902.1 — driving within 12 hours of the arrest | 2 months | $500 | 8 | Must appear |
Twelve points is the revocation threshold under § 16-404, so a DUI conviction alone reaches it. I will not re-explain the offense here: the two charges are compared at DUI vs DWI in Maryland, sentencing at Maryland DUI penalties and first-offense penalties, the breath number at blood alcohol concentration, staying non-convicted at probation before judgment, priors at second and subsequent offenses, and commercial licenses at DUI and CDLs.
The MVA Is Headquartered Here — Your License Case Still Is Not the Court Case
A Glen Burnie irony worth knowing: the agency deciding what happens to your license is headquartered on Ritchie Highway, minutes from where you were probably stopped. Proximity buys you nothing. The administrative case under Md. Code, Transp. § 16-205.1 is a separate proceeding, decided by an administrative law judge rather than the District Court, on a deadline that runs while you wait for a court date.
The number that matters is 10 days, not the 45 printed on the paper temporary license — see the temporary license page. Whether a work or school license is available at all depends on your test result, and for a refusal or 0.15 or higher it is interlock or nothing: license restrictions after a DUI. I handle MVA hearings in Glen Burnie; the mechanics are at the per se hearing.
Charges That Arrive With a Glen Burnie DUI
A DUI arrest rarely comes alone, and the extra counts often outlast the DUI. If your license was already suspended or revoked, that is the more dangerous charge. Officers routinely add no insurance, no license, reckless driving or speeding to the same stack, and a collision brings leaving the scene into it. Commercial drivers face CDL consequences no District Court plea can undo, and what happens at your trial date decides whether expungement stays possible.
I take these together, not one at a time — non-traffic counts under Maryland criminal defense, the rest of the citation under Maryland traffic violations, and the wider county practice at Anne Arundel traffic defense and county MVA hearings.
Common Questions
Probably not. The District Court of Maryland for Anne Arundel County has two locations, Annapolis and Glen Burnie, and venue follows where the traffic stop happened rather than where you live. A stop in the northern part of the county, including Ritchie Highway, I-97, MD 10, MD 100 and the roads around BWI, normally goes on the Glen Burnie docket. The location is printed on your citation and on the summons the court mails you, so read that rather than assuming the county seat. Going to the wrong location is treated as a failure to appear and can produce a bench warrant.
Yes, substantially. Northern Anne Arundel County runs right up against Baltimore City at Brooklyn and Curtis Bay, and a stop on the far side of that line is not an Anne Arundel case at all. It is heard in the District Court of Maryland for Baltimore City and prosecuted by the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, who is a separately elected official with different charging and plea practices. Cross the Patapsco instead and you are in Baltimore County, heard at Catonsville. The mile marker or cross street in the police report is worth checking rather than accepting.
No, not for 12 hours. Md. Code, Transp. 21-902.1 makes it a separate offense for someone arrested for drunk or drugged driving to drive a motor vehicle within 12 hours after the arrest. It carries up to 2 months in jail and a $500 fine, it is a must-appear charge, and Transp. 16-402(a)(29) assesses 8 points for it, which is the same point total as a DWI and enough on its own to trigger an MVA suspension under Transp. 16-404. Arrange a ride or leave the car where it is. The towing and storage bill is far cheaper than a second charge on the same night.
Law Offices of David R. Waranch — 301-563-9575 · toll-free 1-877-566-2408. Hablamos Español.
Last updated: August 2026. Statutory references: Md. Code, Transp. §§ 16-205.1, 16-402, 16-404, 21-902, 21-902.1. This page is general information about Maryland law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.